Justice Brett Kavanaugh declined to restore Missouri Republicans’ congressional map just ahead of the deadline to lock in the state’s ballot, but a ruling in a separate lawsuit has led to continued confusion.
Plus, another battle is emerging over whether the Trump administration can overhaul an immigration verification system to check voter rolls.
It leaves a lot of unanswered logistical questions with just 55 days to go until the midterms.
The mess in Missouri erupted last Thursday night, when the state’s top court decided a congressional map that would hand the GOP a pickup opportunity couldn’t go into effect. It ruled the state’s constitution allows Democratic-aligned organizers to first put the design to a vote in November.
Republicans tried taking their case to Kavanaugh, who by default manages emergency cases from Missouri at the Supreme Court. He denied the request without explanation in a one-sentence order late Tuesday afternoon.
For a moment, it appeared to be a boost for Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), whose Kansas City-based district was set to be redrawn and hand the GOP a 7-1 split in the state.
Things quickly changed.
As the Supreme Court was taking a look, Rep. Bob Onder (R-Mo.) had launched a brand-new lawsuit before a federal trial judge. He argues that Missouri’s courts are violating the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause, which hands state legislatures significant authority over voting. Onder says Missouri’s top court wrongly wrestled that power away.
“The U.S. Constitution does not provide for a citizen veto of the legislature’s approved map,” Onder’s suit reads.
On Tuesday, he convinced U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark, a Trump appointee, to temporarily order Missouri to continue implementing the GOP’s favored lines. Clark agreed it was needed to avoid “havoc” and “widespread voter confusion.”
It leaves two conflicting rulings on the books: a federal judge has ordered the GOP-favored 7-1 map to proceed, while the Missouri Supreme Court says the state must move ahead with the old 6-2 map.
But wait, state law required officials to finalize the ballot.... yesterday.
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office (R) tells The Gavel that the state is implementing Republicans’ new map.
“We appreciate Judge Clark’s support of the rights of Missouri voters, and intend to comply with this federal ruling,” Hanaway said in a statement.
Hanaway and other state Republicans say they can’t practically revert to the old map now that Missouri has already held its primary under Republicans’ favored design. As Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) put it to the Supreme Court, he has “no idea how to manage this chaos.”
The legal battle isn't over yet.
The organizer opposing Republicans quickly appealed the federal judge's ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. It could soon reach the Supreme Court. And, he wants to hold Hoskins in contempt to force his hand; Missouri's justices will hold oral arguments Thursday morning.
"The Show Me State will not be run into the ground like the communists running NYC on my watch," Hoskins responded on social media.
Already, the high court has another election headache on its hands with Trump’s mail voting order.
The blue states challenging Trump’s plan — which adds design requirements and demands states upload voter lists to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) — estimate they’ll send a combined roughly 51 million mail-in ballots over the next two months, court filings show.
California accounts for more than 23 million, while Colorado, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Massachusetts round out the leaderboard.
On Friday, North Carolina became the first state to start sending mail ballots, on a timeline dictated by state law. Alabama starts on Wednesday. Several others are set to begin next week.
It makes for a complicated situation as the Trump administration urges the Supreme Court to lift a judge’s block on the administration’s plan.
“Once those ballot envelopes enter the mailstream, there is no retrieving them,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices.
If you’re having déjà vu, you’re not alone. It’s the third round for Trump’s USPS plan at the high court.
Catch up quickly —
Round 1: A judge blocks Trump’s March 31 executive order directing changes to mail voting requirements. The Supreme Court lifts that block, ruling the blue states suing likely have no legal standing to challenge the president’s order itself.
Round 2: The focus shifts to USPS’s implementation of Trump’s directive. The judge rules blue states and private groups retain standing to block it. The administration brought it to the Supreme Court but never got a ruling.
Round 3: The judge replaces her temporary block on USPS’s plan with an indefinite one, making Round 2 moot. The administration is appealing once again.
The outcome of the latest round could come from two places.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit has yet to rule on the administration’s request to lift the judge’s order. The final written brief came in Tuesday night, so its ruling could come at any time.
Mindful of the clock, the administration didn’t wait to head to the Supreme Court with the request. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson manages emergency matters arising from the 1st Circuit, so she gets the case by default. She set a 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday deadline for the other side to respond.
That’s not all that has been on the Supreme Court’s plate. On Tuesday, yet another election-related dispute landed on the justices’ emergency docket.
The Trump administration is urging the court to revive a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) database overhaul aimed at making it easier for states to check voter registration eligibility.
The database, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), is used to determine eligibility for certain federal programs. The change connects SAVE to Social Security records and allows bulk queries in the hopes that states will be prompted to remove individuals from voter rolls as ineligible before the midterms.
A judge blocked the overhaul in June for violating the Social Security Act and federal privacy law. On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the judge’s ruling in a 2-1 vote.
“By making SAVE more difficult to use, the district court’s order impairs the proper administration of federal elections,” Sauer wrote in the administration’s Supreme Court plea.
Sauer insists the changes are legal. But his emergency appeal also rests on the contention that the organizations that are suing have no legal standing.
It’s an argument Sauer has found success with recently. The Supreme Court agreed a preservationist group likely had no standing to challenge Trump’s White House ballroom and blue states likely weren’t able to sue over the president’s mail-in voting executive order itself.
Like those plaintiffs, Sauer says the group of voting and privacy organizations can’t walk into federal court to challenge SAVE’s election use.
“The court’s rationale thus implies, illogically, that an individual suffers an Article III injury whenever the government internally shares Social Security numbers in a perfectly lawful manner—for instance, when using the numbers to confirm the identity of an individual seeking entry to a secure facility,” he wrote.
The Supreme Court doesn’t appear to view this case with quite the same timing pressure as the others. Chief Justice John Roberts gave the other side until Sept. 15 to respond.
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