Missouri’s GOP-friendly congressional map returns to Supreme Court

Missouri’s redistricting battle reached the Supreme Court for a second time after an appeals panel on Wednesday refused to halt an order instructing Missouri Republicans to move ahead with their favored congressional map.

A Democratic-aligned organizer, who is attempting to defeat the Republicans’ map by putting it to voters through a referendum, is now urging the high court to intervene.

It’s the latest chapter of the mid-decade redistricting war to inundate the justices. Missouri’s election has erupted into chaos with less than two months until Election Day.

Last week, Missouri’s top court agreed that the Republicans’ map can’t go into effect until the organizer gets his chance. But he’s fighting a ruling in a separate case, where a federal judge has instructed Republicans that they should keep using the revised map to avoid voter confusion since primaries were already held using it.

The organizer’s lawyers say that “runs counter to decades of this Court’s precedent.”

“That conflict is mounting in real time,” they wrote in their emergency application.

Their request heads to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who manages emergency matters arising from Missouri by default. The appointee of President Trump a day earlier declined Republicans’ request to lift the earlier state court decision that sparked the recent chaos.

Because of the ruling in the separate federal case, state GOP leaders say they are on sound legal footing to proceed with the 7-1 House map that would give them a pickup opportunity in November.

Kavanaugh could act on the new request to block it alone or refer it to the full court for a vote. He has requested Missouri officials to respond in writing by Thursday morning.

The referendum organizer’s Supreme Court plea landed minutes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit refused to immediately intervene. The 8th Circuit signaled doubts that the organizer can appeal given the temporary nature of the underlying ruling favoring the GOP; it lasts only two weeks. The judge is set to make a more lasting ruling soon.

“The motion for a stay pending appeal is denied because we either lack jurisdiction over the appeal or, based on the briefing we have so far, the stay factors have not been met,” the court wrote in its one-paragraph ruling .

All three judges on the panel were appointed by Republican presidents.

U.S. Circuit Judge James Loken was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush, while U.S. Circuit Judge David Stras and U.S. Circuit Judge Justin Smith were both tapped for the bench by Trump.