Dueling Court Decisions, Including an 11th Hour Ruling by Justice Kavanaugh, Throw Missouri’s Congressional Map Into Chaos

The fate of Missouri’s congressional district lines was thrown into chaos on Tuesday after two different courts came to opposing conclusions on what to do with the state’s maps. Republicans had redrawn the district lines to give themselves an additional seat, though that map could be thrown out in the coming hours. The rulings were handed down within hours of each other on Tuesday. First, Justice Brett Kavanaugh declined to block a state supreme court decision that nullified Republicans’ new gerrymandered map. A federal judge in the eastern district of Missouri then handed down a decision declaring that the new maps must be used because those were the maps that were in place during the primary elections last month. Under Justice Kavanaugh’s decision, the state would revert to having two deep-blue districts rather than just one, as Republicans had wanted. Due to the conflicting decisions, the case could end up back at the Supreme Court in the coming hours or days. Missouri is scheduled to begin sending out mail ballots on September 19. Last year, the White House kicked off a national gerrymandering battle after asking Texas state lawmakers to redraw their congressional maps in order to give the GOP five additional seats. In response, California Democrats redrew their maps after voters approved the measure in a statewide ballot referendum, thus canceling out the Texas maps. Other red states like Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Louisiana followed suit, giving Republicans a cushion of about ten additional seats in the House of Representatives. After the Missouri legislature adopted the new congressional maps last year, a group seeking to overturn the maps began gathering signatures to put a ballot question up to voters this November which, if successful, would force the legislature to revert to the map with two heavily Democratic districts. The Missouri secretary of state then said that he would not put the referendum on the ballot, arguing that voters cannot challenge a congressional map via statewide ballot initiative. In its decision, the state supreme court ruled that the new map can only be used if voters approve it in a statewide vote in November. “Because the referendum petition was legal, sufficient, and timely, [the new map] never took effect and was referred to the voters,” the state supreme court said in its unanimous decision. “The congressional districts the General Assembly established in 2022 remain in full force and effect for the November 2026 general election, and [the new map] will not take effect unless and until approved by the voters at the November 2026 general election.”Beyond Missouri, some analysts have wondered if Republicans may have stretched their own voters too thinly as they tried to make more districts fall into the GOP column. The prospect of a “dummymander” — meaning a gerrymander that backfires because of partisan voters being spread across several new districts — is a real possibility in several states. In Texas, Democrats are confident that they can hold on to at least three of the five seats Republicans attempted to draw to be more in their favor. In south Florida, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has promised to go after three sitting House Republicans whose districts are now less red than they were in 2024 as Governor Ron DeSantis and GOP legislators spread Republican voters into Democratic districts. In North Carolina, there is a possibility that the GOP could lose what was once a deep-red seat after the maps were redrawn in order to make a neighboring purple district currently represented by a Democrat more red.

Dueling Court Decisions, Including an 11th Hour Ruling by Justice Kavanaugh, Throw Missouri’s Congressional Map Into Chaos

Dueling Court Decisions, Including an 11th Hour Ruling by Justice Kavanaugh, Throw Missouri’s Congressional Map Into Chaos

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