Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh on Tuesday rejected Missouri’s request to restore its Republican-tilted congressional map for this year’s elections.
The state’s Supreme Court had halted the map in a ruling last week, restoring the maps used in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
The now-discarded map had eliminated a Democrat-held seat, which Republicans had hoped would produce a 7-1 split in the state’s delegation.
Justice Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, didn’t offer an explanation for denying the state’s request.
The now-discarded map had already been used in primaries. Those results are now “pointless,” the state said.
“No court in American history has ever given such an extraordinary remedy, which inflicts unprecedented chaos on Missouri,” state Solicitor General Louis Capozzi III said of the state Supreme Court ruling.
He said the state will now have to break a deadline set in a law on sending ballots to overseas military voters in order to redo its elections.
The state legislature redrew the maps last year.
But opponents gathered enough signatures to force a referendum to veto the legislation. Secretary of State Deny Hoskins refused to certify the ballot measure.
The state Supreme Court said his action was illegal and the referendum should have gone forward.
Under state law, if a valid referendum is pending against a law, it cannot take effect. In this case, that means the state’s congressional map.
Missouri was part of an unprecedented wave of mid-decade redistricting. Usually maps are drawn at the start of a decade and left unchanged, barring court orders.
But there is no bar on states redrawing their own lines.
Prodded by the Trump administration last year, Texas’s legislature kicked off the redistricting war with maps that could net the GOP five additional seats in that state.
California retaliated with a map, put to voters, that could net Democrats five seats there.
Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Ohio and North Carolina also delivered more GOP-friendly maps — though Missouri’s has now fallen.
Efforts by Democrats in Virginia and Maryland to retaliate for this election cycle fell short, though 2028 remains a valid target.
Contact the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.