A fast-moving legal battle over Missouri’s effort to eke an additional Republican seat out of its congressional map for this year’s midterm election returned to the US Supreme Court on Wednesday, a day after Justice Brett Kavanaugh had effectively rejected the same proposed map.
A group that organized opposition to the GOP-friendly congressional map filed an emergency appeal, urging the Supreme Court to step in once again and block the map from being used in this year’s midterm elections. The quick-turn appeal followed a dizzying 24 hours in the case that saw action from four different courts.
The group, People Not Politicians, warned that a federal court order backing the GOP map would cause “confusion and disruption” and subject “election officials to irreconcilable judicial commands on the eve of an election, with a federal court inserting itself to wreak havoc on the state’s elections.”
Back-to-back conflicting court orders on Tuesday night left uncertain whether the Show Me State would likely send six or seven Republicans to the House next year. This comes as the GOP, at President Donald Trump’s behest, has engaged in an unusual mid-decade redistricting effort to retain its narrow grip on the chamber.
