The group behind an effort to force a statewide vote on Missouri Republicans’ 7-1 gerrymander filed a new lawsuit Tuesday night challenging the Secretary of State’s finding earlier in the day that its petition is “insufficient.”
Missouri law lets voters block legislation if they gather enough signatures on a petition and win a subsequent statewide vote.
Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R), who dragged the certification process out as long as legally possible — until Missouri’s primary day Tuesday — said that the petition was insufficient not because of the number of signatures turned in, but because, he claimed, it is unconstitutional to challenge a map under the referendum process.
People Not Politics, the group behind the petition, filed a lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court hours after Hoskin’s announcement. TPM obtained a copy; the lawsuit is not yet on the public docket.
In the lawsuit, the group argued that there are specific exceptions from the referendum process — including emergency laws and appropriations — but that maps do not fall into those categories.
“Like the Missouri Constitution, the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit a state from subjecting a redistricting bill to the referendum,” it said.
The lawsuit quoted Moore v. Harper, the recent Supreme Court case in which the justices rejected the independent state legislature theory, which held that legislatures enjoy exclusive power over setting federal election rules without oversight from state courts, governors’ vetoes or referendum processes.
“Put simply: ‘A state legislature may not create congressional districts independently of requirements imposed by the state constitution with respect to the enactment of laws,’” it said.
The case will likely reach the state Supreme Court. Various challenges — including efforts to find the new gerrymander unconstitutional, and to force Hoskins to move faster in the certification process — have already made it up to the Supreme Court, and been unsuccessful.
The new gerrymander would change the state’s congressional delegation from a 6-2 Republican advantage to a 7-1 edge by erasing one of its majority-Democratic, majority-Black seats.
Read the lawsuit here:
