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The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Missouri’s request to use a congressional map for the November midterm election that would have given Republicans a chance to flip a seat, a rare setback for the GOP’s effort to keep control of the House next year by eking out an advantage from its political boundaries.
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Missouri moved to the 7-1 Republican map under pressure from President Donald Trump, who has inspired an unusual mid-decade redistricting war in Republican and Democratic states. With Missouri’s map blocked, Republicans are poised to gain a net of nine seats in the US House of Representatives because of that effort.
The decision was issued Tuesday by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency cases rising from parts of the Midwest. Kavanaugh did not explain his reasoning, and there were no dissents.
Missouri’s new map, which was enacted last year, was used in the state’s primary election in August. But the state’s highest court ruled last week that officials in Missouri wrongly dismissed a petition with more than 300,000 signatures to let the state’s voters decide on the map via a referendum before it took effect.
The map targeted the 5th Congressional District, held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, by breaking up its Kansas City base and stretching it into rural and Republican-leaning parts of the state.
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Missouri officials had raced up to the US Supreme Court, arguing that the state court decision would create a “federal-election-administration disaster” and “unprecedented chaos.” One of the organizers of the referendum who sued over the use of the map, Richard von Glahn, countered in his own briefing that if there was an election emergency it was Missouri’s own making.
Opponents of the map had submitted their petition for a referendum late last year, but state officials waited until August 4, the last possible date, which happened to be the day of the state’s primary, to declare that the state constitution’s right for voters to weigh in on legislation doesn’t apply to redistricting measures. The state supreme court rejected that interpretation.
The 6-3 conservative US Supreme Court has played a significant role in shaping the outcome of this year’s midterms. The court’s landmark decision earlier this year gutting a significant part of the Voting Rights Act led to new redistricting in several Republican states in the South. Meanwhile, the court allowed Texas to use a Republican-friendly map and permitted California to use a map that benefits Democrats.
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This story has been updated with additional details.