Missouri pushes back against the Federal Government: Stay out of our elections!

Jefferson City, Mo. — Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a licensed attorney in Missouri, recently filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court weighing in on the Moore v. Harper redistricting case that originated from North Carolina and will have major implications on future elections.

The case will define who has the final say, the courts or legislatures, in determining congressional district lines. Ashcroft’s brief recognizes the overall premise of this lawsuit; however, he supports neither party in the case. Ashcroft believes the Tenth Amendment, not the “Elections Clause,” provides the answer.

The brief reads, “Redistricting does not fall within the ambit of the phrase ‘Manner of holding Elections,’ as used in the Elections Clause. Instead, that authority may be vested in the state legislatures – the representative bodies closest to the people – under traditional Tenth Amendment principles.”

The Tenth Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, states that any power not specifically given to the federal government by the Constitution belongs to the States and the people. The amendment reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

“This allocation of power is unsurprising,” Ashcroft asserts. “When the states ratified the U.S. Constitution, the people of each state consented to the transfer of limited power to the federal government, ceding only those powers granted to the federal government by the constitution.

Put simply, the constitution does not delineate the powers of the states, and thus they are free to exercise all powers that the constitution does not withhold from them. In Missouri, the state constitution states that congressional district lines are to be drawn by the state legislature; therefore, we need to keep the federal government out of Missouri elections.”