(Washington = Yonhap News) Correspondent Park Seong-min and Hong Jeong-gyu = Missouri's district reorganization, which the U.S. Republican Party attempted to gain one more seat in the Federal House of Representatives in the November midterm elections, ultimately failed.
On the 10th (local time), the U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution of Chief Judge Steven Clark of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri's temporary restriction order on the 8th against using the existing electoral district map rather than the new district promoted by the Republican Party.
An emergency application was accepted from the Missouri branch of Citizens, Not Politicians, a civic group that has been opposing the reorganization of electoral districts promoted by the Republican Party.
This case, which complicatedly went back and forth between the Missouri State Legislature, the state government, the state Supreme Court, the Federal District Court, and the Federal Supreme Court, originated from 'gerrymandering', which redrawn electoral districts to favor one seat for the Republican Party.
Currently, there are 6 Republican seats and 2 Democratic seats in the Missouri House of Representatives. The Republican-dominated state legislature prepared a district map that reorganized Democratic leader Representative Emanuel Cleaver's district (5th Congressional District) in favor of the Republican Party.
Accordingly, 'citizens who are not politicians' opposed the new electoral district map and petitioned to put it to a referendum. The state government did not accept this, and a primary election was held on the 4th of last month to select candidates based on the new constituency.
However, on the 3rd, the state Supreme Court ruled that the referendum petition was justified and that the general election should be held using the existing election district map because the new election district map cannot be used until it is approved by referendum.
The state government applied to the Supreme Court to suspend the Supreme Court's ruling, but Missouri Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh dismissed the request on the 8th.
On the same day, in contrast, in the federal district court, Judge Clark issued a temporary restraining order on the use of existing district maps. Then, 'citizens, not politicians' applied to suspend the execution of this order, and the Federal Supreme Court accepted it on this day.
In the end, Missouri found itself in a confusing situation where candidates were selected based on a new electoral district map, and the general election was held according to the existing electoral district map.
The New York Times pointed out, "It is rare for the main election to be held using a different constituency than the one used in the primary, and there are still no specific guidelines from the court on how to select candidates."
The Republican Party's attempt to secure at least one more seat in an unfavorable situation failed in Missouri, but CNN analyzed that if the view was expanded to the entire United States, the Republican Party gained the upper hand in the gerrymandering battle in each state.
Even excluding Missouri, the Republican Party has the possibility of gaining 15 more seats through redistricting, including Texas (5 seats), Florida (4 seats), Ohio (2 seats), and Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina (1 seat each).
The Democratic Party gained the possibility of securing more House seats only in California (5 seats) and Utah (1 seat). Attempts at redistricting in Virginia, Maryland, and New York failed or were blocked by the judiciary.
Looking at these results alone, it is calculated that the Republican Party can secure 9 more seats in the House of Representatives than the Democratic Party through district redistricting.
However, there is a view that the fact that the constituency is structured in an advantageous manner does not guarantee victory, and rather, there is a view that self-partisan voters may be dispersed, resulting in 'killing two birds with one stone.'
