Missouri Supreme Court to hear arguments over new electoral map as redistricting battles rage on

The national battle over congressional redistricting, which began ten months ago, is intensifying as the November midterm elections draw closer. It is fueled by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act.

This ruling has provided grounds for states to attempt to eliminate voting districts with significant minority populations, setting the stage for high-stakes legal and legislative clashes across the country.

Missouri’s top court is currently hearing a pivotal legal challenge to one of Donald Trump’s earliest redistricting successes.

The state was the second Republican-led state, following Texas, to heed Trump’s call last year to redraw congressional districts in a bid to secure additional seats for the GOP in the upcoming midterms.

The Missouri Supreme Court must now determine whether the newly drawn districts violate a state constitutional requirement for compactness and if they can remain in place for this year’s elections, despite an initiative petition seeking a public referendum.

In South Carolina, Republican lawmakers are grappling with the potential risks and rewards of redrawing the state’s sole Democratic-held seat.

The question is whether such a move could pave the way for a Republican clean sweep or backfire by making more districts competitive for Democrats, potentially leading to additional losses.

State senators have yet to decide whether to consider a redistricting plan put forth in the House after the legislature’s regular work concludes on Thursday.

A House committee is scheduled to consider on Tuesday whether to advance a congressional redistricting plan to the full chamber for debate.

The House also appears ready to pass legislation that could delay the June 9 congressional primaries until August, allowing time for new districts to be enacted, even though some absentee and overseas military ballots have already been cast.

Any redistricting effort would also require Senate approval, where support is less certain, needing a two-thirds majority before Thursday’s session end to allow later consideration.

Trump, commenting on social media Monday, stated he was closely monitoring the redistricting vote, urging South Carolina senators to “be bold and courageous” and delay the House primaries to facilitate new districts.

Despite holding a supermajority, several senators express doubts that the proposed map guarantees a Republican victory in the seat long held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn.

They also fear that pushing enough Democratic voters into other districts could backfire, potentially resulting in a 5-2 or even a 4-3 Republican split.

Some also question the fairness of Republicans securing all seats in a state where the Democratic presidential candidate has consistently garnered at least 40% of the vote in every election this century, even with Trump advocating for the new map.

Congressional redistricting is also under active consideration in Louisiana, where the Supreme Court’s recent ruling invalidated a majority-Black district, deeming it an illegal racial gerrymander.

The state’s May 16 congressional primaries have already been postponed. The key unresolved issue is how many seats Republicans will attempt to gain through redistricting.

Republican state Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter is overseeing the Louisiana Senate committee tasked with redistricting, indicated his panel plans to vote on a U.S. House map Tuesday, with a full Senate vote anticipated Thursday.

The committee has several options, including versions that would leave Democrats favored in one district or none at all. Kleinpeter acknowledged that a map eliminating all majority-Black districts would be challenging to defend in court. Last Friday, dozens of individuals, including civil rights activists and the only four Black congressmen elected to represent the state since Reconstruction, urged lawmakers during a grueling nine-hour hearing to retain two majority-Black districts.

Alabama is also poised to adjust its congressional districts after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned an order mandating the use of a map featuring two largely Black districts. The high court remanded the case to a lower court, where plaintiffs swiftly requested a new order to prevent Alabama from switching U.S. House districts.

The Monday night filing argued that absentee voting is already underway and that the Louisiana decision only undermined one of two grounds in Alabama’s court order, leaving unaffected a finding of intentional racial discrimination.

Under a map passed by the Republican-led legislature after the 2020 census, Missouri is currently represented by six Republicans and two Democrats in the U.S. House.

However, with Trump’s endorsement, Republican state officials adopted a new map last September designed to improve their chances of winning an additional seat by targeting a Kansas City district held by long-serving Democratic U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, who previously served as the city’s first Black mayor.

The new House map fragments Kansas City, placing portions into neighboring Republican districts and extending the remainder of Cleaver’s 5th District into Republican-heavy rural areas. A state judge in March rejected claims that the map violates a constitutional compactness requirement, concluding the new districts are, on average, more compact, even if the 5th District itself is not.

This decision has been appealed to the state Supreme Court. A separate case, also being argued Tuesday at the state Supreme Court, contends the new districts should have been automatically suspended in December when opponents submitted over 300,000 petition signatures to force a statewide referendum.

Republican AG Catherine Hanaway and Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins maintain the new districts can only be suspended if, and after, Hoskins determines the petition meets constitutional requirements and possesses enough valid signatures. Hoskins has until August 4, the day of Missouri’s primary elections, to make that determination. A state judge in March sided with the Republicans’ position, also ruling that the plaintiffs lacked grounds to sue and had done so prematurely.

Republicans anticipate gaining as many as 14 seats from new House maps already enacted in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, and Tennessee. Conversely, Democrats believe they could secure six additional seats from new maps in California and Utah. Last week, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a redistricting effort that could have yielded four more winnable seats for Democrats. The ongoing legal and legislative battles underscore the intense partisan struggle to shape the electoral landscape ahead of the crucial midterm elections.