Opponents of a 2025 Missouri congressional map late on Sept. 9 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a federal judge’s order that allows the state to hold midterm congressional elections on Nov. 3 using the map, which favors Republicans.
The new emergency filing came after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit earlier in the day issued a one-page order after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Sept. 8 declined to restore the 2025 electoral map in a separate case arising from a Sept. 3 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that barred use of the map in the Nov. 3 midterms.
“The motion for a stay pending appeal is denied because we either lack jurisdiction over the appeal or, based on the briefing we have so far, the stay factors have not been met,” the panel said.
Minutes after the nation’s highest court acted on Sept. 8, Judge Stephen R. Clark of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri issued a 14-day temporary restraining order saying Missouri officials had no choice but to use the 2025 map authorized by House Bill 1, or HB 1, because doing otherwise would violate the U.S. Constitution. State officials said they will follow Clark’s ruling.
“Using any map other than HB 1’s for the general election creates two classes of voters: those who happen to stay in their HB 1 congressional districts, and those who do not,” Clark said in his ruling.
Without the restraining order, many Missouri voters would have “to cast … general-election votes for candidates whom [the voters] had no role in nominating.”
Because the primary already took place and the clock cannot be turned back, Missouri “must honor the equal right to vote of all its eligible voters, regardless of geography,” Clark said.
Because of the contradictory rulings, it is unclear if the Republican-dominated Legislature’s 2025 map would be used in November, or if the 2022 map would be used.
The 2022 map, drawn by the Legislature after the 2020 Census, was designed to give Republicans a 6–2 edge. The 2025 mid-decade map was drawn to give them a 7–1 advantage.
A unanimous Missouri Supreme Court ruling on Sept. 3 blocked the 2025 election map, which is backed by President Donald Trump, from being used in the midterms.
The state’s high court held that the 2025 map must first be approved by voters in a November referendum before it can take effect. The court ordered that the referendum question be placed on the Nov. 3 ballot.
The state court said the 2025 map approved by the state Legislature “is not the law and has never been the law.”
“There is only one valid congressional redistricting in effect—the congressional redistricting the General Assembly established in 2022,” the court stated.
The new emergency application was filed by People Not Politicians and its executive director, Richard von Glahn. The group spearheaded a petition drive to place a question on the ballot to allow Missourians to vote on HB 1, the legislation authorizing the map. On primary day, Aug. 4, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins issued a certificate of insufficiency, saying the state constitution does not allow a referendum on congressional redistricting plans passed by the Legislature.
The group argues that the federal district court’s “legally baseless” ruling creates a clear conflict between state and federal law by “directing Missouri to hold an election under a map that its own Supreme Court concluded ‘is not the law and never has been the law’ under the Missouri Constitution.”
A district court may not “transform an unlawfully administered primary into a federal constitutional command that the State continue violating [the state’s] own law through the general election,” it said in its application.
Kavanaugh ordered Missouri and the other respondents to file a response by 10 a.m. on Sept. 10.
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