👨🏼⚖️Sr. Director of Redistricting @campaignlegal. Father of Reba 🐾. Aspiring baker/sitcom actor. 🏳️🌈Views my own.
Washington, D.C.
Joined February 2010
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“It’s disappointing we used an unlawful map in the primary in a misguided scheme to have an illegal general election.” - fixed it for you!
It is disappointing that today’s decision by the United States Supreme Court means Missouri will conduct its November general election under a different congressional map than its primary election.
Voters deserved consistency and certainty, and not for the rules to be changed between elections.
Nevertheless, Missouri will follow the Court’s order.
Two notable things from SCOTUS: 1) it should have been “no surprise” to CA8 and the district court that they were wrong to defy two SCOTUS orders and 2) SOS Hoskins is to blame, not the Mo. S.Ct. Broader message - neither Supreme Court will be a tool in SOS’s bad faith delay.
As we await SCOTUS re Missouri, consider how non judicious CA8’s conduct is. The only adverse party was before the district court for *2 hrs* total. No one moved for judgment or a permanent inj. CA8 declared the trial proceedings done so they could bypass SCOTUS stay. 1/
It is implausible to read the SCOTUS stay of the TRO as a plea to CA8 to change the title on the injunction, keep the exact same relief, and issue it CLOSER to the election and after voting started. 6/
The 8th Circuit cannot convert an appeal of a TRO re Missouri's map into a final merits decision and order the precise same relief SCOTUS has already stayed. It's difficult to summon sufficient words to describe how egregious that is. Our 3rd SCOTUS brief: supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/2…
A single federal judge has issued an order that either (1) has the effect of leaving NO congressional map for MO or (2) imposes a map that is "not law" and that only a 3-judge court is empowered to impose. As we tell SCOTUS tonight, just no. supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/2…
This is the prototypical violation of Purcell - the rule that federal courts can't interfere with state elections on their eve. The district court has left NO MAP IN PLACE because he didn't restrain the effect of the state supreme court's inunction (and couldn't).
The MO SOS is very much in contempt of court. The federal district court TRO (countdown until it's stayed) does not affirmatively authorize the use of the 2025 map. It simply restrains him from using any other map. But the MO S. Ct. has enjoined the use of the 2025 map. 1/6
The federal judge has no power to issue a TRO *mandating* the use of the 2025 map. That wouldn't be a TRO, but a positive injunction requiring the map as a federal judicial remedy. The federal court TRO by its terms doesn't purport to compel the use of the 2025 map. 2/6
The 2025 map is nothing. It is not law. It's as if it never existed. So it would be a judicial remedial map imposed by a federal court based upon an asserted constitutional violation. A district court judge acting alone has no power to compel that. 5/6