Supreme Court Rejects Missouri GOP Map as Secretary of State Faces Contempt Hearing

The US Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s request to use a Republican-drawn congressional map in Missouri’s midterm elections. According to Al Jazeera, the court’s order recorded no dissent, clearing the way for the state to continue using its old map in November’s elections, which could determine control of the House of Representatives.

The dispute over which map carries legal force, however, is far from settled. Earlier on the same day as the Supreme Court ruling, a federal district court allowed Missouri’s highest court to proceed with a contempt hearing against Republican Secretary of State Danny Hoskins. The state Supreme Court had previously ordered Hoskins not to use the new map backed by Trump in the general election, but to use the district lines adopted after the last census. On Tuesday, Stephen Clark, a federal district judge appointed by Trump, ordered Hoskins to use only the new map, directly conflicting with the state Supreme Court. The state court then ordered Hoskins to appear at a contempt hearing over his instruction to local election officials to use the new districts. State lawyers representing Hoskins had asked Clark to halt the hearing, but he refused.

Behind the legal battle is a carefully engineered redistricting effort by Missouri Republicans. The revised plan explicitly targeted the Kansas City seat held by Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver, splitting parts of the district into neighboring districts while extending the remainder into rural Republican areas. Al Jazeera said the direct aim of the Republican redraw was to win seven of Missouri’s eight House seats, one more than before. Missouri is the second Republican-led state after Texas to redraw its districts after Trump publicly urged Republicans last year to do so for the midterm elections.

The use of procedure to entrench the new districts is equally revealing. Opponents of the redistricting collected hundreds of thousands of petition signatures demanding a statewide vote on the new map and submitted them last December. But Hoskins waited until August, the day of the state’s primary, to reject the petition on the grounds that referendum petitions could not be used for congressional redistricting. The delay allowed the new districts to be used in the August primary. Republican state officials argued that changing districts before the general election would violate voters’ federal rights.

Last week, Missouri’s Supreme Court ruled that the new map had never become law, retroactively suspending its effect to the date the opponents submitted their petition, and ordered the redistricting referendum placed on the November ballot. Hoskins complied. Missouri then appealed to the US Supreme Court, where Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected the request. Thursday’s Supreme Court order barred Hoskins from using the new map and made clear that November’s election must use the old map adopted by Republican lawmakers after the 2022 census.

But Judge Clark subsequently issued another order contradicting it. Which order from the federal and state courts ultimately prevails remains uncertain, as do the outcome of Hoskins’s contempt hearing and the path of any subsequent appeal. With the November midterms approaching, Missouri voters still do not know which map will govern their ballots.