Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday denied Missouri’s emergency request to use a GOP-friendly congressional map for the midterm elections.

The state’s request went to the Trump appointee because he is the justice assigned to handle urgent litigation from that part of the country. Justices can handle such applications themselves or refer them to the full court for resolution. Kavanaugh rejected Missouri’s application on his own, following his rejection last week of an emergency request for Michigan officials to put a measure on the November ballot over whether to require proof of citizenship to vote in that state.

As is typical for such orders, there was no explanation for Tuesday’s denial, though it suggests the justice found Missouri’s claim was weak.

The Republican-led state turned to Washington after Missouri’s Supreme Court blocked the map from being used in November. The state’s GOP-controlled legislature passed the map last year amid the nationwide gerrymandering push. Missouri’s Republican secretary of state, Denny Hoskins, sought to prevent a ballot measure in which voters would be able to decide whether to approve the map.

Hoskins reasoned that the referendum was invalid under the state’s constitution. But the state’s top court said Hoskins was incorrect about that. The court ordered him to put the measure on the November ballot, and it prohibited the state from using the new map unless and until voters approve it. Under the court’s ruling, the map passed in 2022 remained in full effect for November.

The state court noted that the referendum petition was submitted to Hoskins in December and that he didn’t announce his finding that it was insufficient until about an hour before a deadline last month.

Turning to the Supreme Court for speedy relief, Missouri said that a “federal-election-administration disaster is unfolding” due to what it called an unprecedented order from the state court.

“No court in American history has ever given such an extraordinary remedy, which inflicts unprecedented chaos on Missouri,” said the application from Republican Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office. It told the justices that “about 1.2 million Missourians” voted in the August primary under the new map and that the state Supreme Court “gave no specific guidance” about how to use the 2022 map for November.

Opposing the state’s application, referendum backer Richard von Glahn said that it “does not present a real emergency.” He said the state “waited as long as possible to manufacture the present dispute,” with Hoskins waiting “until the last possible day — and only after he had implemented HB 1 [the new map] in the congressional primary — to object to the referendum, in the hopes of running out the clock on the judiciary’s tolerance for a last-minute reversion to the 2022 districts.”

Von Glahn said the state court rejected Hoskins’ “gambit,” and he urged the justices to do the same. He said the secretary of state asked the justices “to deliver him the political victory to which he was never entitled under the Missouri Constitution.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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