Republican attacks on the Missouri Supreme Court may just be the beginning 

I was baffled when I saw that Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, represented by Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, had asked a federal district court for an injunction against the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri. 

Why would they risk infuriating the court that they regularly appear before with a weird gambit in federal court that was certain to fail? A gambit the U.S. Supreme Court had already indicated would fail?

Hoskins and Hanaway asked a single district judge to order the Missouri Supreme Court to halt contempt proceedings against Hoskins for his failure to abide by its order to conduct the midterm elections using Missouri’s 2022 map, rather than a further gerrymandered map passed by the legislature in 2025. Voters will have the opportunity to reject or approve the 2025 map in November.

The court had already indicated its displeasure with Hoskins in a lengthy footnote in that decision. Hoskins had argued that it was too late to switch back to the 2022 map because we used the 2025 map in the August primary. 

But as the court explained at length, Hoskins created that problem himself.

Hoskins appealed the order to use the 2022 map to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to reverse it. 

Missouri Republicans still wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. U.S Rep. Bob Onder and state Sen. Rick Brattin, filed a new case in federal court seeking an order directing Hoskins to use the 2025 map. Instead of defending the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision, Hoskins and Hanaway badmouthed it and consented to an order directing Hoskins not to use any map but the 2025 map.

Hoskins announced that he was forced to follow the federal court order he had asked for and directed election officials to use the 2025 map. What he should have done, as the Missouri Court explained when finding him in contempt, was nothing. He should have sought further direction from the court rather than treating the federal order as a command to put the 2025 map into effect.

The U.S. Supreme Court quickly stayed the federal court’s order. Though the U.S. Supreme Court had twice deferred to the Missouri Supreme Court on this issue of Missouri law, Republicans went on the attack against the unanimous, Republican-dominated Missouri Supreme Court.

Hoskins tweeted a post from President Trump calling the court’s ruling horrible and ridiculous, and himself accused the Court of igniting a constitutional crisis. Hoskins said of the judge who wrote the opinion: “She’s never run an election.” 

Hanaway went on a media tour criticizing the court. She excoriated it for its “unprecedented” ruling, despite the fact that she and Hoskins had created the unprecedented situation.

Members of the State Senate sent a letter to the chief justice threatening impeachment of any judge who voted to find Hoskins in contempt—which, it turned out, would mean all of them. 

In a filing asking the U.S. Supreme Court for a third time to put the 2025 map in place, Hanaway accused the Missouri Supreme Court of injecting chaos into the election, blaming the court for the delay and confusion caused by Hoskins’ actions. This, as one legal analyst noted, seems to be “a real issue of candor.” Lawyers, after all, have a professional duty of candor to courts.

At first, I thought this was an exceedingly stupid performance for President Trump, who demanded new maps. They knew they would lose, but this was the kind of fight Trump wanted to see.

But what I first thought was performative stupidity is something more sinister. Hanaway’s willingness to torch her good will and credibility with the court, and Republicans’ open threats, are extremely ominous. It says to me that they have abandoned trying to persuade the court and are instead trying to delegitimize it — laying the groundwork to dismantle it. 

A likely target is Missouri’s method of selecting judges known as “The Missouri Plan,” which has been adopted by over 30 other states. A nonpartisan commission selects three candidates, the governor chooses one and judges later face retention elections. 

The attacks on the court and calls to dismantle it are a rejection of the fundamental premise that the judiciary is a co-equal branch of government. Republicans want to make the judiciary a subservient branch that can be counted on to rule based on what MAGA wants rather than the law. That is an authoritarian rejection of our system of government.

Hanaway and Hoskins attacked the Missouri Supreme Court despite knowing the law wasn’t on their side. As the U.S. Supreme Court put it: “Given this Court’s two prior orders in this litigation, [this] should come as no surprise.” In a sharply worded order, the U.S. Supreme Court put the lower federal courts and Missouri officials who sought to evade its rulings in their place. 

This was a victory for the rule of law, despite the unconscionable waste of tax dollars spent fighting Missourians and the embarrassing national spectacle. But the danger hasn’t passed. Expect the judiciary to come under not just rhetorical, but legislative attack here as has happened in other states.

Fortunately, the Missouri Plan is in the Missouri Constitution. So they can try to take our courts, but those seeking to remake them will once again have to face the voters — and Missourians have gotten pretty savvy about politicians’ attempts to gut our rights.

This article was originally published by Missouri Independent and is republished by MetroSTL under a Creative Commons license. The reporting is the outlet’s; please support them.