Late on September 4, Missouri asked the U.S. Supreme Court to restore the U.S. House district boundaries drawn by the 2025 legislature. Hoskins v Van Glahn, 26A304. Here is the filing. It starts by saying, “A federal-election-administration disaster is unfolding in Missouri.” It also says, “No court in American history has ever given such an extraordinary remedy, which inflicts unprecedented chaos on Missouri.”
The brief’s main point is that the primaries were held under the 2025 districts, so it is unthinkable to have the general election using the older district boundaries.
The brief does not mention at least two instances in the past when courts did invalidate U.S. House district boundaries after the primary was over, and yet the general election was held in new districts. One was in Georgia in 1982, when a 3-judge court in Busbee v Smith struck down the boundaries on August 24, even though the primaries had been held on August 10. The solution in that case was to create a later primary in those two districts and also to delay the general election in those two districts until November 30.
The other instance was in Texas in 1996, when the primary was held on March 12 and the districts were struck down on August 6 in Vera v Bush. The solution was to hold non-partisan primaries for the altered districts in November, with a run-off general election on December 10.
The Republican Party, an intervenor in the case, filed this brief.
Both the state’s brief and the Republican brief assert that all candidates must be nominated in primaries. However, when they quote section 115.339, they don’t include the complete law. They chop off the preliminary phrase, “Except as otherwise provided in this subchapter.” New parties in Missouri nominate by convention.
Both the state’s brief and the Republican brief are contemptuous of the state’s referendum process. They sneeringly say a referendum only requires the signatures of 3.3% of the number of registered voters. The state’s brief says this nine times.
