Missouri redistricting chaos returns to US Supreme Court

A fast-moving legal battle over Missouri’s effort to eke an additional Republican seat out of its congressional map for this year’s midterm election returned to the US Supreme Court on Wednesday, a day after Justice Brett Kavanaugh had effectively rejected the same proposed map.

A group that organized opposition to the GOP-friendly congressional map filed an emergency appeal, urging the Supreme Court to step in once again and block the map from being used in this year’s midterm elections. The quick-turn appeal followed a dizzying 24 hours in the case that saw action from four different courts.

The group, People Not Politicians, warned that a federal court order backing the GOP map would cause “confusion and disruption” and subject “election officials to irreconcilable judicial commands on the eve of an election, with a federal court inserting itself to wreak havoc on the state’s elections.”

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Back-to-back conflicting court orders on Tuesday night left uncertain whether the Show Me State would likely send six or seven Republicans to the House next year. This comes as the GOP, at President Donald Trump’s behest, has engaged in an unusual mid-decade redistricting effort to retain its narrow grip on the chamber.

The latest round of legal maneuvering began late last week when the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the GOP map for the November midterm election, ruling that the state couldn’t use those new districts until voters had a chance to pass judgment on them in a referendum. Missouri officials raced up to the US Supreme Court, but Kavanaugh denied the state’s request for review in a perfunctory, one-line order Tuesday evening.

But minutes after Kavanaugh’s decision, US District Judge Stephen Clark handed down a separate temporary order in a different case that would essentially require the state to proceed under the map created last year that targets a Democratic district based in Kansas City. A federal appeals court in St. Louis declined to pause that decision, so People Not Politicians returned to the US Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The court requested that Missouri respond by Thursday morning, an especially fast turnaround.

Photo Illustration by Alberto Mier/CNN

Tracking states’ unprecedented redistricting efforts

Missouri’s new map, which was enacted last year, was used in the state’s primary election in August. But the state’s highest court ruled last week that officials in Missouri wrongly dismissed a petition with more than 300,000 signatures to let the state’s voters decide on the map via a referendum before it took effect.

The map targeted the 5th Congressional District, held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, by breaking up its Kansas City base and stretching it into rural and Republican-leaning parts of the state.

Opponents of the map had submitted their petition for a referendum late last year, but state officials waited until August 4, the last possible date, which happened to be the day of the state’s primary, to declare that the state constitution’s right for voters to weigh in on legislation doesn’t apply to redistricting measures. The state supreme court rejected that interpretation.

密苏里州试图在今年的中期选举中从国会选区划分中挤出一个额外的共和党席位，由此引发的法律战迅速升级。周三，这场法律战再次回到美国最高法院。此前一天，大法官布雷特·卡瓦诺实际上驳回了同样的选区划分方案。

一个反对共和党友好型国会选区划分方案的团体提交了一份紧急上诉，敦促最高法院再次介入，阻止该方案在今年的中期选举中使用。此前，该案在短短24小时内经历了令人眼花缭乱的进展，先后有四家不同的法院参与审理。

“人民而非政客”组织警告说，联邦法院支持共和党地图的命令将造成“混乱和扰乱”，并使“选举官员在选举前夕面临不可调和的司法命令，联邦法院将介入并破坏该州的选举”。

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特朗普政府再次向最高法院提出请求，要求允许邮寄投票规则在中期选举前生效。

周二晚间接连发布的相互矛盾的法院裁决，使得明尼苏达州明年能否向众议院输送六到七名共和党议员仍是未知数。与此同时，在唐纳德·特朗普总统的授意下，共和党发起了一项不同寻常的选区重划行动，试图保住其在众议院的微弱优势。

最新一轮法律博弈始于上周晚些时候，当时密苏里州最高法院阻止了共和党为11月中期选举制定的选区划分方案，裁定该州在选民有机会通过全民公投做出决定之前，不得使用这些新的选区划分方案。密苏里州官员随即向美国最高法院提出上诉，但卡瓦诺大法官周二晚间以一份敷衍了事的单行命令驳回了该州的复审请求。

但就在卡瓦诺做出决定几分钟后，美国地区法官斯蒂芬·克拉克在另一起案件中发布了一项临时命令，该命令实际上要求堪萨斯州按照去年制定的、以堪萨斯城为中心的民主党选区划分方案继续推进。圣路易斯的一家联邦上诉法院拒绝暂停该决定，因此“人民而非政客”组织于周三再次向美国最高法院提起上诉。

法院要求密苏里州在周四上午之前作出答复，这是一个非常快的期限。

图片由 Alberto Mier/CNN 提供

追踪各州前所未有的选区重划工作

密苏里州去年颁布的新选区划分图已在8月份的州初选中使用。但该州最高法院上周裁定，密苏里州官员错误地驳回了一份拥有超过30万个签名的请愿书，该请愿书要求在新选区划分图生效前，让该州选民通过全民公投来决定其最终归属。

该地图的目标是民主党众议员伊曼纽尔·克利弗所在的第五国会选区，通过分割其在堪萨斯城的票仓并将其扩展到该州的农村和共和党倾向地区。

反对该选区划分方案的人士于去年年底提交了全民公投请愿书，但州政府官员直到8月4日——恰逢该州初选日——才宣布州宪法赋予选民对立法进行投票的权利不适用于选区重划措施。州最高法院驳回了这一解释。