Kavanaugh denied emergency request for Trump-backed redistricting
Two conflicting federal court orders have left Missouri without a usable congressional map less than two months before the November midterms that will determine control of a closely divided Congress.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied Missouri officials’ request to use a new congressional map redrawn with President Donald Trump’s support to give Republicans an edge in the November election. Separately, a federal judge in Missouri temporarily prevented the state from using its existing congressional maps.
The pair of rulings means neither the redrawn districts nor the previous ones can be used for the November vote unless the legal situation changes before Election Day.
The underlying dispute traces to a Missouri Supreme Court ruling that the new map must go before voters to approve or reject the new districts before it can take effect. Because the ballot question cannot be completed in time for the November election, the new map is unavailable.
Trump called the state Supreme Court’s ruling “horrible, ridiculous, and unconstitutional,” according to The Guardian.
The redrawn map that prompted the legal fight targeted Missouri’s 5th Congressional District, held by longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. The revised boundaries reassigned portions of Kansas City to two neighboring districts represented by Republicans and stretched the remainder of Cleaver’s district far eastward into rural Republican areas — a configuration the map’s proponents said was intended to give Republicans a better chance of winning the seat.
The conflicting court orders add to a months-long legal fight over Missouri’s recently redrawn congressional map. State officials had pressed federal courts to allow the new districts to take effect for the November vote, but the state Supreme Court’s intervention to require voter approval had already foreclosed that path.