U.S. Supreme Court blocks Missouri's 2025 congressional map for November election

Proposition A ballot measure asks voters to decide fate of 2025 map

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked Missouri’s 2025 congressional redistricting map from taking effect in the November midterm elections, with a pair of rulings forcing the state to hold its Nov. 3 general election under a congressional map drawn in 2022 rather than the legislature’s 2025 replacement, according to United Press International. Missouri voters who cast ballots in the state’s Aug. 4 primary election did so under the 2025 map and will vote in November under different district lines.

The decision follows a monthslong, multistate push by both parties to capture additional U.S. House seats before the midterm elections. Texas Republicans explicitly stated their goal was to add Republican-leaning districts; the state’s new map added five such seats. California responded by adopting a voter-approved map that added five Democratic-leaning districts. Ohio also began a redistricting process last year. Missouri joined the fray in May, adopting a map that added one Republican-leaning district before the high court intervened.

In Kansas City, the 2025 map reshaped the 5th Congressional District, currently held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. The redistricting was expected to put Cleaver’s seat in a more favorable position for Republicans. Cleaver is being challenged in November by Republican state senator Rick Brattin and Libertarian Randy Langkraehr. Peverill Squire, a professor in the University of Missouri’s Truman School of Government and Public Affairs, told UPI that Brattin is the candidate most affected by the decision to revert to the 2022 map. “He will now have to turn in an urban district focused on Kansas City rather than a district that had been gerrymandered to include mostly rural areas, including the part of the state where he resides,” Squire said. “The impacts elsewhere are minor; relatively few voters will notice differences with the districts used in the primary election.”

The 2nd Congressional District, made up largely of the south and west suburban regions of St. Louis, was redrawn to give Republicans a greater chance to hold the seat. It is currently represented by Republican Rep. Ann Wagner. Under the 2022 map, Wagner’s race remains favorable to her but with a narrower margin. Democrat and U.S. Army veteran Frederick Wellman is challenging Wagner.

The court’s reasoning, according to Squire, appeared to be deference to the Missouri Supreme Court, which had unanimously ruled based on the state constitution and state laws that the 2025 map should never have been used until voters weighed in through a veto referendum. “The federal judiciary’s involvement in this dispute is somewhat curious,” Squire said. “The Missouri Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision based on the state constitution and state laws, essentially saying that the Missouri Secretary of State [Denny Hoskins] failed to follow the law and that the 2025 map should have never been used until the voters passed judgment on it in a veto referendum. It appears the U.S. Supreme Court understood that point.” Squire added: “My guess is that the U.S. Supreme Court did not want to overturn a unanimous state supreme court on a matter of the state constitution and state law. Given how close we are to the November elections and the various dates where ballots have to be finalized, printed, and distributed, they probably also thought to get deeply involved now would cause election chaos.”

Travis Crum, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, told UPI that the high court aligned with the Purcell Principle — an election doctrine and legal precedent that prevents states from making changes to election rules too close to Election Day.

The Supreme Court still has a key question to answer: whether using two different maps for the August primary and the November general election amounts to a violation of voters’ rights in the affected districts. That question is at the heart of a lawsuit filed earlier this month by Rep. Bob Onder, Brattin and a group of voters seeking to restore the 2025 map. “The entire State of Missouri has now been plunged into legal and electoral uncertainty over which Congressional maps govern Missouri’s 2026 general election and which candidates represent whom,” the lawsuit reads. The plaintiffs argue that hundreds of thousands of registered voters who participated in the Aug. 4 primary under the 2025 map will be moved into different districts for the Nov. 3 election. Onder and Brattin also argue that they “won nominations by advocating to a particular set of voters in their respective HB1-designated districts.”

The Eighth District Court is set to hear oral arguments in the case on Thursday. Election officials are required under the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act to send ballots to military and overseas voters 45 days before an election — a deadline that falls Saturday.

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins sought to use the 2025 congressional map despite a court order blocking it. The Missouri Supreme Court found last week that Hoskins was in contempt for directing election administrators to use the blocked map, but it also decided he had cleared himself by abandoning the plan and complying with the court order. His contempt hearing was taking place when the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision came down. Crum said Hoskins played a role in creating the time crunch. “The conventional wisdom here in the state was that the delay was purposeful in order to try and box in the courts,” Crum said.

The ballot measure Proposition A asks voters to decide whether House Bill No. 1, the bill that created the new congressional map, will repeal and replace the 2022 map. A “yes” vote adopts the 2025 map, which is intended to favor Republicans. A “no” vote leaves the 2022 map in effect.

Crum and Squire said they are unsure whether lawmakers will make another attempt at redistricting before the end of the decade if the ballot measure to adopt the new map fails. “There was some dissension within the Republican caucus in Jefferson City as to whether or not to even do the 2025 redraw,” Crum said. “Partly because they were worried about creating a dummymander with certain districts. Partly because some of them just believed in institutional norms and that this was a bit too aggressive.” Crum expects some states to move forward with plans to redraw even before the 2028 presidential election, regardless of November’s outcomes. “If you see some of the gerrymanders backfire, there’s going to be far less appetite for doing it,” he said.