The Missouri Supreme Court found Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in civil contempt on 10 September for breaching its suspension of HB 1, the state's mid-decade congressional map1. the Court sat en banc, meaning the full bench rather than a three-judge panel, and Chief Justice W. Brent Powell wrote for a unanimous court. Hoskins is Missouri's chief election officer and the official who certifies its ballots. HB 1 is the redistricting statute the same court suspended on 3 September and sent to a November referendum.
Hoskins obeyed the injunction for five days. On 8 September he emailed local election authorities telling them to use HB 1 after all, citing a federal court order issued hours earlier in a separate suit. the Court called that justification "disingenuous", because Hoskins had consented to and argued for the very federal order he then sheltered behind. That sequence removed the defence an official normally has when two courts issue opposing commands, which is that somebody caught between them must obey one of them.
Civil contempt seeks compliance rather than punishment, and Hoskins had reversed himself again before judgment landed, so the Court purged the finding with no fine attached. He had spent the previous week arguing to the US Supreme Court that 1.2 million primary voters and an approaching ballot deadline made a late map change unlawful. The finding now sits on the record of the man who signs off Missouri's results, with nothing else attached to it, which gives any post-election challenger a judicial finding to cite rather than an allegation to make.
