Missouri Republicans have been transparent about their strategy to drag out the response to a challenge to their new 7-1 congressional map, with state Attorney General Catherine Hanaway (R) saying publicly during a radio interview earlier this year that “delay works in our favor.”
Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) proclaimed a petition voters brought to trigger a statewide veto vote on the new map “insufficient” Tuesday, claiming that it is unconstitutional to challenge gerrymanders under the referendum process.
People Not Politicians, the group that organized the petition and sent in “over three times” the number of signatures required to overcome any Republican meddling, filed a lawsuit challenging the insufficiency declaration in state court Tuesday afternoon.
“Eight months after we turned in the signatures, he has now discovered a legal problem,” People Not Politicians Executive Director Richard von Glahn said to reporters Wednesday. “This is frankly not a discovery after some meticulous research that he has done. It is, in fact, part of a pattern of his obstruction and attempts to thwart the will of the people.”
The group says it’s clear that the purpose of Hoskins’ foot dragging was to put the petition on ice until the elections are held under the 7-1 gerrymander. Tuesday’s primaries were conducted under that new map — in itself a legally dubious move.
If the courts side with People Not Politicians that Hoskins wrongly refused to certify the petition, the validity of the primary results is thrown into flux.
“There may have to be a court case on that if somebody wants to challenge the primary,” Chuck Hatfield-Stinson, legal counsel for the group, said Wednesday. “Because you don’t actually have to live in the congressional district in which you’re running, there is a possibility that courts would say, ‘well, we have a nominee.’”
“It’s possible there are vacancies that have occurred because of the improper election and the parties can fill those vacancies using the statutory process,” he added. “It’s possible that we would need to have another primary election.”
“This is a mess that Denny Hoskins created,” he said.
The group said that Missouri law sets a deadline of September 8 to change the ballots before the November election, so litigation will have to happen at light speed — all by Hoskin’s design.
When asked whether he expected Hoskins to try to slow walk the upcoming court process too, Hatfield-Stinson was succinct, pausing to sip out of a mug that read “we can’t fix stupid but we can give it a court date”: “Yes.”
