Missouri's top court orders a vote on its map; the state asks Kavanaugh, by name, to skip it.

…(cont) I want to try this myself before I judge it, so bear with me. I go down to the toll plaza on Route 9, the one with the E-ZPass lane and the cash lane side by side, because that's the closest thing in my own life to what's being described here — one lane for the ordinary way through, one lane built to move faster. Missouri's attorney general's office calls what's happening back home a "federal-election-administration disaster," right there in the application. The word in the filing is "disaster." Is that the word used for a ruling that went the state's way, or one that didn't? I'm only reading it back off the page.

Here's where I get turned around, and maybe you can straighten me out. On August 31st, the party's own campaign arms went to that same court asking it to step in on a television ad rate case — a different lane, same plaza. On September 2nd, Michigan officials went to that same court asking it to keep a citizenship measure off a ballot before voters ever saw it. On September 5th, Missouri went to that same court asking it to put a map back on the ballot the state's own justices had just taken off. Three trips to the same lane in five days — August 31st to September 5th. Is that the first time that lane's seen traffic this month, or the third? I counted the dates out on my fingers twice because I didn't trust myself the first time. They're the dates. I'm only reading them in order.

So I keep coming back to the sentence, because I haven't found a better one: the state's own court said let the voters decide. And the state's own lawyers, that same week, asked a different court — a higher one — to decide instead, and skip the voters altogether. Not overturn the ruling on the merits, as far as the application spells out. Skip the vote. Is that what an emergency application is supposed to do? I've read the receipts twice looking for the part where they explain why an election needs to be an emergency in the first place, and I haven't found it yet. Maybe it's further down.

Oh — excuse me, before you go. One thing's been sitting with me since the top of this. The application doesn't go to the whole Court. It's addressed to a single justice, by name — Brett Kavanaugh — and the receipts don't say why him, only that that's the address on the filing. Is that the same map the state's own justices said the voters should get to decide? Read the caption. It's the same map.