Trump Blasts Missouri Supreme Court Redistricting Ruling: 'Dark Day for Justice!'
Key Takeaways
- •The Missouri Supreme Court ordered that the referendum against the legislature's congressional map proceed and that the prior map, containing two Democratic seats, govern the fall election.
- •Missouri lawmakers passed the mid-decade redistricting at Trump's direction, splitting a Kansas City Democratic district to create an additional Republican seat.
- •President Trump attacked the ruling on Truth Social as ridiculous and unconstitutional, arguing there is not enough time before the election to restore the old map.
- •Secretary of State Denny Hoskins delayed processing referendum signatures for months before declaring the petition invalid, a move viewed as an attempt to run out the clock.
- •If the referendum qualifies, Missouri voters will decide in November whether the legislature's map remains in place beyond the fall election.
President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social account on Thursday to rage against the GOP's significant legal defeat in Missouri.
"The Missouri Supreme Court just ridiculously ruled in favor of changing the maps back to what they were a long time ago. It's called, Ancient History!" Trump wrote (Truth Social). "The problem is, according to Legal Scholars, that not only was the ruling horrible, ridiculous, and unConstitutional, but there won't be enough time to change the map back with the Election coming up in a very short period of time."
"The Election Process, as usual, is being disturbed in America!" he continued. "Missouri must be able to use the map that was in effect just a couple of months ago, in the Primary. This is a Dark Day for 'Justice' in Missouri!"
The ruling stems from a redistricting battle that began last year, when Missouri state lawmakers, acting at Trump's direction, passed a controversial mid-decade gerrymander of the state. Mid-decade redistricting — redrawing district lines between the once-a-decade census cycles — is rare in modern American politics and has historically drawn heightened legal scrutiny. The new map chopped up a Democratic district in Kansas City in an effort to create an additional Republican seat, a strategy known as cracking, in which an opposing party's voters are split across multiple districts to dilute their voting power.
In response, the group People Not Politicians successfully gathered enough signatures to place a ballot referendum before voters. Missouri's constitution allows citizens to petition for a referendum to suspend a newly passed law until voters can weigh in, a process that has been used in the state before. The referendum would temporarily suspend the gerrymandered map and give Missourians the chance to decide in November whether or not to keep it.
Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins sat on the signatures for months before decreeing the referendum invalid — a move widely seen as an attempt to run out the clock so the new map would remain in place even if state judges overruled him.
The Missouri Supreme Court disagreed. The court ordered the ballot referendum to move forward and directed that the old map, which includes two Democratic seats, be used in the fall election — at least until voters have their final say at the ballot box (Raw Story). The dispute now returns to voters: if the referendum qualifies for the November ballot, Missourians themselves will determine whether the legislature's map survives beyond the fall election.
