Missouri AG threatens 'absolute chaos' in defiance of state Supreme Court

In deep red Missouri, Republican State Attorney General Catherine Hanaway is lashing out the state's supreme court ruling over a recent ruling on the state's election map — a ruling she attacked as "legal fiction." Hanaway is now taking up the matter with the U.S. Supreme Court. And according to Mark Maxwell, political editor for KSDK News in St. Louis, this legal battle is a recipe for "absolute chaos."

On Friday, September 4, according to Politico's Gregory Svirnovskiy, Hanaway "asked the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency stay of a Missouri High Court ruling that found the state cannot use new, heavily gerrymandered districts in the November election."

Hanaway, in her filing, told U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, "A federal-election-administration disaster is unfolding in Missouri."

According to Svirnovskiy, "Hanaway's plea came after the Missouri Supreme Court, on Thursday, put the brakes on a congressional map drawn by Republicans last year with the backing of President Donald Trump and ordered a Democrat-organized referendum on the GOP's map proposal, which would have likely given Republicans a 7-1 advantage by eliminating the Kansas City district held by longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), be put to a vote this fall. The court ruled that the November elections must proceed in accordance with the map Missouri used in 2022, which still saw Republicans favored in six of the state's eight districts."

The Missouri Independent's Rudi Keller reports that Hanaway believes the Missouri Supreme Court expressed a "legal fiction" when "it ruled that putting the state's new congressional map to a referendum means Missouri must use its previous district lines in November."

Keller notes that Tuesday, September 8 "is the deadline for changing the November 3 ballot" in Missouri. And Kavanaugh, according to Keller, asked "other parties to weigh in on the application for an emergency stay."

Hanaway wrote, "Ultimately, if what applicants seek is this court's blessing to implement (the 2025 map) in contravention of Missouri law, they must secure an order affirmatively establishing the secretary's authority to use it. That requires an injunction, not a stay.”

KSDK News' Maxwell, in his tweet, explained why this legal fight could cause major problems in the midterms.

Maxwell tweeted, "In a reply brief to the US Supreme Court, Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway signals local election officials could defy the state Supreme Court and proceed with the old HB1 'Missouri First' map, which would be absolute chaos. The state court explicitly forbade this."

Keller notes that this legal battle finds the ACLU and the Campaign Legal Center allied with the group People Not Politicians — for which they filed an amicus brief — and on the opposite side from Hanaway and her allies.

According to Keller, "The American Center for Law and Justice filed a brief supporting (Missouri Secretary of State Denny) Hoskins. In St. Louis, U.S. Rep. Bob Onder, State Sen. Rick Brattin, and two voters filed their lawsuit in the Eastern District court on Friday, with People Not Politicians seeking to intervene to have the case dismissed."