Wait, Did the Supreme Court Actually Make a Sane Decision About Outrageous Republican Redistricting Maps?

5 min readThis Week in the Laboratories of Democracy(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to This Post)Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where I need a dump truck to unload my head.We begin in Missouri, where the fight over a gerrymandered map threatens to lapse into that traditional Missouri method of settling political disputes: bushwhacking. It has managed to brawl its way into the Supreme Court. From The Guardian:On Wednesday, a federal appeals court panel declined to block a ruling ordering Missouri to use the newly drawn congressional lines backed by Donald Trump to give Republicans an edge in the midterms elections. Opponents of the state’s redistricted map immediately filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The appeal is the latest move in an extraordinary legal back-and-forth spanning four courts. The rulings have left voters and local election officials in the state confused and uncertain about what the November ballot will look like. And there’s little time left before the pivotal elections that will decide which party controls a closely divided congress – and will impact the fate of Trump’s agenda for the rest of his term."A federal appeals court panel declined to block a ruling ..." And I hear a low whistle and don't wake up for hours.On Tuesday, conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh had denied a request from Missouri officials to use the House map favored by Republicans. His refusal left in place a unanimous ruling from the Missouri supreme court, which blocked the newer maps, drawn to carve an additional Republican-friendly House. But not long after, a federal district judge in St Louis issued a contradictory decision, temporarily preventing the state from using its old congressional maps in the November elections. The temporary restraining order, or TRO, ordered Missouri to use the newly drawn districts that favor Republicans, which the state used in its August primary elections. That ruling, issued by Stephen Clark of the eastern district of Missouri, was then appealed to the eighth U.S. circuit court of appeals.Got all that? Good. Because it seems that the Nine Wise Souls were so sick of the whole business that they booted the new Missouri map into the Potomac. From SCOTUSBlog, which is sporting a new look these days:The justices’ order, from which there were no public dissents, came less than two days after Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency appeals from Missouri, declined to disturb a ruling by the Missouri Supreme Court that barred Missouri from using the new map. With the deadline to send out ballots for military and overseas voters just nine days away, Thursday morning’s order likely means that the state will use the map that it adopted in 2022—a different map from the one that it used for the state’s primary election on August 4—for the November elections.And as a bonus, the Missouri supreme court held a hearing on Thursday to see if Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins will be held in contempt for being an obstinate dickhead. That court has not yet issued its ruling.We move along to Washington, The State, where people seem to have grown weary of having right-wing nutballs elected sheriff in various counties. Local sheriffs have refused to enforce state laws regarding both gun safety and curbing their ability to cooperate with ICE. From Bolts:As the state continues to grapple with how to exert oversight over sheriffs, voters are poised to step into these debates this fall in Pierce County, Washington’s second most populous county and home to Tacoma. The Pierce County Charter Review Commission placed a charter amendment on November’s ballot that would make the Pierce County sheriff an appointed position rather than elected. Voters in King County (Seattle), the state’s most populous county, already approved a similar measure in 2020. Ordinarily, I am not a fan of converting elected positions into appointed ones. However, my enthusiasm for elections is not limitless, and this guy Swank is a real prize.If it passes, Pierce County’s measure would take effect by January 2027, cutting short the tenure of Sheriff Keith Swank, a first-term official notorious for his rabble-rousing, inflammatory statements and social media posts, and MAGA-adjacent politics in a blue county. The county executive would appoint a new sheriff, subject to confirmation by the county council, early next year. Swank’s term would otherwise end in early 2029.Swank is a former police captain at the Seattle Police Department, and a Seattle police report determined last year that he would have been fired from that agency over social media posts, including attacks on trans people, had he not retired first. He twice ran for Congress as a Republican, losing in 2020 and 2022, before winning the sheriff’s office in 2024. As sheriff, he has relentlessly pressed for the authority to collaborate with ICE. He says a state law protecting immigrants, the Keep Washington Working Act, is unconstitutional and he has appealed to the Trump administration for help. He denounced a resolution passed by the Pierce County Council that affirmed the council’s support of immigrants and its intention to follow the Keep Washington Working Act. A June 15 meeting of the Charter Review Commission illustrated Swank’s customary confrontational style.“I’m proud that I have more complaints than any other officer or sheriff in the state,” Swank said. A state oversight agency confirmed to Bolts that it has more open misconduct complaints filed against Swank than against any other sheriff; some of the complaints target his public statements disparaging LGBTQ+ people. Swank went on at the meeting to urge his critics to file even more complaints. “Instead of saying transgender woman, say man,” Swank said. “Instead of saying gay, say homosexual. Instead of reality challenged, say insane, crazy, wacky. Instead of unschooled, just say stupid. Dishonest means liar. Undocumented immigrant, that’s an illegal alien. Instead of protester, say terrorist.”Instead of "sheriff," say "crank." Instead of "elected," say "appointed." Instead of "employed," say, "On the bricks."And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, whence Blog Official Roper of Goats Friedman of the Algarve brings us a tale of unsuccessful identity theft. From NonDoc:In litigation over the halted American Heartland Theme Park project, composer Rick Silankas acknowledged in a June 16 deposition that he wrote Gene Bicknell religious messages posing as God and a nun that spurred the former Pizza Hut magnate to pump tens of millions of dollars into the far-fetched endeavor. According to Silanskas, he fabricated the messages “in utter fear” of Bicknell, now 93, who served as mayor of Pittsburg, Kansas, and once ran for governor. In July 2025, Bicknell sued and accused Silanskas and pastor Larry Wilhite of orchestrating a “predatory conspiracy of psychological manipulation” to convince him that “God himself was commanding him” to pay for the theme park, which would have been built in Vinita near his abandoned hometown of Picher. (A decade prior, Silanskas had been involved in a pair of defunct theme park proposals in Texas and Alabama, where one partner pleaded guilty to fraud.) The messages arrived from “Today’s Word,” a purported daily devotional crafted to look like Bicknell was receiving guidance from God and, subsequently, “Sister Catherine,” a nun at the fictional “Mission Agape.” The correspondence helped convince Bicknell that he, Silanskas and Wilhite constituted a Triune.Triune-wise, I doubt seriously if the Holy Spirit is into real estate scams, but it's been a while since I took a theology exam.