Missouri’s embattled, Trump-backed congressional map returns to Supreme Court for a third time

David A. Lieb/AP/File

A quixotic legal battle over whether Missouri may use a GOP-friendly congressional redistricting plan for November’s election returned to the Supreme Court for the third time late Tuesday night, forcing the justices to once again review an effort the court unanimously rejected less than two weeks ago.

The emergency appeal will — once again — decide if Republicans can flip an additional House seat in the November midterm election. It’s also part of an extraordinary push by Republicans to continue to fight for the seat after the conservative high court has signaled it is uninterested in getting involved in the messy, months-old dispute over the state’s map.

A group opposed to the map filed the emergency case at the Supreme Court late Tuesday a day after a federal appeals court ruled that Missouri must use the Republican-friendly map in November, rather than a map created in 2022, because voters had already selected nominees based on the newer map in the state’s primary election.

“Ballots using the 2022 map have been printed and mailed, and absentee voting, both by mail and in-person, began today,” the group told the Supreme Court in its appeal. “Those ballots cannot be reassigned to new districts now.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles appeals arising from Missouri, requested a response in the case by Wednesday afternoon.

Missouri’s new 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. There would be seven conservative-leaning districts and one Democratic-leaning, a change from the current 6-2 split.

The whipsaw case of Missouri’s congressional map may be merely an appetizer for the banquet of election appeals that are likely to reach the justices tied to this year’s midterms.

The justices have already shut down an effort by President Donald Trump to give the US Postal Service more power to screen mail ballots. The court has also already juggled a series of other redistricting disputes this year, including in Texas, California, Louisiana, Alabama and Virginia.

University of Chicago law professor William Baude said Tuesday that it was “a hundred to one” likely that the court would reject the GOP map again. He described the case as a “taste of what’s to come.”

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the 7-1 Republican map adopted by the legislature at Trump’s behest last year could not be used because of a referendum challenge brought against it under the state constitution. State Republicans challenged that, appealing all the way up to the US Supreme Court. Kavanaugh, a conservative, declined that request, which appeared to settle the matter.

But minutes after that decision, a federal district court stepped in with a ruling in favor of the GOP map. And the case was once again appealed to the US Supreme Court, which once again sided against reviving the GOP map. In that instance, the full court reviewed the case, and no justices noted their dissent. The court also did not explain its reasoning.

The conservative 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals read the boilerplate language from the Supreme Court, and its lack of reasoning, as an invitation to rush through its own ruling. In an unsigned opinion, the court concluded that “the Constitution does not permit Missouri to use a different congressional district map in the November 2026 general election than it used in the August 2026 primary election.” And it ordered a federal trial court to once again require that the state move forward with the 7-1 map.

It is that decision that has prompted the third round of appeals.

Even though the 8th Circuit ruled in favor of the GOP, it ordered the lower court to pause the impact of that decision until Monday to give the appeals a chance to play out. That means the Supreme Court is likely to either settle the dispute before Monday, or issue a short-term extension of that deadline to give the justices more time to decide.

CNN’s Tierney Sneed contributed to this report.

David A. Lieb/美联社/档案照片

一场关于密苏里州是否可以在 11 月的选举中使用对共和党友好的国会选区重划方案的荒谬法律战，于周二深夜第三次回到最高法院，迫使大法官们再次审查不到两周前法院一致驳回的努力。

此次紧急上诉将再次决定共和党能否在11月的中期选举中再添一个众议院席位。此前，保守派最高法院已表示无意介入这场持续数月、错综复杂的州选区划分争议，而此次上诉也是共和党为继续争取该席位而采取的非同寻常的行动之一。

反对该地图的团体于周二晚些时候向最高法院提起紧急诉讼。此前一天，联邦上诉法院裁定，密苏里州必须在 11 月使用对共和党有利的地图，而不是 2022 年创建的地图，因为选民已经在该州的初选中根据新地图选出了候选人。

该组织在向最高法院提出的上诉中表示：“使用2022年选区划分图的选票已经印制并寄出，邮寄和现场投票两种方式的缺席投票都已于今天开始。这些选票现在不能重新分配到新的选区。”

负责处理来自密苏里州上诉案件的布雷特·卡瓦诺大法官要求在周三下午之前对此案作出回应。

密苏里州的新选区划分方案针对的是民主党众议员伊曼纽尔·克利弗所在的第五国会选区，该方案将克利弗在堪萨斯城的票仓分割开来，并将其延伸至该州农村地区和共和党倾向较强的地区。新方案将形成七个保守派倾向的选区和一个民主党倾向的选区，与目前6比2的选区比例有所不同。

密苏里州国会选区划分案的戏剧性变化可能只是今年中期选举相关一系列选举上诉案件的开胃菜，这些案件很可能会提交到最高法院审理。

最高法院大法官们已经驳回了唐纳德·特朗普总统赋予美国邮政局更多权力来审查邮寄选票的努力。今年，最高法院还处理了一系列其他选区重划争议案件，包括德克萨斯州、加利福尼亚州、路易斯安那州、阿拉巴马州和弗吉尼亚州的案件。

芝加哥大学法学教授威廉·鲍德周二表示，法院再次驳回共和党选区划分方案的可能性“高达百分之百”。他将此案描述为“未来趋势的预演”。

本月初，密苏里州最高法院裁定，去年在特朗普授意下由州议会通过的7比1共和党选区划分方案不能使用，因为该方案因违反州宪法而受到全民公投的挑战。州共和党人对此提出质疑，一路上诉至美国最高法院。保守派大法官卡瓦诺驳回了这一请求，此事似乎就此告一段落。

但就在该决定作出几分钟后，联邦地区法院介入，裁定共和党的选区划分方案有效。此案再次上诉至美国最高法院，而最高法院再次驳回了恢复共和党选区划分方案的请求。这一次，最高法院全体法官审理了此案，没有一位大法官表示反对。法院也没有解释其理由。

保守派的美国第八巡回上诉法院将最高法院的模板化措辞及其缺乏论证解读为一种鼓励，从而加快了自身裁决的步伐。在一份未署名的意见书中，该法院得出结论：“宪法不允许密苏里州在2026年11月的大选中使用与2026年8月初选不同的国会选区划分方案。” 该法院还命令联邦地方法院再次要求该州继续执行7比1的选区划分方案。

正是这一决定引发了第三轮上诉。

尽管第八巡回上诉法院裁定共和党胜诉，但它命令下级法院暂停执行该裁决，直至周一，以便让上诉程序有时间进行。这意味着最高法院很可能在周一之前解决这场争议，或者短期延长截止日期，以便大法官们有更多时间做出决定。

CNN的蒂尔尼·斯尼德对本报道亦有贡献。