Jason Rosenbaum

The Missouri Supreme Court won’t reconsider an appeals court decision that effectively delays the ACLU of Missouri from gathering signatures to overturn Missouri’s recently passed eight-week abortion ban.

It’s a move that places the ACLU of Missouri’s referendum in serious jeopardy, because there may not be enough time to gather roughly 100,000 signatures to spark a 2020 election.

In many respects, Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision taking partisan gerrymandering cases out of the purview of federal courts has a mixed impact for Missouri.

On the one hand, the court’s majority opinion didn’t preclude states from adopting rules to curb maps that help one party or the other. It specifically mentioned a successful ballot initiative known as Clean Missouri that created a new redistricting system aimed at state House and Senate maps that emphasize partisan fairness.

But the decision could make it significantly harder to challenge Missouri’s congressional map for being skewed for a political party. Missouri’s Legislature and governor are responsible for coming up with congressional maps, where partisan gerrymandering is not specifically prohibited. Clean Missouri did not affect that process.

The St. Louis County Police Department is closer to having its officers use body cameras.

The St. Louis County Council gave initial approval Tuesday night to bills cementing a five-year agreement with Utility Associates Inc. County officers would get newer technology over the life of the roughly $5 million deal — as well as cameras that will be in police cars.

There hasn’t been a lot of subtlety about how U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley feels about big technology companies.

Since entering the Senate earlier this year, the Missouri Republican has introduced bills aimed at curtailing video game “loot boxes” and allowing people to opt out of companies tracking their Internet activity. He most recently announced legislation that would bar video-sharing sites like YouTube from recommending videos of minors.

And while the trajectory of the freshman lawmaker’s legislation won’t necessarily be smooth, Hawley noted in an interview with St. Louis Public Radio on Wednesday that some of the ideas he’s supporting are gaining bipartisan favor.

Updated at 4 p.m. on Thursday with the filing of the ACLU's lawsuit:

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft rejected bids to place a newly signed abortion ban up for a statewide vote in 2020, citing the fact that a provision in the measure goes into effect right away.

At least one group seeking to overturn the eight-week ban has gone to court against the GOP statewide official’s action.