Tag: elections

  • Missouri Must Use 2022 Congressional Map, per Supreme Court

    The Supreme Court on Friday stayed a district court injunction and an appeals court mandate and order that would have required Missouri to use a 2025 redrawn congressional map in the upcoming midterm election. Under the ruling, Missouri must use its 2022 map.

    The ruling ends the extraordinary year-long effort by the Missouri secretary of state to use a redrawn map that would favor Republicans–in violation of state law.

    The case started last fall, when the Missouri legislature redrew its congressional map to net Republicans one seat from the state. Opponents filed a petition in December 2025 to put the new map to a referendum. Under state law, if the petition signatures were valid, the petition would halt the new map, unless and until Missouri voters approved it in an election.

    The secretary of state took no action on the petition, however, and instead ran the state’s primary election using the new 2025 map. At the same time, he announced that the petition was invalid on the ground that redistricting is not subject to a referendum under state law.

    The state supreme court unanimously disagreed. The state supreme court ruled that redistricting is, indeed, subject to a referendum under state law. Moreover, it held that the 2025 map was never valid under state law (because of the petition), and it ordered the secretary of state to use the 2022 map in the upcoming general election.

    The secretary of state then asked the Supreme Court to stay the Missouri supreme court ruling, arguing that it violated the U.S. Constitution. (He claimed that using the 2025 map for the primary and the 2022 map for the general would violate equal protection and the method of election for members of the House.) Justice Kavanaugh denied the request.

    Soon after, a federal district court in Missouri ruled for the secretary of state and ordered the state to use the 2025 map in the general election. The Supreme Court stayed that order.

    Then the Eighth Circuit ordered the district court to enter a permanent injunction requiring the state to use the 2025 map.

    The Supreme Court on Friday stayed that order. The Court understated it: “Given this Court’s two prior orders in this litigation, our conclusion that this was error should come as no surprise.”

  • Supreme Court Stays District Court Ruling in Missouri Redistricting Saga

    The Supreme Court stayed the district court ruling that paved the way for Missouri to use its 2025 congressional map in the upcoming midterm elections.

    The Court ruling and other, related moves mean that Missouri will use its earlier 2022 congressional map, and not its redrawn 2025 map, which was designed to net Republicans one congressional seat in the state.

    The Supreme Court order, issued without noted dissent, is a rebuke to the Missouri secretary of state’s efforts to manipulate the state referendum process and state and federal courts. On that score, the Missouri Supreme Court yesterday held the secretary of state in contempt for directing local election officials to use an illegal map (the 2025 map). The court then ruled that he remedied the contempt by subsequently ordering officials to use the 2022 map.

  • Missouri Gerrymandering Case Goes (Again) to the Supreme Court

    After the district court ruled in favor of the secretary of state and issued a TRO, opponents of the state’s 2025 gerrymandered congressional map sought an emergency stay at the Eighth Circuit. The Eighth Circuit declined, writing that “we either lack jurisdiction over the appeal or, based on the briefing we have so far, the stay factors have not been met.”

    Opponents immediately sought a stay at the Supreme Court, going again to Justice Kavanaugh. The Court ordered responses by 10 a.m. on Thursday.

  • Federal Court Orders Gerrymandered Map in Missouri

    Soon after Justice Kavanaugh declined to stay a Missouri Supreme Court ruling that ordered the state to use its 2022 congressional map, a federal district court ordered the state to use its 2025 gerrymandered map. (Opponents of the 2025 gerrymandered map filed an emergency motion for a stay in the Eighth Circuit. No word yet from that court.) In response, the secretary of state announced that the state would comply with the federal district court and use its 2025 gerrymandered map. (The deadline for finalizing the ballot was yesterday.) And in response to that, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered the secretary of state to appear tomorrow for a contempt hearing.

    The federal district court ruling seems in tension, at least, with Justice Kavanaugh’s decision not to stay the Missouri Supreme Court ruling. If the Eighth Circuit and, ultimate, the Supreme Court think so, too, they’ll probably stay this district court ruling and reinstate the 2022 map for the general election.

    The district court held that the Missouri Supreme Court’s order to use the state’s earlier 2022 congressional map violated Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause.

    As to Article I, Section 2, which says that the people elect House members every two years, the court held that primary elections are an integral part of general elections. And because the state used its 2025 gerrymandered map in the primary election, it had to use that same map in the general election. The court said it didn’t matter that the state’s use of the 2025 map in the primary election was illegal (as the state supreme court held), because voters voted in the primaries based on the 2025 map and “based on the parameters set by Missouri’s highest election authority, the Secretary of State.” (Pause for a moment to consider the implications of that holding. It would apparently allow the secretary of state to use any map they wanted in the primary (or potentially to take any other election-related measure), irrespective of its legality, and then force that map (or even that measure) on the electorate in the general.)

    As to equal protection, the court held that the state supreme court order would classify voters into two groups–“those who happen to stay in their [2025-map] congressional district, and those who do not.” The court held that “[s]witching maps now would deprive many Missourians of their equal vote in the primaries . . . .” (This theory could also have sweeping implications.)

