Chaos as red state Supreme Court filing hints local officials may defy courts on GOP map

Missouri's redistricting war has spiraled into chaos, and observers say the state's own emergency filing to the U.S. Supreme Court hints that county officials could defy the courts to keep the Republican map alive.

In a reply brief to the justices, Attorney General Catherine Hanaway argued that the Missouri Supreme Court "derailed an imminent federal congressional election" when it threw out the GOP's "Missouri First" map for November. Buried in that same filing is a line that political reporter Mark Maxwell warned should worry anyone who cares about orderly elections.

The map, drawn last year at President Donald Trump's urging, sliced Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's Kansas City district into pieces to hand Republicans a 7-1 edge, and it already ran the August primary. Last week, the state's high court unanimously blocked it for the general election, restored the old lines, and sent the map to voters as a November referendum. Hanaway lost her bid to pause that ruling and raced to Washington.

Now, her brief concedes, "local election officials in counties are now left to make individual decisions" on whether to follow the order or stick with the map used in the primary while they wait on a federal court. Maxwell warned that the filing signals officials could defy the state Supreme Court and keep the Republican map anyway, "which would be absolute chaos. The state court explicitly forbade this."

People Not Politicians attorney Chuck Hatfield has called the state's position "open defiance of the court." Meanwhile, candidates don't know which district they are running in, and lawsuits are piling up.

Cleaver, who has represented Kansas City for two decades, put it bluntly earlier this year: "I have no idea what district I'm going to be in." The justices could act within days, with control of the U.S. House riding on every move heading into November.