State-federal court conflict leaves November ballot unresolved
The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously blocked the new, Republican-friendly congressional map a few weeks ago and ordered that a referendum on redistricting be placed on the November ballot, sending Missouri back to the congressional district boundaries it used in 2022 and 2024. Several days later, the U.S. Supreme Court declined an emergency appeal by Missouri Republicans seeking to reinstate the map. Not long after, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark ruled that the state could use the new map for November’s midterm elections.
Hoskins, the state’s top election official, told local elected officials that he would follow Clark’s federal order rather than the state supreme court’s contrary ruling. The state supreme court responded by summoning Hoskins to a hearing to explain why it should not hold him in contempt for declining to follow its order. Following that, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the 2025 map’s use a second time, reinstating the referendum plan.
Monday’s 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision upheld Clark’s ruling, though the appeals court paused its own decision for one week to allow challengers time to file another emergency appeal. The ruling has no immediate effect, but it revives the prospect that the 2025 map will be used in November. The state had already used the 2025 map in its primary elections earlier this year.
The redistricting push began after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in April that limited a portion of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 that had helped protect minority voting power. Since then, many states, particularly in the South, have redrawn their voting maps to favor Republicans.
The 2025 map, which President Donald Trump has backed, alters the 5th Congressional District, now held by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat. It breaks up the Kansas City base of the district and extends it into more Republican-leaning areas, giving Republicans a chance to take one of the few Democrat-held districts in the state.
Local elections officials have already mailed absentee ballots to citizens overseas and to military voters, and state law requires absentee ballots to be available to other voters by Tuesday. The 8th Circuit’s one-week pause leaves the question of which map applies unresolved in the immediate run-up to the midterm, with the U.S. Supreme Court having twice declined to allow the 2025 map and the 8th Circuit now having revived it.