Missouri Supreme Court orders review of redrawn Senate, congressional boundaries

The Missouri redistricting merry-go-round is spinning again after the state Supreme Court last week tossed out a judicial panel’s plans for new state Senate districts and ordered a new look at congressional district boundaries the Republican-controlled General Assembly prepared and passed over a gubernatorial veto last year.

Where and when the merry-go-round will stop are questions with no ready-made answers.

“There’s no precedent for this kind of situation,” Sen. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfield) SAID. “No matter what happens now, we’ll be breaking new ground.”

Complicating the issue is the scheduled Feb. 28 start of the candidate filing period for the 2012 election cycle. Assuming the Senate redistricting process will begin anew with the appointment of a 10-member bipartisan commission charged with drawing the boundaries, no one is ready to predict the task will be done quickly.

Last year, such commissions for both Senate and House redistricting failed to come up with plans that gained enough bipartisan support to win approval. The job then went to the panel of appellate court judges.

The judicial group issued plans for House and Senate redistricting in November, then came back less than two weeks later with an amended set of Senate boundaries designed to minimize the splitting of counties into more than one district.

The Supreme Court said the original plan for the Senate violated the state constitution by dividing counties in the western part of the state into too many districts. Further, the judicial panel exceeded its authority by coming up with an amended approach, the high court ruled.

Qualifying his comment as a “best guess,” Sen. Brian Nieves (R-Eureka) said he thinks there will be minimal impact on the lines the judicial panel drew for his district and others in the St. Louis area.

“We’ve been tasked with starting over, but I suspect that the emphasis will be addressing the problem areas that are on the other side of the state,” he said. “There may be some resulting ripple effect on this side of the state, but I don’t look for major changes here.”

In a news release, Sen. John Lamping (R-Ladue) said he applauds the Supreme Court ruling, citing the decision as “a big win” for Missourians, who deserve district boundaries that comply with the state constitution.  Lamping earlier had said new boundaries for his district actually improved his GOP majority but that the overall plan needed to be challenged because it was not constitutional.

Cunningham described the aftermath of the court ruling as one of “disarray.”

“I really feel sorry for any candidate planning to run for the Senate for the first time. Filing (to run for office) starts Feb. 28, and no one knows if there will be a final decision by that time.  Everything is up in the air. No one knows what’s going to happen,” she said.

While there are no definitive answers, there is no shortage of varying opinions. House Speaker Steven Tilley (R-Perryville) reportedly has said the legislature could delay when candidate filing begins.

In another report, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s office said existing Senate district lines, drawn in 2001 after the 2000 census, will remain in effect if a new map is not ready by Feb. 28. The congressional map approved last year would prevail, Carnahan’s office said.

As for the congressional map, the high court ordered that a trial judge hold a hearing and determine by Feb. 3 if the districts violate the state constitution because they were not drawn compactly enough. The validity of the new boundaries had been challenged on that basis in legal actions that also charged violation of equal protection rights.

The Supreme Court said more review of compactness is needed, but it upheld a lower court’s earlier ruling rejecting the equal protection argument.

Lines drawn by the appellate judges for Missouri House districts remain in effect despite heavy criticism from both parties. However, that could change if Democrats follow through on a rumored legal challenge to those boundaries.