Missouri official rejects referendum on GOP congressional map

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins said Tuesday he will not certify a voter referendum seeking to overturn the state’s new Republican-drawn congressional map, calling the effort unconstitutional and setting up another court fight over the boundaries being used in this year’s elections.

Hoskins, a Republican, announced the decision on Missouri’s primary day, the statutory deadline for his office to act. The primaries are being held under the new map, which lawmakers approved 11 months ago and which reshapes one of Missouri’s two Democratic-held congressional districts.

“After careful consideration, I have determined the challenge to the new ‘Missouri First’ congressional map to be insufficient based on its unconstitutionality,” Hoskins told NBC News before his public announcement.

At a news conference, Hoskins said the dispute was not about whether organizers had submitted enough petition signatures. “At issue is not the number of signatures turned in to challenge the new congressional map, but the fact that the referendum itself is null and void by virtue of the fact that it is unconstitutional,” he said, according to Talking Points Memo. “Therefore House Bill 1 — the ‘Missouri First’ map — continues to be the law of the land.”

Missouri law allows voters to block laws by gathering enough petition signatures and then winning a majority in a statewide election. NBC News reported that this year’s threshold is about 106,000 signatures distributed across the state. People Not Politicians Missouri, the group behind the referendum effort, said it collected more than 300,000 signatures.

Hoskins declined Tuesday to say whether the campaign had gathered enough valid signatures. Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri, said records from election officials showed the group had more than enough signatures and said it would sue.

“Secretary of State Hoskins is making a last desperate attempt to silence the people’s voice in Missouri,” von Glahn said in a statement. “We’ve fought back against politicians for the last year, and we won’t stop now. There are more than enough signatures, verified by election authorities, to qualify the referendum.”

Hoskins said he believes the Missouri Constitution, state law and the U.S. Constitution bar a referendum on a congressional redistricting plan. He said Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway and Gov. Mike Kehoe, both Republicans, agree with him. “There is no doubt in my mind that I will be challenged on this,” he said.

The new map was part of a push led by President Donald Trump for Republican-led states to redraw congressional lines to protect the party’s narrow U.S. House majority ahead of the midterm elections, NBC News reported. Talking Points Memo reported that the plan changes Missouri’s congressional alignment from six Republican-leaning seats and two Democratic-leaning seats to seven Republican-leaning seats and one Democratic-leaning seat, eliminating Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City-based Democratic seat.

Opponents of the map have accused state officials of delaying the referendum process. Last year, Hoskins said signatures collected before the campaign was formally approved by his office were invalid and constituted “a misdemeanor election offense,” though his office later acknowledged such efforts were “not a crime,” NBC News reported.

The Missouri Supreme Court previously declined to force Hoskins to act sooner and ruled that the map was not automatically suspended when signatures were submitted. NBC News reported that the court said if the referendum were found to have enough signatures, the new map would be suspended retroactively.

If the referendum had been certified, the map would have been paused until voters decided its fate. Hoskins said that could have left Missouri using different maps for the primary and general elections, but he argued the timing is too tight.

“We could run the general election on a different map than the primary,” Hoskins said. “However, I’m hopeful that the courts will decide in my favor. I’m the chief election officer. I believe that it is too close to the November election.”