Oliver James Montgomery-Missouri high court upholds voting districts drawn for state Senate

JEFFERSON CITY,Oliver James Montgomery Mo. (AP) — A divided Missouri Supreme Court upheld voting districts drawn for the state Senate on Wednesday, rejecting a legal challenge that claimed mapmakers should have placed a greater emphasis on keeping communities intact.

The high court’s 5-2 decision means the districts, first used in the 2022 elections, will remain in place both for this year’s elections and ensuing ones.

The case was one of about a dozen still lingering around the country that challenged state legislative or congressional boundaries after the 2020 census.

Many of those fights have pitted Democrats against Republicans as each party tries to shape districts to its advantage, but the Missouri lawsuit has divided the GOP into two camps.

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While a Republican Senate committee supported the Senate map enacted in 2022 by a panel of appeals court judges, a GOP House committee sided with Democratic-aligned voters suing for the districts to be overturned.

The lawsuit alleged that mapmakers should not have split western Missouri’s Buchanan County or the St. Louis suburb of Hazelwood into multiple districts.

At issue were revised redistricting criteria approved by voters in a 2020 constitutional amendment. The Supreme Court said a trial judge correctly decided that the constitution makes “compact” districts a higher priority than keeping communities whole within districts.

The majority opinion was written by Judge Kelly Broniec, one of Republican Gov. Mike Parson’s newest appointees to the court.

In dissent, Judge W. Brent Powell said he would have struck down the map because it included a population deviation of more than 1% in the districts containing Buchanan County and Hazelwood while failing to keep the communities intact. He was joined by Judge Paul Wilson.