An appeals court's decision to revive a Missouri map backed by President Donald Trump will trap the red state's voters, an ex-prosecutor warned.
In a Tuesday episode of the "Talking Feds" podcast, former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman tore into the three-judge 8th Circuit panel for the logic it used to revive the map. The appeals court ordered Missouri to use a Republican-drawn congressional map for the November 3 midterms on Monday.
Republicans passed the map last year at the behest of Trump and split Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's (D-MO) safely Democratic Kansas City district into three rural-dominated districts. The order would move Missouri from six Republican seats and two Democratic seats to seven and one.
Litman noted that the fight looked finished before the appeals court stepped in, saying, "You might have thought this whole thing had been settled, and it had been settled."
The state supreme court and the U.S. Supreme Court issued separate opinions, saying, "No, no, no on the new Republican map," Litman explained. "Go back to the old one. 6 to 2, all done, until the [8th] Circuit did something bizarre and Looney Tunes and nakedly activist."
The appeals court decided "federal law requires, not permits but requires, the use of this pro-Republican map," Litman said. He warned that the decision came from "a very pro-Trump panel" and said the judges were "messing around in the absolute face of a contrary Supreme Court ruling."
He also pointed out the appeals court's opinion was unsigned, saying, "The main thing is no judge, no individual has to put his or her name to this piece of crap."
He said the court's reasoning demands that the voters in a primary and general election be roughly the same people. The odds of the primary electorate remaining the same as the general election electorate are, "to quote Elvis Costello, less than zero," Litman said.
"So we've got a perfect collision and paralysis," Litman said. "They don't even purport to try to resolve this perfect contradiction, which to my mind has no answer other than Missouri doesn't get to vote in this election."
The appeals court order is "a gratuitous and entirely unnecessary mess" and "a bad joke," he said.