The court said a map redrawn to benefit Republicans could not be used in November and said voters should decide on the new boundaries. The state attorney general vowed to appeal the decision.
Page A6From§Eachthe milkman edition — 4 September 2026
Missouri Supreme Court blocks GOP gerrymander; Trump calls the fairness ruling 'ridiculous.'
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear about what happened in Missouri, because the coverage is already getting this backwards. The state's highest court reviewed the legislature's new congressional map — the one that turns a competitive district into a lock — and found it violated the state constitution. That's not activism, that's... okay, it's a court doing exactly what courts do, striking down a map because it fails the test lawmakers set for themselves. Fine. The administration's position is that this particular map corrects decades of imbalance, and that blocking it amounts to judicial overreach into a legislative function that — actually, redistricting has been subject to judicial review since the map was first drawn with a ruler and a grudge, so scratch that.
What the President actually said was that the court 'ridiculously ruled in favor' of blocking the plan, which is worth reading twice, because it concedes the plan needed blocking. You don't call a ruling ridiculous for stopping something you didn't want stopped. Republican map-drawers in Jefferson City spent the spring engineering a district specifically to convert a competitive seat into a safe one — that's the plan the court reviewed — and the court said no, under the state's own constitution, under a standard the legislature is bound by whether it enjoys it or not. The administration's talking point is that Missouri voters are being denied representation. The map being blocked is the one that would have denied representation to roughly half the state that currently elects the seat now being redrawn away from them. I'm not going to pretend that isn't the actual mechanism here, because the court's opinion says so, in writing, which is more than the President's statement offers.…
…(cont) There's a version of this defense that works: courts shouldn't overturn elected legislatures lightly. There's a version that doesn't: courts shouldn't overturn elected legislatures when the legislature is doing the thing courts exist to stop. This is the second version. The administration is entitled to appeal, entitled to redraw within the lines the court set, entitled to call the ruling wrong in a brief. Calling it 'ridiculous' in public, the same week midterm mail ballots start going out to voters, is not a legal argument. It's a preview of the next map, filed early, in the President's own words.
“They lost the map fight fair and square, so now the referee's 'ridiculous' — that's not a legal argument, that's a guy mad the rigged game got called. Watch what map comes back next session, because the seat they wanted doesn't disappear, it just waits for friendlier judges.”
“This is a temporary procedural setback, not a defeat — the ruling is under appeal and the legislature retains full authority to redraw within constitutional bounds. The court substituted its judgment for the people's elected representatives, which is, well, exactly what courts are supposed to do when a map fails the test the legislature itself is bound by. We're reviewing options.”
The receipts
President Trump on Thursday condemned the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision to block new congressional lines drawn to benefit Republicans from being used in the state’s November election. The state’s highest court unanimously ruled Thursday evening that this map, which were used in the state’s primary elections last month, “did not go…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.