Elections: Congressional Redistricting-Sufficiency of Referendum Summary

Plaintiffs appealed the trial court’s judgment on their lawsuit to challenge the fairness and sufficiency of the Secretary of State’s summary statement for plaintiffs’ referendum petition. The petition sought to put the legislature’s Congressional redistricting legislation before the voters at the next general election. Although the trial court sustained some of plaintiffs’ objections, it rejected others and sua sponte removed another word from the statement.

Where the trial court had no justification to sua sponte remove words from the statement where they were not insufficient or unfair, but the court further revised the statement to remove phrases that were unfair or insufficient because the redistricting legislation and other relevant documents provided no basis to support the veracity of those statements.

Judgment is reversed.

People Not Politicians v. Hoskins (MLW No. 84719/Case No. WD88795 – 29 pages) (Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, Ahuja, J.) Appealed from circuit court, Cole County, Stumpe, J. (Charles W. Hatfield, Alexander C. Barrett, Alixandra Cossette and Greta Bax, Jefferson City, for appellants) (Madeline S. Lansdell, St. Louis; Joseph J. Maurey, Dallas, Tx; and Ryan Dugan, Jefferson City for respondent)