Missouri's new Republican-drawn congressional map — built to flip a Kansas City-area House seat from Democrats to the GOP — is off the table for November, after the state's own secretary of state reversed himself hours into a contempt hearing and committed to using the old lines instead.
Why it matters: A single U.S. House seat is a big deal in a closely divided chamber, and the tangle of conflicting rulings from Missouri's top court, a federal judge and the U.S. Supreme Court — Washington Examiner detailed the mess here — is a preview of how messy Trump-era, mid-decade redistricting fights could get for both parties heading into the midterms.
Driving the news:
Missouri's GOP legislature drew a new map in 2025 aimed at turning the state's 6-2 Republican U.S. House delegation into 7-1 by targeting Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's Kansas City seat — and the state already used it for its August primary.
A group called People Not Politicians gathered more than 300,000 signatures for a referendum to let voters decide on the new map directly. On Sept. 3, Missouri's Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that the petition was valid and timely, blocking the new map and ordering the state's 2022 lines used for November instead — Fox News reports.
A separate federal lawsuit produced a competing order: U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark issued a temporary restraining order directing the secretary of state to use the new 2025 map — directly contradicting the state court, per Washington Examiner.
On the same day, Justice Brett Kavanaugh — acting on his own, without referring the case to the full Supreme Court — denied Missouri's emergency bid to let the new map stand for November, without comment.
Caught between the conflicting state and federal orders, Secretary of State Denny Hoskins initially directed county clerks to prepare ballots under the new map. Missouri's Supreme Court found him in contempt on Sept. 10, then ruled he'd purged himself of it by reversing course hours later and committing to the 2022 map — RedState reports.
By the numbers:
300,000+ — signatures People Not Politicians collected for its referendum drive, more than enough to qualify for the ballot.
6-2 vs. 7-1 — Missouri's current U.S. House split under the 2022 map versus the Republican edge the shelved 2025 map was designed to produce.
1 — the number of House seats (Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's Kansas City-area district) the fight over these two maps actually turns on.
5-2 — the Missouri Supreme Court's vote to block the new map and preserve the referendum, a court where a majority of justices were appointed by Republican governors.
What they're saying: President Trump called the state court's original ruling "ridiculous" and unconstitutional: “The Missouri Supreme Court just ridiculously ruled in favor of changing the maps back…not only was the ruling horrible, ridiculous, and unConstitutional” — via Fox News. After Hoskins committed to the old map, People Not Politicians' Richard von Glahn countered: “The law is the law, the Missouri Constitution is clear as was the Missouri Supreme Court” — via Breitbart.
The other side: Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway argued the switch is itself the real disruption, since voters already cast primary ballots under the new map: “Never before in American history has a court overturned a congressional map after a primary and before a general election,” she said, per Fox News. Missouri's emergency filing separately warned reverting maps this late risked a “federal-election-administration disaster” — Washington Examiner.
What's next:
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has set expedited briefing on the still-pending federal case over the map, per RedState.
The referendum on the shelved 2025 map is now headed to Missouri's November ballot, letting voters decide directly whether it should ever take effect.
Unless another court intervenes before ballots are finalized, the 2022 map's 6-2 lines — not the 7-1 map — will govern this November's congressional elections.
The bottom line: A one-seat GOP redistricting play is shelved for now — Missouri's old map, not the newly drawn one, will decide November's House race, even as the legal fight over the new lines keeps grinding through both state and federal courts.
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