{"id":162614,"date":"2026-09-11T07:21:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T15:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/11\/supreme-court-to-missouri-republicans-shut-up\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T07:21:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T15:21:36","slug":"supreme-court-to-missouri-republicans-shut-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/11\/supreme-court-to-missouri-republicans-shut-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court To Missouri Republicans: Shut Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

It took a little under 45 minutes for the United States Supreme Court to tell Missouri Republicans to sit down and shut up<\/a>. With no noted dissents, SCOTUS stayed the dubious district court order that Republicans hoped might allow them to ramrod a new legislative map to erase one of the state\u2019s two Black representatives. Along the way, the redistricting effort took us on a wild ride befitting a civil procedure issue-spotter exam, with state Republicans and their coterie of nitwit Federalist Society lawyers playing procedural shell games and even threatening to impeach any state judge who disagreed with them. <\/p>\n

Following today\u2019s decision, Missouri\u2019s Secretary of State filed a letter with the state supreme court acknowledging that he will finally agree to follow Missouri law<\/a> and stick with the existing map for the upcoming election. All it took was a Missouri Supreme Court opinion, TWO U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and the threat of a contempt charge to get Republicans to this point.<\/p>\n

They call themselves the Show Me State, and apparently they need to be shown multiple times<\/em> for it to sink in.<\/p>\n

This saga began when Donald Trump floated that Republican states might salvage the party\u2019s doomed midterms by redrawing maps mid-cycle. Missouri obliged in September 2025 with a map carving up Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver\u2019s Kansas City district. In December, People Not Politicians duly submitted 300,000 signatures calling for a referendum to veto the new map legislation. Under Missouri law, that was enough to get the matter on the ballot, and freeze the old map in place until that statewide vote.<\/p>\n

Republicans would, probably, win that vote. But, it would prevent them from using the new map in this<\/em> election. Realizing that they might not be able to hand Trump an additional gerrymandered seat in time for the midterms, state Republicans chose to JUST IGNORE THE LAW. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins sat on the petition for almost eight months, then magically declared it insufficient on August 4. That marked the statutory deadline and<\/em> also happened to be primary day. So the primaries ran on the new map. Attorney General Catherine Hanaway explained back in January<\/a> that the plan was to drag it out until the last minute. \u201cAs long as the status quo is the new maps, delay works in our favor,\u201d she said, explaining a conspiracy to circumvent state law, which is not usually how lawyers operate, but to each their own.<\/p>\n

As soon as the Republicans actually rejected the petition, opponents went to court. On September 3, a unanimous Missouri Supreme Court ruled<\/a> that the new map \u201cis not the law and has never been the law.\u201d Hoskins then took it to the U.S. Supreme Court \u2014 the only court with the legal authority to review that judgment \u2014 and on Tuesday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied the application<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the world of procedure you learned in your first year of law school, that marked the end of it. But, conservatives had other ideas! Based upon legal research collected from a 3-year-old, Missouri Republicans tried to ask Dad after Mom said no.<\/p>\n

On the same day Hoskins filed at the Supreme Court, Rep. Bob Onder, state Sen. Rick Brattin, and two voters filed a federal lawsuit against Hoskins<\/a>, seeking a ruling to force Hoskins to use the new map. The next day, Hoskins filed a statement supporting<\/em> the lawsuit against himself. On Tuesday, the plaintiffs alerted Chief U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark of the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling refusing to disturb the Missouri supreme court\u2019s state law ruling barring the use of the new map, and less than 15 minutes later Clark, a Trump appointee, issued a 13-page TRO<\/a> barring Hoskins from using any map other<\/em> than the new one. He did not even bother to hear argument. <\/p>\n

The strategy \u2014 using the word very loosely \u2014 was to force the issue by presenting the Supreme Court with impossibly conflicting orders. <\/p>\n

Though, if you want a laugh, there are conservatives on social media actually trying to claim that the orders did not conflict. Alas, being ordered to NOT use the map and to simultaneously USE that same map only avoids conflict in the world of Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s injunctions.<\/p>\n

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Hot take, but the way to resolve conflicting injunctions from competing state and federal courts is an appeal to the only court with authority over both of them. I don\u2019t see why the state court needs to stay its hand because a federal court made a conflicting ruling. The\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/3pARhwAu3k<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Ilan Wurman (@ilan_wurman) September 10, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

