JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (CN) — A split Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday affirmed a state court’s judgment that a Senate redistricting map was constitutional.
Clara Faatz and William Caldwell filed a lawsuit in Cole County in July 2022, claiming the map was unconstitutional and seeking an injunction prohibiting its use. A major part of their argument was that a judicial redistricting committee, in the cases of Buchanan County and the city of Hazelwood, violated a constitutional standard by deviating by more than 1% from the ideal population, while not following political subdivisions like cities or counties.
In a 5-2 decision, the state high court found that the new voting map, which split Buchanan County and the Hazelwood into different districts, did not violate Missouri’s redistricting requirements including the 1% deviation requirement.
“Appellants allege a multitude of facts showing the violation of the community preservation requirement, including that the Senate Map divides Buchanan County and Hazelwood, that the Senate map divides communities, and that it is possible to design a map in a way that does not split Buchanan County or Hazelwood,” Justice Kelly C. Broniec wrote in the majority opinion. “By contrast, nowhere in appellants’ amended petition do they state any facts showing the violation of the population provision.”
Chuck Hatfield, of Stinson LLP, argued on behalf of the plaintiffs and told Courthouse News that the decision represents a shift in how the maps are drawn putting more emphasis in compactness rather than following city or county lines.
“The house districts, which were not challenged in this lawsuit, were not drawn using the interpretation of law the Supreme Court announced today, and I think a lot of the Senate districts were drawn in a way that is not consistent with the law that was announced today,” Hatfield said in an interview. “So, I think that this is going to cause a lot of discussion about whether some of our other legislative districts are unconstitutionally drawn more importantly, it's going to cause a paradigm shift in the way districts are drawn in the next redistricting, which will occur in 2030.”
The Missouri Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Every 10 years, Missouri redraws its state legislative districts to ensure fair representation. In 2022, Governor Mike Parson, a Republican, appointed an independent bipartisan citizens commission to draw a map of the state Senate districts based on 2020 federal census data. But that committee could not come to an agreement for a new map, forcing the state court to appoint a judicial redistricting commission composed of six appellate judges.
In March 2022, that commission submitted its map dividing the state into 34 Senate districts. Buchanan County, north of Kansas City, was divided into two districts — District 12 and District 34 — and the city of Hazelwood, in suburban St. Louis, was also split across districts — District 13 and District 14.
“Nothing in the language of these subdivisions suggests that every time community preservation is challenged in a district in any way, the equal population of the district and compactness of the district are also challenged by implication,” Broniec wrote. “To conclude otherwise would violate this Court’s precedent establishing that parties must ‘designate specifically the constitutional provision claimed to have been violated’ and ‘state the facts showing the violation.’”
The majority also shot down plaintiffs’ argument that the new map did not satisfy a compactness requirement for districts, noting the expert testimony on legislative map drawing provided by the state at trial.
“Based on the expert’s testimony, the circuit court further found, ‘the higher the Convex Hull score, the more it complies with the Missouri Constitution’s compactness criteria,’” Broniec wrote. “As to appellants’ expert, the circuit court found that he was not helpful because he could not testify as to how the computer program on which he relied calculated its results.”
Chief Justice Mary R. Russell and Justices Zel M. Fischer, Robin Ransom and Ginger K. Gooch concurred with Broniec in the majority.
In his dissention, Justice W. Brent Powell found the map to be unconstitutional because it contained more than a 1% deviation and fails to preserve communities in Buchanan County and Hazelwood.
“What is fundamentally clear from appellants’ challenge to the Senate map is their vote has been diluted,” Powell wrote. “Their communities, Buchanan County and Hazelwood, have not been preserved, and, as a result, they are unable to vote in unison with their neighbors to voice the concerns and desires of their individual communities. Even more troubling, the districts containing their divided communities have larger populations than many other Senate districts and dilute the vote of the individual members of their communities.”
Justice Paul C. Wilson concurred with Powell in the dissent.
Hatfield, the plaintiffs' attorney, believes the decision will have long term implications. He noted that the state’s high court emphasized the map drawing priority specified in the constitution, which places an importance on fair racial representation.
“I think folks will argue in the future that you should draw as many what we call majority minority districts,” Hatfield said in an interview. “In other words, districts that have a majority of people who are minorities, we should draw as many of those as possible and not worry about where the lines of the city of St. Louis or St. Louis County fall on, for example.”
Follow @@joeharris_stl
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
-
GOP sues Nevada over late mail-in ballots May 3, 2024