Texas and Missouri are serving up opposite arguments about the impacts of swapping election maps between their primaries and the midterms, but whether that’s allowable or a constitutional crisis depends on which state you’re in and whether Republicans will benefit.
Missouri’s GOP state officials say they are taking the extraordinary step of asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule a unanimous Missouri Supreme Court decision Thursday barring the state from using its newly gerrymandered congressional map for the upcoming election.
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway and other state GOP figures are crying foul, saying reverting to the original House of Representatives districts will be confusing for voters who will now see different candidates in the general election than they did in the primaries.
In Texas, it’s the opposite. There, the Republicans redrew local voting maps for Galveston County after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act despite already holding the primary.