Missouri Republicans drew themselves a friendlier congressional map, used it for the primary and then asked the Supreme Court to let them keep using it before voters had finished objecting. On Tuesday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said no. The state’s revised map, backed by Donald Trump and designed to improve Republican odds of winning another House seat, had already been blocked by the Missouri Supreme Court because a referendum petition suspended the law until voters could decide. The GOP’s response was to race to Washington for an emergency shortcut. The shortcut has now developed its own traffic jam.
Fox News and the Washington Examiner both reported that Kavanaugh denied Missouri’s emergency application without explanation. That left the state high court’s ruling in place, at least for the moment, and kept the new map from simply gliding into November because Republicans would prefer not to wait for the referendum. The legal picture then became even more absurd when a federal judge issued a separate order complicating use of the older map. Missouri is now approaching a general election with competing court orders and all the serenity of a family trying to assemble a trampoline after throwing away the instructions.
The basic political goal is not difficult to understand. Republicans hold a narrow House majority and have spent the cycle searching for every defensible seat advantage they can find. The revised Missouri map would likely improve the party’s position by reshaping districts, including the seat held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. Parties redistrict for advantage whenever law and timing allow them to. The roast starts when a party that talks constantly about election integrity decides the most urgent integrity issue is making sure voters do not interfere with the new lines before the election.
Missouri voters complicated the plan by gathering more than 300,000 signatures for a referendum. The state Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the petition suspended the new map and that voters must get their say. Republicans could have accepted that process and made the case for the map on the ballot. Instead, state officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rescue the congressional boundaries from the inconvenience of direct democracy. Apparently the people are the ultimate sovereign right up until they sign the wrong clipboard.
The argument from Missouri officials is not frivolous. The state already conducted its August primary under the newer boundaries, and changing maps afterward can cause serious administrative confusion. Candidates campaign in districts. Election offices print materials. Voters need to know whom they are electing. Those are real concerns. They are also concerns produced in large part by pushing a disputed map forward while a referendum fight was still alive. Creating a timing emergency and then citing the timing emergency as proof you should win is a useful tactic in politics, airline boarding and children’s bedtime negotiations.
Trump called the state court’s earlier ruling ridiculous because the new map was part of a national Republican strategy to protect the House. Again, at least the objective is clear. What is less clear is how this fits with the movement’s insistence that election rules should be stable, transparent and trusted by ordinary voters. Missouri Republicans changed the map, resisted a referendum, ran a primary under the disputed lines and sought emergency Supreme Court relief. Stability has apparently been redefined as getting to the finish line before the courts finish reading.
The episode also shows why partisan redistricting arguments become so exhausting. Both parties have manipulated district lines when given the opportunity. Democrats have played aggressive map games in states they control, and Republicans are not uniquely responsible for gerrymandering’s existence. That does not make this particular maneuver less worthy of ridicule. If your defense of election legitimacy begins with ‘the other party does it too,’ the moral high ground has already been rezoned into a cul-de-sac.
There is a cleaner argument available to Republicans. They could say the map is lawful, that the referendum should fail and that voters should approve the new districts because they better reflect the state. They could then win that vote. What they cannot easily do is celebrate voter control while asking courts to prevent voter control from delaying the map they want. The contradiction is not ideological. It is procedural, which may be why it is so perfect. Process is sacred until process says wait.
Kavanaugh’s one-line denial does not end the entire dispute. Federal litigation continues, the old map has faced a separate challenge and Missouri election officials still need clarity before November. That uncertainty is serious for voters and candidates who need to know which districts exist. But politically the damage is already done. A map designed to make the election easier for Republicans has instead helped create a legal puzzle about how the election can proceed at all.
The right spends a lot of time warning that changing election rules close to voting breeds distrust. Missouri has now supplied a remarkably practical demonstration. The state’s voters may still end up deciding the map, courts may still sort out which lines apply and Republicans may still win the seats they want. But the party’s attempt to secure a shortcut has made the road longer for everyone. If the goal was election confidence, this is a fascinating way to arrive there. That is a strange amount of procedural creativity from a movement that normally treats procedural improvisation as evidence somebody is stealing an election.
When a party says voters must trust election rules, what happens when the voters themselves become the obstacle to the rules that party wants?
Sources
Fox News: SCOTUS rejects Missouri GOP bid to use revised congressional map in midterms
Washington Examiner: Supreme Court denies bid to reinstate new congressional map in Missouri
The Guardian: Missouri congressional maps thrown into chaos after conflicting court rulings
