Missouri’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the Legislature did not violate the state’s Constitution when it drew new congressional maps last year favoring Republicans, delivering a major blow to Democrats’ hopes of blocking the new map ahead of the midterms.
In a 4-3 decision, the court ruled that a clause in the state Constitution directing Missouri lawmakers to draw new maps after each census does not impose restrictions on the Legislature from taking up redistricting in the middle of the decade.
“The obligation to legislate congressional districts once a decade does not limit the General Assembly’s power to redistrict more frequently than once a decade,” Judge Zel Fischer wrote in the majority opinion.
The decision came after Missouri Republicans jumped into the nationwide redistricting battle triggered by President Donald Trump’s push for states with Republican-controlled legislatures to create new GOP-leaning seats. Missouri’s new map — which would net the GOP one additional seat by breaking up Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City-based seat — faced little resistance in the Legislature and was quickly approved by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe.
It has since been the subject of several lawsuits and a well-funded campaign to force the map to a ballot referendum, as Democrats raced to respond with gerrymandering of their own in states they control.
The four judges siding with the majority were appointed by Republican governors, while a fifth Republican-appointed judge sided in dissent with the two judges on the court appointed by Democratic governors.
The question around the limits the state’s Constitution imposed on the Legislature centered on the implied meaning of the word “when,” which Judge Paul Wilson said in his dissenting opinion was “the most important word” of the relevant clause. The state’s Constitution directs the legislature to draw new congressional districts “when … the census of 1950 and each census thereafter is certified to the governor.”
“Simply put, ‘when’ does not mean ‘only when,’” Fischer wrote for the majority.
The ruling delivers a significant victory for Republicans as they seek to overcome a well-organized effort from Democrats to reverse the new congressional map. But the fate of Missouri’s new map still hangs in the balance as Democrats continue to pursue multiple avenues to repeal the new map.
The Democratic-aligned National Redistricting Foundation is asking the state’s Supreme Court to take up the question of whether the new map violates the state Constitution’s district compactness requirement in a separate lawsuit.
And a group of Missouri Democrats are seeking to freeze the map by forcing it to a referendum, which has been the subject of several legal challenges. A freeze could effectively keep the map used in 2024 in place, preserving that deep-blue Democratic seat.
Democrats in Missouri have scored some small victories in their referendum push. On Monday, People Not Politicians, the group advocating for a referendum, announced the secretary of State’s office validated the number of petition signatures needed to force a referendum. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, has not yet determined whether the map will reach the ballot, and has until late July to decide.
In another win for Democrats, a state court on Friday ordered Hoskins to rewrite the ballot summary of a potential referendum to remove multiple instances of argumentative language.
Democrats appealed to the state Supreme Court on Monday asking for another rewrite of the ballot summary.
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