HB1Watch

Plain-English glossary

Simpler words, same uncertainty. Nothing here is a prediction about how this ends.

Certificate of Insufficiency

The Secretary of State's formal determination that a petition does not qualify. Under RSMo 116.150 the Secretary must issue a certificate of sufficiency or insufficiency by a statutory deadline.

Injunction

A court order directing a person or government official to do something or stop doing something.

Merits

The substance of a legal dispute — who is actually right — as opposed to procedural or emergency questions about what should happen in the meantime.

Referendum

A vote in which the people approve or reject an act already passed by the legislature. Missouri reserves this power in Article III, section 49 of its constitution.

Stay

A court order temporarily pausing another court order or legal proceeding. The order that is stayed is not erased — compare vacate.

Temporary Restraining Order (TRO)

A short-term emergency court order intended to prevent alleged harm while a court considers what should happen next. It is not a final decision on the merits.

Abstention

Doctrines under which a federal court declines to decide a case, or waits, because a state court is the more appropriate place for it. Whether abstention applies here was briefed by both sides on September 7.

Administrative stay

Very short-term relief often used by an appellate court to preserve the situation while judges consider a fuller request for a stay. It does not ordinarily indicate how the court will ultimately rule.

All Writs Act

A federal statute letting a federal court issue orders necessary to protect its own authority over a case. Invoking it is a request, not a power the court must exercise.

Amicus curiae

Latin for “friend of the court.” Someone who is not a party filing a brief to give the court their view. An amicus brief is an argument offered to the court, not evidence and not a ruling.

Anti-Injunction Act

A federal statute limiting when a federal court may enjoin state court proceedings.

Appellant and appellee

The appellant is the side asking a higher court to change what the lower court did. The appellee is the side defending that decision. Who is which depends on who appealed, not on who started the original case.

Bench trial

A trial decided by a judge rather than a jury. The judge hears the evidence and rules.

Change of judge

Missouri lets a party ask once for a different judge without giving a reason, if the request is timely. It says nothing about the judge who is replaced.

Contempt

A court's finding that someone disobeyed its order, and the process for asking a court to make such a finding. CIVIL contempt is ordinarily coercive — aimed at obtaining compliance, and it commonly ends when the person complies. CRIMINAL contempt punishes past conduct and carries different procedural protections. A request for contempt is an allegation; only the court decides.

Declaratory judgment

A court ruling that settles what the law is and what rights the parties have, without necessarily ordering anyone to pay anything. This whole dispute began as one.

Docket

The court's official numbered list of everything filed in a case. A docket entry records that something was filed and what it was — it is not the document itself, and its wording is the clerk's.

Elections Clause

The provision of the U.S. Constitution giving states the power to set the times, places and manner of congressional elections, subject to Congress.

Emergency application

A request asking a court to act quickly, outside the ordinary briefing schedule. A ruling on one decides whether to grant emergency relief, not who is right about the underlying dispute.

Entry of appearance

A filing by which a lawyer formally tells the court they represent a party in the case.

Expedited

Put on a compressed schedule. Missouri law requires petition-certification cases to be advanced and decided as quickly as possible, which is why this appeal was briefed and argued in under two weeks.

Interlocutory appeal

An appeal taken before a case is over. Courts of appeals generally will not hear one — including, ordinarily, from the grant of a temporary restraining order — which is why an appeal at this stage can fail without anyone deciding who is right.

Intervenor / intervene

Someone who was not originally a party asking the court to let them join a case because the outcome affects them. People Not Politicians and Richard von Glahn intervened as defendants in the federal case, so they are parties to it and can appeal.

Jurisdiction

A court's authority to decide a particular kind of case. A court without jurisdiction cannot rule, no matter what it thinks of the merits.

Mandate

The formal order an appellate court sends to the lower court putting its decision into effect. Until the mandate issues, the decision is not yet operative below.

Moot

A question that no longer needs deciding because events have overtaken it. Denying a request “as moot” means the court is not refusing it on its merits — there is simply nothing left to decide.

Motion to dismiss

A request that the court throw out a case without reaching the facts, usually arguing that even if everything alleged is true it does not amount to a valid claim, or that the court cannot hear it.

Notice of appeal

The filing that formally starts an appeal. It moves the case to the appeals court; it does not by itself pause anything the lower court ordered — that takes a stay.

Oral argument

A hearing where the judges question the lawyers directly. It is argument, not evidence, and the court usually rules afterwards rather than at the hearing.

Order to show cause

An order requiring someone to explain why the court should not do something — here, why it should not act on the contempt motion. It sets up a decision; it is not itself a finding against anyone.

Preliminary injunction

A court order lasting while a case is decided, longer-lived than a temporary restraining order and issued only after both sides have been heard.

Pro hac vice

Latin for “for this occasion.” Permission for a lawyer not licensed in the state to appear in one particular case, with local counsel remaining responsible.

Purcell principle

The idea that federal courts should be cautious about changing election rules close to an election. Which arrangement counts as “no change” can itself be disputed.

Record on appeal

The material from the lower court that the appeals court reviews — the legal file of filings and the transcript of what was said. Appeals are normally decided on this record, not on new evidence.

Rehearing

A request that the same court reconsider its decision. Missouri Rule 84.17 governs them; a court can bar them, which is what “no Rule 84.17 motions are permitted” means.

Respondent

The party responding to an appeal or a motion — the opposite of the appellant. In SC101805 the Secretary of State is the respondent.

Rooker-Feldman doctrine

A rule limiting when a federal district court may hear a case that amounts to an appeal from a state court judgment.

Stay factors

The test a court applies when asked to pause an order pending appeal: likelihood of success, irreparable harm, harm to the other side, and the public interest. Failing it is not a ruling on the merits.

Stay pending appeal

A request that a court pause the effect of an order while an appeal is decided, so the appeal is not made pointless by the order taking effect first.

Submitted

The point at which the court has heard everything and takes the case away to decide. Nothing further is filed unless the court asks.

Suggestions

In Missouri practice, a party's written argument to the court. “Suggestions regarding contempt” is the appellant's argument about contempt, not a court ruling.

Summary reversal

A request that an appeals court overturn a lower court's decision without full briefing and argument, on the basis that the error is clear enough not to need them. Courts grant it rarely.

Sustained / overruled

How a Missouri court records granting or denying a motion. “Sustained” means the motion was granted; “overruled” means it was denied. Neither word implies anything about the merits of the case.

Three-judge district court

Under 28 U.S.C. § 2284, constitutional challenges to congressional apportionment are ordinarily heard by a panel of three federal judges rather than one. A single judge has limited authority to act alone.

Transfer (Rule 83.01)

Missouri's Supreme Court can take a case directly, before or instead of the Court of Appeals, when the legal issues are of general interest or importance. It did that here on its own motion.

UOCAVA

The federal law governing absentee voting for military and overseas voters. It sets deadlines by which ballots must be transmitted, which constrains how late election arrangements can change.

Under advisement

The judge has heard the case and is going away to decide it. A ruling follows later — here, the same day.

Unripe

A case a court declines to decide because the dispute has not yet developed enough to be resolved.

Writ

A direct order from a higher court commanding an official or lower court to act or stop acting — a route separate from an ordinary appeal.

Vacate

To set aside an order or judgment so that it no longer stands. This is stronger than a stay, which only pauses an order while something else is decided.

Certiorari

A request asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court's decision. The Court chooses which cases to take; granting certiorari means it will hear the case, denying it means the lower court's decision stands without the Supreme Court ruling on whether it was right.