The Supreme Court on Thursday granted an emergency bid from opponents of Missouri’s GOP-friendly congressional map to stop the state from using that map for November’s midterm elections.
The court’s order marked the second Supreme Court loss on the map for Republicans this week, and it came without any justices dissenting in the order. As is typical for such emergency orders, there was no explanation for it.
The high court’s action stems from fast-moving litigation that was prompted by conflicting orders out of Missouri’s Supreme Court, which barred the state from using that map, and a federal district court, which said the state had to use that map.
The state court had ordered Missouri officials to use its existing map, passed in 2022, in November, rather than the new map passed by state Republicans last year amid the nationwide redistricting push backed by President Donald Trump. Justice Brett Kavanaugh earlier this week rejected the state’s emergency application to halt the state Supreme Court ruling, which seemed to solidify that the existing map would be used in November, rather than the new map that would be even more favorable to Republicans.
But right after Kavanaugh’s order came out earlier this week, a federal district judge in Missouri issued an order in a separate case, brought by Missouri Republicans, that said the state had to use the new map. That led challengers to the map, Richard von Glahn and the group People Not Politicians, to seek to halt that latest order, bringing the issue back to the justices in Washington.
“Minutes after Justice Kavanaugh denied a request to stay the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision in this redistricting case, a district court chose to deliver the relief this Court withheld based on the exact same manufactured emergency,” the application to Kavanaugh said. It accused the district judge of “charging forward with federal court interference into a state election process that has already been decided by the state’s highest court under state law — a ruling this Court declined to overturn.”
State officials opposed the application, arguing that the district judge’s order allows it to run “a timely and orderly congressional election in 2026” because it requires the state to use the same congressional map for November that it used for the primary. Therefore, the state argued to the justices, that federal judge’s order is the only thing “preventing the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of voters in the Primary Election.”
The justices are assigned to field emergency litigation from different regions of the country, and Kavanaugh is currently assigned to the Missouri region. Justices will often refer significant or contentious matters to the full court for all of the justices to weigh in, but the Trump appointee had rejected the previous GOP request on his own. Thursday’s order came from the full court.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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