It is a hot take in that it\u2019s incredibly stupid. The Supreme Court doesn\u2019t want to settle constant conflicts between state and federal courts, which is why they created the Rooker-Feldman<\/em> doctrine in the first place<\/em>. The Supreme Court has explicitly rejected the idea that litigants can run to a district court to get a second bite after losing at the state court level. This is why Hoskins isn\u2019t the named plaintiff in the federal lawsuit \u2014 the Supreme Court has also ruled that Rooker-Feldman<\/em> technically only binds the exact same parties. BUT, employing Potemkin plaintiffs was never a move that the Supreme Court was likely to reward for the effort.<\/p>\n

But it gets worse! Federal law requires a three-judge court for any action \u201cchallenging the constitutionality of the apportionment of congressional districts.\u201d A single judge can issue a TRO to hold the fort until the panel convenes, but Clark never asked for a panel<\/em>. Then his \u201ctemporary\u201d order ran past the date the state already represented that it needed a final map to mail overseas ballots, making this less a TRO than final decision in a trench coat. <\/p>\n

Clark\u2019s decision admitted that voters had the right to take the decision to a referendum, he just ordered the state to use the challenged map anyway. Isn\u2019t this what Purcell<\/em> exists to forbid:<\/p>\n

\n

Admittedly, courts normally invoke the Purcell principle to caution against federal-court intervention in the election decisions of state legislatures, and no federal court has ordered the use of the 2022 map. But Purcell does not cut against injunctive relief here. This case presents Purcell in reverse, but with no less weight.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What the hell does that mean? While perfectly acceptable as an Uno tactic, the Reverse card doesn\u2019t enjoy robust support in constitutional jurisprudence. Clark\u2019s ruling suggested that the new map represented the status quo, but it couldn\u2019t be the status quo<\/a> because it legally never existed. The decision amounted to \u201cwell, since you already broke the law, you may as well keep breaking the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which, of course, was the bumbling plan AG Hanaway outlined in January. <\/p>\n

This should\u2019ve died immediately upon appeal, except Missouri resides in the Eighth Circuit, an appellate court currently in a \u201chold my beer\u201d contest with the Fifth Circuit to spit out and rewrite American law into the Trumpeonic Code. With a panel of Trump appointees David Stras and Justin Smith plus George H.W. Bush appointee James Loken, they rubberstamped the district court<\/a> with a single sentence:<\/p>\n

\n

The motion for a stay pending appeal is denied because we either lack jurisdiction over the appeal or, based on the briefing we have so far, the stay factors have not been met.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, denied because\u2026 well, we don\u2019t have to be bothered with those details.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Hoskins told county clerks that Clark\u2019s order \u201ctakes precedence.\u201d Then the Missouri Supreme Court fired off an order to show cause why Hoskins shouldn\u2019t be held in contempt for flagrantly violating the state law order. Hoskins responded by respectfully posting to X<\/a> that \u201cThe Show Me State will not be run into the ground like the communists running NYC on my watch.\u201d <\/p>\n

Then he asked Clark to block the Missouri Supreme Court from holding him in contempt. Even Clark said no to that one<\/a>, seemingly realizing that he\u2019d thrown himself into a legally questionable pissing match against a state supreme court and hadn\u2019t brought an umbrella.<\/p>\n

All this brings us back to the U.S. Supreme Court. <\/p>\n

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Missouri has filed its brief at SCOTUS asking them to leave the 2025 congressional map used for the primary in place. 4\/4 federal judges to consider this issue have agreed; hopefully SCOTUS does too. I\u2019m thankful to my team for staying up all night on this. They\u2019re patriots.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Louis Capozzi (@CitizenCapozzi) September 10, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

They\u2019re patriots to the extent they ill-advisedly lobbed up a turnover<\/a>. That\u2019s Missouri\u2019s solicitor general, who graduated from law school in 2019. <\/p>\n

With apologies to Meat Loaf, the Supreme Court\u2019s conservative majority said, \u201cwe\u2019ll do anything for Trump\u2026 but we won\u2019t do that.\u201d And by that<\/em>, they mean allow lower court judges to act like they get to second-guess Supreme Court rulings by playing fast and loose with Civ Pro. The Court stayed Clark\u2019s order<\/a> Thursday morning, effectively ruling for the second time in a week that the Missouri Supreme Court decides Missouri law. No noted dissents. By early afternoon, Hoskins was telling election officials to use the 2022 map and wrote the state supreme court that he planned to follow the law so there\u2019s no more reason to hold him in contempt for attempting an end run around the law.<\/p>\n

The Missouri Supreme Court\u2026 disagreed:<\/p>\n

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UPDATE: The Missouri Supreme Court found at an afternoon hearing that Secretary of State Denny Hoskins was in contempt of court, but that he purged such contempt by directing the use of the 2022 congressional map. A written order will issue later. https:\/\/t.co\/gjecI0r2IA<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) September 10, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Hoskins avoids consequences for contempt, but the state justices were not letting it get swept under the rug.<\/p>\n

