Justice Kavanaugh: Missouri Redistricting Appeal Denied, Old Map Stands

• Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied an emergency appeal from Missouri to use new congressional districts, without explanation or referring the case to the full Supreme Court.
• Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins sought intervention after the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the new, Republican-friendly map.
• The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that a citizen-initiated referendum petition effectively suspended the new districts, requiring the use of older maps for the general election.
• Missouri argued the state court's order would disenfranchise voters and cause election chaos, while opponents claimed the state's appeal was a last-minute political maneuver.
• The decision reflects the U.S. Supreme Court's general reluctance to intervene in state-level redistricting disputes, especially close to an election and after a state's highest court has ruled.

The decision by Justice Brett Kavanaugh to deny the Missouri congressional map rejected appeal without full court review underscores the U.S. Supreme Court's reluctance to intervene in state-level election map disputes via emergency appeals, particularly when a state's highest court has already ruled on the matter, and especially as an election approaches.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently rejected an emergency request from Missouri to implement new congressional districts ahead of the midterm elections. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, issued the denial without referring the application to the full court and did not provide an explanation for his decision. This action effectively means the US Supreme Court blocks Missouri map changes sought by state officials.

Missouri's Republican Secretary of State, Denny Hoskins, had petitioned the justices for intervention after the Missouri Supreme Court election map ruling blocked the state's newly drawn congressional boundaries. These maps, which had the backing of former President Donald Trump, were designed to create a 7-1 Republican advantage in the state's eight U.S. House of Representatives seats. The state's appeal to the nation's highest court came just days before a critical Tuesday deadline for making changes to the November ballot.

The dispute originated from a redistricting referendum petition Missouri citizens initiated. Opponents of the new map gathered over 300,000 signatures to put the plan to a popular vote. Secretary Hoskins initially rejected these petitions, arguing that the Missouri Constitution does not permit referendums on congressional redistricting. While a lower court initially sided with Hoskins, the Missouri Supreme Court subsequently overturned that decision, leading to the current legal challenge.

The Missouri Supreme Court's decision was pivotal, ruling that the redistricting referendum petition Missouri voters submitted effectively suspended the new districts. This suspension was deemed retroactive to last December, pending the outcome of a voter approval process. Consequently, despite the new districts being utilized in the August primary, Missouri’s top court mandated that the previous districts, established following the 2020 census, must be used for the upcoming general election.

In its emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Missouri officials contended that the state court's order would disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters. They argued that moving these voters into different districts would force them to cast ballots for candidates they had no role in selecting, thereby rendering the federal primary election "utterly pointless." The state emphasized that "last-minute judicial alterations can upend and inflict chaos on federal elections," asserting this holds true even when such orders originate from a state court.

Conversely, Richard von Glahn, an organizer of the Missouri referendum, urged the Supreme Court not to intervene, asserting that the case did not constitute a genuine emergency. Von Glahn accused the Missouri Secretary of State of deliberately delaying objections to the referendum, hoping to exhaust the court's patience for last-minute revisions. He argued that the Supreme Court should not reward what he described as the secretary's attempt to circumvent Missouri voters, state law, and the Missouri Supreme Court by granting extraordinary relief.

Missouri's appeal is part of a broader trend of states seeking emergency intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court amid nationwide redistricting disputes between Democrats and Republicans. The decision by Justice Brett Kavanaugh to deny the Missouri congressional map rejected appeal without full court review underscores the U.S. Supreme Court's reluctance to intervene in state-level election map disputes via emergency appeals, particularly when a state's highest court has already ruled on the matter, and especially as an election approaches.

This stance aligns with some previous actions by the high court in other redistricting cases. For instance, last December, the Supreme Court prevented a lower court from discarding a Republican-drawn map in Texas just before an election, despite the lower court's finding of racial gerrymandering. In February, the justices upheld California’s new maps, which favored Democrats, by rejecting an emergency request from Republicans. March saw the Supreme Court side with a Republican map in New York, while in May, it allowed a lower court to invalidate a Democrat-friendly map in Virginia.

These varied outcomes highlight the complex and often unpredictable nature of federal intervention in state redistricting. The decision by Justice Brett Kavanaugh emergency appeal denial in the Missouri case reinforces the idea that state supreme court decisions on election maps, particularly those involving a redistricting referendum petition Missouri voters initiated, may often be considered final, limiting the scope for federal judicial oversight, even from a single justice.

This ruling underscores the U.S. Supreme Court's reluctance to intervene in state-level election map disputes via emergency appeals, particularly when a state's highest court has already ruled. Lawyers advising on election law or constitutional challenges to redistricting should note the limited scope for federal intervention, even from a single justice, especially close to an election, and the potential for state court decisions to be final.

Source: Original reporting via Associated Press and Courthouse News Service