Missouri state officials filed a lawsuit Wednesday aimed at blocking voters’ efforts to invoke their constitutional right to veto the state legislature’s new gerrymandered congressional map.
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office filed the lawsuit on behalf of the State of Missouri, the Missouri General Assembly and Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins. Hanaway was recently appointed to the role by Gov. Mike Kehoe (R), one month before Kehoe signed the rushed gerrymander into law.
The new map splits apart Black communities in Kansas City and absorbs them into GOP districts – and Missouri voters are challenging it in court.
Hanaway’s office in a Wednesday press release pointed a finger at “out-of-state dark money groups” that are “hijacking Missouri’s electoral process.” But the office provided no evidence for those claims, thereby putting the state in the unusual position of arguing Missouri voters are “silencing the will of Missouri’s elected representatives.”
The target of the lawsuit is People Not Politicians Missouri, the pro-voting coalition organizing the veto referendum. The group has said more than 2,400 Missourians have volunteered to gather signatures to help place the measure on the ballot.
Unlike in Texas – which also bent the knee to President Donald Trump this year by redrawing its map – Missouri voters have a right to block unpopular legislation themselves using a veto referendum process known as a “people’s veto.”
The Missouri constitution clearly states “the people…reserve power to approve or reject by referendum any act of the general assembly.” Some limits on that power include laws necessary for “immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety” and laws regarding financial appropriations or the maintenance of state institutions or public schools.
People Not Politicians did not immediately comment on the lawsuit.
Hanaway’s lawsuit claimed the referendum effort violates the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution, arguing only state legislatures have the power to prescribe the means by which congressional elections are held, including the map.
Hoskins and Hanaway previously rejected the petition on the grounds that it was filed prematurely before the gerrymander had been signed into law.
That objection appeared to be resolved Wednesday, when Hoskins announced he had approved the referendum petition – while also placing a new hurdle in its path by claiming any signatures gathered before his approval were invalid and constituted a “misdemeanor election offense.”
Petition organizers pushed back on Hoskins’ claim, saying he spread “false and misleading information” about the process “without citation or legal authority.” The state constitution only requires Missourians to submit a cover sheet before beginning to gather signatures, organizers said.
“We will not be intimidated or distracted,” Richard von Glahn, Executive Director of People Not Politicians Missouri, said in a statement Wednesday, before the lawsuit was announced. “This referendum will qualify, and Missourians – not politicians – will decide the future of fair representation in our state.”