What a week, huh?<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/strong>: Astoundingly, the Eighth Circuit has heard the Supreme Court twice and decided maybe there\u2019s still a way to beat this decaying horse:<\/p>\n

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NEW: The Eighth Circuit has expedited its review of the Missouri congressional map dispute following the Supreme Court\u2019s stay. Merits briefs are due Tuesday, with remote oral argument set for Thursday, Sept. 17. https:\/\/t.co\/BRHN9wxczv<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/aAtv7FhczG<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) September 10, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: The Supreme Court Wouldn\u2019t Save Missouri\u2019s Gerrymander, A Trump Judge Did It Anyway<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Supreme Court To Missouri Republicans: Shut Up<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Photographer: Stefani Reynolds\/Bloomberg)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It took a little under 45 minutes for the United States Supreme Court to tell Missouri Republicans to sit down and shut up<\/a>. With no noted dissents, SCOTUS stayed the dubious district court order that Republicans hoped might allow them to ramrod a new legislative map to erase one of the state\u2019s two Black representatives. Along the way, the redistricting effort took us on a wild ride befitting a civil procedure issue-spotter exam, with state Republicans and their coterie of nitwit Federalist Society lawyers playing procedural shell games and even threatening to impeach any state judge who disagreed with them. <\/p>\n

Following today\u2019s decision, Missouri\u2019s Secretary of State filed a letter with the state supreme court acknowledging that he will finally agree to follow Missouri law<\/a> and stick with the existing map for the upcoming election. All it took was a Missouri Supreme Court opinion, TWO U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and the threat of a contempt charge to get Republicans to this point.<\/p>\n

They call themselves the Show Me State, and apparently they need to be shown multiple times<\/em> for it to sink in.<\/p>\n

This saga began when Donald Trump floated that Republican states might salvage the party\u2019s doomed midterms by redrawing maps mid-cycle. Missouri obliged in September 2025 with a map carving up Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver\u2019s Kansas City district. In December, People Not Politicians duly submitted 300,000 signatures calling for a referendum to veto the new map legislation. Under Missouri law, that was enough to get the matter on the ballot, and freeze the old map in place until that statewide vote.<\/p>\n

Republicans would, probably, win that vote. But, it would prevent them from using the new map in this<\/em> election. Realizing that they might not be able to hand Trump an additional gerrymandered seat in time for the midterms, state Republicans chose to JUST IGNORE THE LAW. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins sat on the petition for almost eight months, then magically declared it insufficient on August 4. That marked the statutory deadline and<\/em> also happened to be primary day. So the primaries ran on the new map. Attorney General Catherine Hanaway explained back in January<\/a> that the plan was to drag it out until the last minute. \u201cAs long as the status quo is the new maps, delay works in our favor,\u201d she said, explaining a conspiracy to circumvent state law, which is not usually how lawyers operate, but to each their own.<\/p>\n

As soon as the Republicans actually rejected the petition, opponents went to court. On September 3, a unanimous Missouri Supreme Court ruled<\/a> that the new map \u201cis not the law and has never been the law.\u201d Hoskins then took it to the U.S. Supreme Court \u2014 the only court with the legal authority to review that judgment \u2014 and on Tuesday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied the application<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the world of procedure you learned in your first year of law school, that marked the end of it. But, conservatives had other ideas! Based upon legal research collected from a 3-year-old, Missouri Republicans tried to ask Dad after Mom said no.<\/p>\n

On the same day Hoskins filed at the Supreme Court, Rep. Bob Onder, state Sen. Rick Brattin, and two voters filed a federal lawsuit against Hoskins<\/a>, seeking a ruling to force Hoskins to use the new map. The next day, Hoskins filed a statement supporting<\/em> the lawsuit against himself. On Tuesday, the plaintiffs alerted Chief U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark of the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling refusing to disturb the Missouri supreme court\u2019s state law ruling barring the use of the new map, and less than 15 minutes later Clark, a Trump appointee, issued a 13-page TRO<\/a> barring Hoskins from using any map other<\/em> than the new one. He did not even bother to hear argument. <\/p>\n

The strategy \u2014 using the word very loosely \u2014 was to force the issue by presenting the Supreme Court with impossibly conflicting orders. <\/p>\n

Though, if you want a laugh, there are conservatives on social media actually trying to claim that the orders did not conflict. Alas, being ordered to NOT use the map and to simultaneously USE that same map only avoids conflict in the world of Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s injunctions.<\/p>\n

