Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway says her office took legal action on Missouri’s congressional redistricting dispute months before Secretary of State Denny Hoskins ruled a proposed ballot measure as unconstitutional.
Hanaway told Missourinet her office previously filed a federal lawsuit over the same legal question now at the center of a lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court: whether Missouri voters can use the initiative petition process to change how congressional district maps are drawn. She said a federal judge declined to rule at the time because the issue was not yet ready for review since petition signatures had not been submitted.
Now that the signatures have been turned in and the dispute is before the courts, Hanaway said her office’s position has not changed.
“The federal court said, look, this issue isn’t ripe for consideration yet because the signatures have not been turned in yet,” Hanaway told Missourinet. “But now that this issue is ripe, we certainly haven’t changed our opinion.”
Hanaway’s office later provided the legal opinion cited by Secretary of State Denny Hoskins when he ruled on Election Day that the initiative petition was unconstitutional and should not appear on the ballot.
Hanaway told Missourinet her office reviews initiative petitions for legal sufficiency under Missouri law. She argues the Missouri Constitution gives the General Assembly authority over congressional redistricting and does not delegate that power to voters through the initiative petition process.
“That power’s never been delegated to the people,” Hanaway said. “I think there’s some good practical reasons for that, like how do voters go about drawing actual new maps because the population does shift around Missouri.”
The decision drew an immediate challenge from People Not Politicians, the organization that gathered more than 305,000 signatures in support of the proposed constitutional amendment. The measure would have allowed voters to decide whether Missouri’s congressional maps should be redrawn.
People Not Politicians attorney Chuck Hatfield disagrees with Hanaway’s interpretation of the Missouri Constitution. He argues Missourians have the right to propose constitutional amendments through the initiative petition process and contends that authority is not limited by the subject matter of the amendment.
The group filed suit Tuesday in Cole County Circuit Court seeking to overturn Hoskins’ decision and place the measure before voters. Because Missouri law requires courts to give election-related disputes priority, both Hatfield and Hanaway expect a hearing to begin soon.
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