Missouri court orders voters decide congressional map; state asks one Supreme Court justice to decide it instead.

…(cont) So if I'm the state, and my own court just told me the voters get this one, what's my next move? Do I put it on a ballot? Do I wait for November like the court said? Or do I file an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court — not to the whole Court, the way I figured that worked, nine names on a page — but to one justice, named directly, asking him to put the old map back before anyone gets a chance to vote on the new one?

Because that's what the filing does, according to the report that ran alongside it. An emergency application. Justice Kavanaugh's name is on it. The ask is to overturn the state court's block before the election. Is that the normal door, or a different one?

I went out to the garage after I read it, because I wanted to check something in the toolbox. The drawers aren't labeled the same, but if I need a socket, I open the drawer — I don't walk up to one particular socket lying loose on the bench and ask it to do the whole job by itself while the rest of the set stays in the case. Why does asking one member of a nine-member court look, to me, like asking the loose socket?

And since I was already out there, I got to thinking about who else has been standing at that same courthouse door lately. On August 25th, by one account, the Court's own majority had already cleared the way for the fight over mail voting — a "painful setback," is how the outlet covering it described the result for the people fighting it. On the 28th, it's the administration, asking the Court to let the Pentagon enforce a ban on transgender troops. On the 31st, it's the GOP's own campaign arms, asking to get the same cheap television ad rate the candidates get, ahead of the midterms. On September 2nd, it's Michigan, this time asking the Court to keep a different measure off its own ballot. And today, the 5th, it's Missouri, with a name attached.

That's eleven days. Five stops at the same building. Is that ordinary traffic for a court, or a lot of people in a hurry?

My dog's asleep on the porch through all of this, not helping, which is about the level of engagement I can offer most weeks. But even she'd notice if the same car pulled up five times in eleven days asking to be let in early.

Oh — one more thing, before you go. The state's own court said the new map goes to the voters in November. The state's own filing doesn't ask the voters anything at all. It asks a justice. By name. So which is it — did the voters get the map, or did the map just get one more name added to the file?