Missouri asks the Supreme Court to put a Trump map back on the ballot

Missouri’s attorney general asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday night to restore a House map drawn for Republicans and already used in the August primary. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles the state’s emergencies, set a response from the challengers for noon Monday. The state wants an answer by September 14, when overseas and military ballots have to go in the mail.

The building in the photograph is Jefferson City’s: the Supreme Court of Missouri, red brick from Mexico, Mo., above High Street. Five of its seven justices were appointed by Republican governors. They ruled unanimously Thursday that the new lines never took effect. A referendum petition was legal, sufficient and timely, they said, so the 2022 map remains the law until voters say otherwise.

Attorney General Catherine Hanaway told the justices in Washington that switching maps between primary and general would “inflict unprecedented chaos,” moving hundreds of thousands of voters into districts whose nominees they did not choose. The 2025 map, adopted at the president’s request, sliced Kansas City to unseat Representative Emanuel Cleaver. Trump called the state ruling “Ancient History.” The Politics desk files a midterm that is now a race against a mailing deadline.

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