Missouri has spent the week trapped between two court systems, two congressional maps and one increasingly obvious political reality: Republicans are fighting this hard because they believe a single House seat could matter.
That was the point Anne P. Mitchell and I kept coming back to when we spoke Thursday. The Republican-backed map was designed to make Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City district much harder to hold. “This is just one seat,” I said during our conversation. “That’s all they’re basically fighting over.”
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And then the fight became extraordinary.
Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins had been caught between conflicting orders. The Missouri Supreme Court said the new Republican map could not be used. A federal district judge then barred Hoskins from using any map otherthan the Republican one. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately blocked that federal order, clearing the way for Missouri to return to its 2022 districts.
Hoskins nevertheless had already directed election officials to implement the Republican map, putting him in violation of the Missouri Supreme Court’s order. Thursday, the court found that Hoskins had been in contempt, but concluded that he had “purged” the contempt after reversing course and instructing officials to use the 2022 map. No penalty was imposed.
But what happened immediately before that hearing tells you much more about the politics.
Fourteen Republican Missouri legislators sent Chief Justice W. Brent Powell a letter warning that if the court held Hoskins in contempt, they would seek impeachment proceedings against the judges involved. Anne walked through the letter on our broadcast. “They’re all Republicans,” she noted after I asked about the signatories.
The threat did not work. The court made the contempt finding anyway.
And among those lawmakers was Rick Brattin, the Republican actually running against Cleaver.
That matters.
Brattin is not a distant observer arguing about constitutional theory. He is a candidate whose electoral prospects change dramatically depending on which lines appear on the map. Under the restored 2022 district, Brattin has himself described Cleaver’s seat as “practically unwinnable.” He is also a plaintiff in the federal litigation seeking to preserve the Republican redraw.
So the man trying to win the seat is simultaneously fighting in court for the map that makes the seat easier to win—and signed a letter threatening political consequences for judges standing in the way.
There is another reason Republicans may be so anxious.
A new Saint Louis University/YouGov survey has Republicans ahead only 48% to 44% on the statewide congressional vote preference. Earlier this year, the same poll had the GOP advantage at 53% to 38%. Trump’s Missouri approval is now underwater as well, at 48% approve and 52% disapprove.
Missouri is still a Republican state. That is not the point.
The point is the margin.
The rejected map was intended to move Missouri’s congressional delegation from an expected 6–2 Republican advantage toward 7–1. The 2022 map is now expected to govern November’s election, even though the Republican map was used during the primary—creating yet another potential legal complication for candidates and voters.
Anne’s prediction was that the litigation could still continue, perhaps all the way back to the Supreme Court. But with ballots approaching, time itself is becoming part of the case.
That may be the real lesson from Missouri.
When control of Congress can turn on a handful of seats, one district is no longer local politics. It becomes a national emergency for the party that thinks it is losing.
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