    We expect the Eighth Circuit and Supreme Court to move quickly, though no word yet.

  • D.C. Circuit Declines to Halt Trump EO on Mail-In Voting

    The D.C. Circuit today affirmed a lower court’s refusal to halt the implementation of President Trump’s EO on mail-in voting. The ruling would allow the Administration to move forward with its implementation of the EO.

    But at the same time, the decision comes just days after the Second Circuit declined to stay a different lower court opinion that halted the implementation. The Administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene in that case just yesterday.

    Both cases test whether the issue is ripe for judicial review, given that the Administration hasn’t yet implemented the EO.

    The two cases leave the EO in limbo, at least in the plaintiff states in the Second Circuit.

    The cases test President Trump’s March 31, 2026, EO on mail-in voting. The plaintiffs in the cases argued that the EO’s Sections 2, 3, and 5 exceeded the President’s authority, violated the Elections and Electors Clauses, and violated the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering principle.

    Section 2 of the EO directs DHS to compile a list of U.S. citizens and transmit the list to the states. It also provides for investigation and prosecution of state officials who issue or distribute ballots to individuals not eligible to vote. Section 3 directs the U.S. Postal Service to issue regulations governing the design of envelopes for mail-in voting and requiring all ballot mail to be mailed in such envelopes. Section 5 orders the Attorney General and department heads “to deter and address noncompliance” by “state and local election officials” and “public or private entities engaged in” ballot printing or distribution.

    The problem with the challenges, according to the Administration and the D.C. Circuit, is that the Administration hasn’t yet implemented the EO, and so we don’t know exactly how the Administration will implement it and exactly what harms it might cause. Without better information about implementation and harms, the reasoning goes, courts can’t judge its lawfulness.

    That said, the D.C. Circuit expressed some mixed feelings on the merits. On the one hand, it wrote that the “Plaintiffs have identified a number of serious questions concerning the lawfulness of proposed actions if implemented on the threshold of the upcoming federal election.” (Emphasis in original.) On the other, it said,

    Given the Executive Order’s repeated commands for agency action to conform to the law, this court cannot assume that the agencies will impose such late-breaking disruption on the States’ conduct of the 2026 election.

  • Trump Administration Seeks Supreme Court Intervention in Election EO

    The Trump Administration asked the Supreme Court to stay a lower court ruling that enjoined the Administration from enforcing portions of President Trump’s executive order on elections.

    If the Court grants a stay, the Administration could move forward in implementing President Trump’s EO. If it doesn’t, the Administration can only enforce the EO in states that weren’t a party to the lawsuit.

    The case arose when 23 states and the District of Columbia challenged President Trump’s March 31, 2026, EO on elections. The plaintiffs argued that the EO’s Sections 2, 3, and 5 exceeded the President’s authority, violated the Elections and Electors Clauses, and violated the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering principle.

    Section 2 of the EO directs DHS to compile a list of U.S. citizens and transmit the list to the states. It also provides for investigation and prosecution of state officials who issue or distribute ballots to individuals not eligible to vote. Section 3 directs the U.S. Postal Service to issue regulations governing the design of envelopes for mail-in voting and requiring all ballot mail to be mailed in such envelopes. Section 5 orders the Attorney General and department heads “to deter and address noncompliance” by “state and local election officials” and “public or private entities engaged in” ballot printing or distribution.

    The district court ruled for the plaintiffs. The court held that the plaintiffs had standing, that their case was ripe for review, and that Sections 2 and 3 are “ultra vires and violate the separation of powers.” The court issued an injunction, halting enforcement for the upcoming primaries and general election (though not later elections) in the plaintiff states (though not in non-plaintiff states).

    The Trump Administration sought a stay of the injunction pending appeal with the Second Circuit, arguing that the plaintiff states lacked standing and that the case wasn’t ripe for judicial review. The Second Circuit on Friday denied a stay.

    Then today the Administration sought a stay in the Supreme Court, again arguing that the plaintiff states lack standing and that the case isn’t ripe for judicial review.

    If the Court grants a stay, the Administration can go ahead with its plans to generate a list of U.S. citizens and to impose Postal Service requirements on mail-in voting in the plaintiff states. If the Court denies a stay, the Administration can’t.

    Either way, the merits aren’t going before the Court, at least as the Administration has briefed the case so far. (The Administration didn’t appeal the merits to the Second Circuit, either, and that court didn’t rule on the merits.) That’s probably because the Administration understands the weaknesses in its positions on the merits: The President has no statutory authority for his EO; the Elections Clause and the Electors Clause give initial responsibility to the states to govern elections for federal office, subject to congressional action (which hasn’t happened in this area); and the EO may impose requirements on the states in violation of the anti-commandeering principle.

    The Administration’s theories on standing and ripeness, if accepted, could make it hard or impossible for plaintiffs to challenge the EO until close to or even after the upcoming elections, at which point even a successful challenge would come too late.