Supreme Court blocks Missouri’s gerrymandered congressional map for second time

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday sided against Missouri Republicans for the second time in a week, blocking a federal judge’s order that would have forced the state to use a newly drawn congressional map built to remove Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver from his seat.

The unsigned order came from the full court and noted no dissents. It granted an emergency request from People Not Politicians, a political action committee that had fought to keep Missouri’s 2022 district lines in place for the November midterms, according to MSNBC.

The map fight had produced two conflicting court orders in the space of days. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled on September 3 that the Republican-drawn map could not be used in November and that a referendum on the map would go to voters, according to NBC News. The new map targeted Missouri’s 5th Congressional District, redrawing it to favor Republicans by more than 17 points over a district that had reliably elected Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, NBC News reported.

Missouri officials then sought emergency relief from the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency matters from Missouri, denied the state’s stay request on September 8. Minutes later, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Missouri issued a separate order enjoining use of the old 2022 map, effectively reviving the new Republican-drawn lines and leaving state election officials with contradictory instructions.

The Supreme Court’s Thursday order resolved that conflict by blocking the federal judge’s injunction, meaning Missouri will use its 2022 congressional districts for the November elections. The Elias Law Group, which represented plaintiffs challenging the new map, said the order “definitively ends a complicated period that left Missouri election authorities facing contradictory commands from a federal court and the Missouri Supreme Court less than eight weeks before Election Day,” according to MSNBC.

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins directed local election authorities to implement the 2022 map following the ruling. A referendum on the Republican-drawn map, the subject of a petition drive that gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures, will still appear on the November ballot, giving voters a separate, later say on whether that map should ever take effect, according to Al Jazeera.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries responded to the ruling by addressing Hoskins directly: “You lost. The people of Missouri have won. It’s over.” Cleaver wrote that “despite the cynical and deeply shameful attempt to silence many of our neighbors, the people fought back and won,” adding that “democracy prevails.”

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway had earlier called a lower-court ruling against the state’s map part of “a full-fledged constitutional crisis” and said she would pursue further appeal. The dispute over Missouri’s map has been one of several mid-decade redistricting fights this year in states including Texas, where Republican-led legislatures redrew congressional lines in an attempt to protect the party’s narrow U.S. House majority ahead of the midterms.

Cleaver, first elected to represent Missouri’s 5th District in 2004, will seek reelection under the restored 2022 lines in November.