It is a hot take in that it\u2019s incredibly stupid. The Supreme Court doesn\u2019t want to settle constant conflicts between state and federal courts, which is why they created the Rooker-Feldman<\/em> doctrine in the first place<\/em>. The Supreme Court has explicitly rejected the idea that litigants can run to a district court to get a second bite after losing at the state court level. This is why Hoskins isn\u2019t the named plaintiff in the federal lawsuit \u2014 the Supreme Court has also ruled that Rooker-Feldman<\/em> technically only binds the exact same parties. BUT, employing Potemkin plaintiffs was never a move that the Supreme Court was likely to reward for the effort.<\/p>\n

But it gets worse! Federal law requires a three-judge court for any action \u201cchallenging the constitutionality of the apportionment of congressional districts.\u201d A single judge can issue a TRO to hold the fort until the panel convenes, but Clark never asked for a panel<\/em>. Then his \u201ctemporary\u201d order ran past the date the state already represented that it needed a final map to mail overseas ballots, making this less a TRO than final decision in a trench coat. <\/p>\n

Clark\u2019s decision admitted that voters had the right to take the decision to a referendum, he just ordered the state to use the challenged map anyway. Isn\u2019t this what Purcell<\/em> exists to forbid:<\/p>\n

\n

Admittedly, courts normally invoke the Purcell principle to caution against federal-court intervention in the election decisions of state legislatures, and no federal court has ordered the use of the 2022 map. But Purcell does not cut against injunctive relief here. This case presents Purcell in reverse, but with no less weight.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What the hell does that mean? While perfectly acceptable as an Uno tactic, the Reverse card doesn\u2019t enjoy robust support in constitutional jurisprudence. Clark\u2019s ruling suggested that the new map represented the status quo, but it couldn\u2019t be the status quo<\/a> because it legally never existed. The decision amounted to \u201cwell, since you already broke the law, you may as well keep breaking the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which, of course, was the bumbling plan AG Hanaway outlined in January. <\/p>\n

This should\u2019ve died immediately upon appeal, except Missouri resides in the Eighth Circuit, an appellate court currently in a \u201chold my beer\u201d contest with the Fifth Circuit to spit out and rewrite American law into the Trumpeonic Code. With a panel of Trump appointees David Stras and Justin Smith plus George H.W. Bush appointee James Loken, they rubberstamped the district court<\/a> with a single sentence:<\/p>\n

\n

The motion for a stay pending appeal is denied because we either lack jurisdiction over the appeal or, based on the briefing we have so far, the stay factors have not been met.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, denied because\u2026 well, we don\u2019t have to be bothered with those details.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Hoskins told county clerks that Clark\u2019s order \u201ctakes precedence.\u201d Then the Missouri Supreme Court fired off an order to show cause why Hoskins shouldn\u2019t be held in contempt for flagrantly violating the state law order. Hoskins responded by respectfully posting to X<\/a> that \u201cThe Show Me State will not be run into the ground like the communists running NYC on my watch.\u201d <\/p>\n

Then he asked Clark to block the Missouri Supreme Court from holding him in contempt. Even Clark said no to that one<\/a>, seemingly realizing that he\u2019d thrown himself into a legally questionable pissing match against a state supreme court and hadn\u2019t brought an umbrella.<\/p>\n

All this brings us back to the U.S. Supreme Court. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re patriots to the extent they ill-advisedly lobbed up a turnover<\/a>. That\u2019s Missouri\u2019s solicitor general, who graduated from law school in 2019. <\/p>\n

With apologies to Meat Loaf, the Supreme Court\u2019s conservative majority said, \u201cwe\u2019ll do anything for Trump\u2026 but we won\u2019t do that.\u201d And by that<\/em>, they mean allow lower court judges to act like they get to second-guess Supreme Court rulings by playing fast and loose with Civ Pro. The Court stayed Clark\u2019s order<\/a> Thursday morning, effectively ruling for the second time in a week that the Missouri Supreme Court decides Missouri law. No noted dissents. By early afternoon, Hoskins was telling election officials to use the 2022 map and wrote the state supreme court that he planned to follow the law so there\u2019s no more reason to hold him in contempt for attempting an end run around the law.<\/p>\n

The Missouri Supreme Court\u2026 disagreed:<\/p>\n

Hoskins avoids consequences for contempt, but the state justices were not letting it get swept under the rug.<\/p>\n

What a week, huh?<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: The Supreme Court Wouldn\u2019t Save Missouri\u2019s Gerrymander, A Trump Judge Did It Anyway<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It took a little under 45 minutes for the United States Supreme Court to tell Missouri Republicans to sit down and shut up. With no noted dissents, SCOTUS stayed the dubious district court order that Republicans hoped might allow them to ramrod a new legislative map to erase one of the state\u2019s two Black representatives. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}