136
There're a bunch of legal shenanigans that happened this afternoon on this topic. I'll try to summarize.
- Kavanaugh really did rule in favour of the democrat-leaning map. All by himself.
- The emergency application that Kavanaugh denied came to the supreme court on appeal to from the supreme court of Missouri.
- In a separate lawsuit in federal court, a federal district judge ruled in favour of the Republican map (forcing MO to change its behaviour with a court order). The main reasoning for this decision is the Purcell Principle. A rule that federal courts can't meddle with election maps right before an election.
- #3 happened just minutes after the Kavanaugh decision was posted.
- Despite that, the #3 decision does not disobey the Kavanaugh decision because it was decided on a different rationale. Also the Kavanaugh decision didn't come with an opinion.
- The #3 decision was immediately appealed to both the 8th circuit and to Justice Kavanaugh on the supreme court.
- Kavanaugh asked for a response on this new appeal by next Tuesday.
- Kavanaugh is handling all these emergency appeals because he is assigned to handle the circuit that includes Missouri.
Bottom line: Despite the Kavanaugh ruling, the Republican-leaning map is still the current map right now.
Why is this federal district judge probably wrong? In the Alabama and Texas cases, the Supreme Court pretty well established that the Purcell Principle restrains the federal court system, but not state legislatures or state governments. Other court precedent says that the supreme court of Missouri is the ultimate decider of the meaning of the Missouri constitution and the Missouri laws. Federal courts are supposed to defer to state supreme courts if they need to know what a state law means. Here we have a federal judge telling Missouri that their supreme court is wrong on the laws of Missouri, and he's incorrectly applying Purcell to the state supreme court.