Supreme Court Won't Revive Missouri GOP Map
Supreme Court Won't Revive Missouri GOP Map
The News
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to let Missouri use a Republican-drawn congressional map in November, denying an emergency request from state officials and the state GOP.
The order came from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency appeals out of Missouri. It was brief, and it leaves in place last week's unanimous Missouri Supreme Court ruling that the map cannot be used while a voter referendum on it moves forward.
The practical effect: Missouri reverts to its existing map, with six Republican-held seats and two Democratic-held seats, for the midterms. The blocked 2025 plan would have given Republicans the advantage in seven of the state's eight districts by breaking up a Democratic-held district in Kansas City, currently represented by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
It is a setback for President Donald Trump, who pushed red states to redraw maps to protect the GOP's thin House majority.
Timeline
Missouri's Republican-led legislature enacts a new congressional map designed to eliminate one of the state's two Democratic-held seats, part of a national redistricting wave prompted by Trump.
A group called People Not Politicians Missouri, led by Richard von Glahn, gathers enough signatures for a statewide referendum that would veto the legislature's map and put it on hold for the 2026 election.
Missouri holds its House primaries using the redrawn map. Ahead of that day's deadline, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejects the referendum petition, arguing redistricting plans are not subject to a public vote.
The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously rules against Hoskins. "The referendum petition was legal, sufficient, and timely, and the secretary incorrectly concluded otherwise," Judge Ginger Gooch wrote. The court said any timing problems were Hoskins' own doing after he took eight months to rule on the petition.
Rep. Bob Onder, R-Mo., Republican congressional candidate Rick Brattin and two Missouri voters file a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeking to restore the new map for November, according to RSBNetwork.
Kavanaugh denies the state's emergency application. Under state law, Missouri's ballot was supposed to be finalized the same day.
Reactions
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway told the justices the state court's timing "inflicts unprecedented chaos on Missouri," and said the state is "genuinely unsure whether it can switch its governing congressional map in time to run a timely federal election." AlterNet reported she also called the ruling a "legal fiction."
Hoskins' lawyers argued the state court decision violated the U.S. Constitution's elections clause, which they say hands state legislatures broad authority over federal elections. They warned that reverting to the old map means "hundreds of thousands of Missourians will see their votes in the primary election rendered pointless." The Supreme Court rejected a similar elections-clause argument in a North Carolina case in 2023.
Lawyers for the referendum's backers countered that Hoskins "engineered the timing issue he now presents as an insurmountable burden," and wrote that he "asks this Court to deliver him the political victory to which he was never entitled under the Missouri Constitution."
Onder called the state ruling "really a startling act of judicial supremacy by the Missouri Supreme Court" in an interview with the New York Post.
What's Next
Missouri now has to run November's election on the old 6-2 map. Absentee ballots are scheduled to go out to military and overseas voters on Sept. 19 under federal rules, leaving election officials little time.
The referendum on the Republican map is still headed to voters. Onder's federal lawsuit remains pending in U.S. District Court.
Raw Story reported that observers reading the state's own emergency filing believe county officials could try to keep using the Republican map anyway — a scenario Hanaway framed as looming chaos.
More
The Bigger Map Fight
Missouri is one of several redistricting cases to reach the Supreme Court in the past year. The justices ruled favorably for Republicans in fights over maps in Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, Virginia and New York, and sided with Democrats in a challenge to California's new map. Tuesday's order is a rare loss for the GOP in that run.
Poll
Should voters get the final say on congressional maps drawn by their legislature?
UMass Dartmouth Running Back, 18, Stabbed to Death
Trump Vows 'AI Force,' Czar; Polls Name Change
Sep 20, 2026
Iran Sends Trump Three Conditions to End War
Sep 19, 2026
Faulty AI Intel Nearly Started War With China
Sep 19, 2026
German General Breuer Elected NATO's Top Officer
Sep 19, 2026
Nobel Laureate: War, Sanctions Crushing Iranians
Sep 19, 2026
Dutch Police Disperse Violent Far-Right Hague Protest
Sep 19, 2026
GOP Midterm Odds Fade With 45 Days Left
Sep 19, 2026
Maher Rejects Tarlov's Claim Democrats Are Less Crazy
Sep 19, 2026
Patrick Clancy Breaks Silence After Ex-Wife Killed Kids
Sep 19, 2026
Trump Cuts Park Staff, Diverts Fees to DC
Sep 19, 2026
Holocaust Heirs Sue LA Museums Over Looted Art
Sep 19, 2026
Trump's Fed Chair Hikes Rates, Defying White House
Sep 19, 2026
Miller Drives Push to Deport Illegal Immigrant Children
Sep 19, 2026
US Lifts Sanctions on Eritrea's Military, Ruling Party
Sep 19, 2026
Air Force Admits US Has Space Weapons
Sep 19, 2026
Turkey Revokes License of Iran's Mellat Bank
Sep 19, 2026
Billionaire Ratcliffe Blasts Britain Over Immigration, Taxes
Sep 19, 2026
Navajo Nation Flash Flood Kills Three
Sep 19, 2026
Explosions Over Riyadh Trigger Saudi Air Alerts
Sep 19, 2026
Sep 19, 2026