Justices let stand state court ruling that requires voter approval first
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday turned away an attempt to revive a new Missouri congressional map backed by President Donald Trump, ending a long-running legal dispute as absentee voting continues in the midterm elections. In an unsigned opinion with no noted dissents, the court wrote that “at this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos.” The justices directed that “the district court and court of appeals should not enjoin or otherwise prohibit the use of the 2022 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri.”
The court’s action halted a federal appeals court ruling that would have revived the Republican-friendly map for the November elections, which will determine control of Congress. It also let stand the Missouri Supreme Court’s earlier ruling that a citizen petition prevents the new map from being used unless first approved by voters in a November referendum. The decision means Missouri residents will vote in November under the same congressional districts adopted after the last census and used in the 2024 and 2022 elections.
A panel of the eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled Monday that switching districts between the primary and general elections would violate the U.S. Constitution, directing a district judge to bar Missouri from using anything other than the new map. The panel delayed the order’s effect until the following Monday to allow time for an appeal to the Supreme Court. Friday’s decision blocked that order from taking effect.
Republicans had hoped the new House map — which already was used in the August primaries — could help them win an additional seat as part of a nationwide redistricting battle pushed by Trump to gain an edge in the midterms. At the urging of Trump and Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, Missouri lawmakers passed revised districts last September that were intended to help Republicans win seven of the state’s eight House seats in the midterms. Republicans currently hold six of the eight districts.
The redistricting significantly reshaped a Kansas City-based district held by longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, shedding parts of Kansas City to neighboring districts with Republican incumbents and stretching the remainder of Cleaver’s fifth congressional district far eastward into rural Republican areas. According to an Associated Press estimate, about 59% of potential voters were new to the district as a result. The ripple effects also shifted some voters in most of Missouri’s other congressional districts.
Despite the redistricting, Cleaver was unopposed in the Democratic primary and Republican state Sen. Rick Brattin won a six-way Republican primary under the revised districts. They remain the candidates for the general election even though the district boundaries have reverted to their prior lines. Brattin was a plaintiff, along with Republican Rep. Bob Onder and two other voters, in a federal lawsuit that led to the eighth circuit’s ruling and the last two appeals to the Supreme Court.
The legal battle has been the longest and most complex among roughly a dozen states that sought to change their U.S. House districts over the past year. At least 16 lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts related to Missouri’s congressional redistricting. The new map survived most of those lawsuits, including challenges contending that mid-decade redistricting violated the state constitution and that the new districts failed to meet compactness requirements. In one case, the Missouri Supreme Court allowed the new districts to be used while election officials worked to verify petition signatures seeking to put the map to a statewide vote.
Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, waited until the legal deadline on Aug. 4 — the day the new districts were used in the primaries — to reject the referendum petition, asserting that referendum petitions are not allowed for congressional redistricting. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled on Sept. 3 that the petition was valid, ordering Hoskins not to use the new map and to instead use the 2022 districts. The U.S. Supreme Court let that state ruling stand on Sept. 8.
Minutes after that Supreme Court action, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark issued a conflicting order in favor of the new map. The Supreme Court blocked Clark’s order from taking effect on Sept. 10, the same day the Missouri Supreme Court held Hoskins temporarily in contempt for telling local election authorities to use the new map after Clark’s order. The eighth circuit then ruled Monday in favor of the Trump-backed map, leading to Friday’s Supreme Court decision.
The legal wrangling has caused confusion for more than a million potential Missouri voters — nearly one in four statewide — who were shifted from one district to another, resulting in different candidates on their ballots. Absentee voting began Tuesday under the 2022 congressional districts, though some local election officials had urged voters to wait because of the legal uncertainty.
The referendum petition remains a live question; while the courts have prevented the new map from being used in 2026, the matter could still be put to Missouri voters in a November referendum, per the Missouri Supreme Court ruling.