Missouri map fight returns to U.S. Supreme Court

Missouri’s congressional redistricting battle returned to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as opponents of a new Republican-backed map sought to block its use in November, extending a legal fight that has produced conflicting orders from state and federal courts and left election officials uncertain about which districts to use.

People Not Politicians Missouri asked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to put a federal judge’s order on hold and allow Missouri’s old congressional map to be used while the legal fight continues. The filing came after a federal appeals court earlier Wednesday declined to block the judge’s order requiring the state to use the new map.

Kavanaugh ordered Missouri officials and supporters of the new map to respond Thursday morning, signaling another potentially quick turn in a dispute that has moved through four courts in a matter of days.

At the same time, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins was under orders to appear before the Missouri Supreme Court at 10 a.m. Thursday to explain why he should not be held in contempt for directing election officials to use the new map despite that court’s order requiring the old one.

The dueling cases have created an extraordinary situation: A federal judge has told Missouri officials to use the 2025 congressional map, while the state’s highest court has told them not to.

At the center of the dispute is the Kansas City-based district represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, one of Missouri’s two Black members of Congress. The new boundaries were drawn to make Cleaver’s district more favorable to Republicans, who already hold six of the state’s eight congressional seats.

The new map made only minor changes to the St. Louis-area district represented by Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell, Missouri’s other Black member of Congress.

The legal whiplash comes less than two months before the Nov. 3 election and after Missouri voters already nominated congressional candidates in August using the new districts.

The latest trip to the U.S. Supreme Court is essentially the reverse of what happened there Tuesday.

In the first case, Hoskins and other supporters of the 2025 map asked Kavanaugh to block a Missouri Supreme Court ruling requiring the state to return to the congressional districts used in 2022 and 2024. Kavanaugh rejected that request Tuesday without explanation.

This time, opponents of the 2025 map are asking Kavanaugh to block a federal court order requiring the state to use it.

Less than an hour after Kavanaugh’s Tuesday decision, Chief U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark in St. Louis temporarily ordered Missouri to use the new districts.

Clark acted in a separate lawsuit brought by Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Onder, Republican state Sen. Rick Brattin and two voters. They argued that switching congressional maps after voters had already cast primary ballots under the new boundaries would violate their federal constitutional rights.

Clark agreed that changing maps between the primary and general elections could harm voters by forcing them to choose among candidates they had not helped nominate.

“Disenfranchising voters across the state and denying them their constitutional right to have their primary votes counted significantly harm the public interest,” Clark wrote.

Hoskins said Clark’s ruling “halts a full-on constitutional crisis.”

But it also put Missouri election officials between two courts giving them opposite instructions.

Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon described the problem Tuesday to St. Louis Public Radio.

“We have diametrically opposed issues because we’ve got the Supreme Court of Missouri saying that we have to use (the 2022 map); otherwise we’ll be in violation of their order,” Lennon said. “And then we have the federal court saying that we can’t use them; otherwise, we’ll be in violation of the federal court.”

People Not Politicians asked the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to suspend Clark’s order while it appealed his ruling. The appeals court declined Wednesday, leaving Clark’s order in place for now and prompting the group to seek emergency relief from Kavanaugh.

Meanwhile, the battle returned to the Missouri Supreme Court on a separate track.

After Hoskins instructed local election authorities to use the 2025 map despite the state court’s ruling, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered him to respond to a request that he be held in contempt and to appear before the court Thursday morning.

Hoskins, in turn, asked Clark to stop the state Supreme Court from proceeding with the contempt hearing, arguing that the federal court’s order controls which map election officials must use. Clark declined late Wednesday to intervene, allowing the 10 a.m. CDT Thursday hearing to proceed. Clark said the two courts are addressing different legal questions and that there were numerous reasons not to interfere with the state’s highest court before it held a hearing.

People Not Politicians argues that the state Supreme Court’s order remains binding and that Hoskins should not have instructed election officials to disregard it.

The approaching election is adding urgency.

The Washington Post reported that Missouri must begin sending paper ballots to military and overseas voters Sept. 18, with early absentee voting beginning Sept. 22. Lennon told the newspaper that Boone County has prepared its election system to operate under either map while officials wait to learn which one they must use.

The dispute stems from a referendum campaign challenging the congressional map approved by the Republican-controlled Missouri Legislature during a special session last year.

People Not Politicians submitted more than 300,000 signatures in December seeking to put the map before voters. Hoskins rejected the petition Aug. 4, saying congressional redistricting was not subject to Missouri’s referendum process.

The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously disagreed last week.

The court ruled that the referendum petition was legal, sufficient and filed on time. Because the petition was submitted before the new map could take effect, the court concluded that the 2025 boundaries never became law and cannot be used unless voters approve them in November.

The court ordered the state to use the 2022 congressional map for the Nov. 3 election.

“An individual federal judge cannot overrule the Missouri Supreme Court,” Chuck Hatfield, an attorney representing People Not Politicians, said after Clark’s ruling.

The referendum on the new districts also will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot as Proposition A.

Republican lawmakers approved the new districts in a special session last year after President Donald Trump urged Missouri and other Republican-led states to redraw congressional boundaries before the 2026 midterm elections.

For now, Missouri officials have been directed by the federal court to use the 2025 map. But with Kavanaugh considering another emergency request and Hoskins due before the Missouri Supreme Court Thursday, the answer could change again quickly.

Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.

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