Supreme Court blocks Missouri from using redrawn congressional map ahead of elections

Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday again blocked Missouri from using a redrawn map that aims to give Republicans an additional seat in the House for the midterm elections.

The high court’s decision clears the way for the state to use House district lines approved in 2022 for the Nov. 3 general election. Ballots using that older map have been printed and mailed to Missouri voters in the state, as well as those in the military and overseas, and absentee voting, by mail and in person, began earlier this week.

In an unsigned opinion with no noted dissents, the Supreme Court said “the election is not merely upcoming; it has already started,” and added that “at this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos.”

The lower courts, the Supreme Court said, “should not enjoin or otherwise prohibit the use of the 2022 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri. And the District Court and Court of Appeals should not order or otherwise require Missouri to use the 2025 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri.”

The legal battle over Missouri’s congressional map landed before the Supreme Court for a third time late Tuesday after a federal appeals court ordered the state to put back in place the House district lines that were reconfigured and adopted by the GOP-led state legislature last year. That 2025 map, which is backed by President Trump, gives Republicans an edge in seven of its eight House districts. The state’s current congressional delegation is divided between six Republicans and two Democrats.

But the Supreme Court had already twice blocked Missouri from using that new plan for the Nov. 3 general election, which will determine which party controls the House.

First, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, acting alone, left in place a Missouri Supreme Court decision that barred the state from using the new House lines for the upcoming election.

But shortly after Kavanaugh’s order, another emergency appeal involving Missouri’s congressional map landed back before the Supreme Court, this time arising out of a federal district court decision that required the state to use the new voting boundaries for the Nov. 3 election. The Supreme Court, however, halted that district court decision, clearing the way for Missouri to use the 2022 map for House districts.

But that wasn’t the end of the case. In the latest legal development, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled Monday that Missouri’s plan to use those 2022 House lines violates the Constitution, and ordered the new map to be reinstated. A federal district judge then swiftly issued a permanent injunction ordering the Missouri secretary of state to use the 2025-drawn House districts for the general election.

The new House districts were used in the state’s August primary elections.

In an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, a group called People Not Politicians, which is fighting the new map, argued the 8th Circuit attempted to evade the high court’s earlier order when it said only use of the redistricting plan adopted last year complies with the Constitution and federal law.

“The result is chaos on both sides of Election Day: confusion over how to conduct the election now, and uncertainty over the rules governing its results,” the organization wrote in a request for emergency relief filed Tuesday.

But Missouri officials warned that using the 2022 map for the general election, when voters cast ballots in the primary under the new House districts, would require the state to violate the Constitution and the right to vote by switching voters’ districts.

“The honest truth is that — regardless of what this Court does — Missouri will not be able to run an orderly 2026 General Election,” state officials wrote in a filing. 

State officials said that if Missouri has to use the redrawn map, it would avoid disenfranchising those who voted in the primary election but would violate a federal deadline for sending ballots to military and overseas voters. Missouri was required to send ballots to those voters by Sept. 19.

But if the state has to use the older districts adopted in 2022, “voter and candidate confusion will persist, Missouri will endure a fifth court-ordered change to its map in September, hundreds of thousands of voters in the Primary Election will be disenfranchised, and candidates will be forced to run in new districts they have not campaigned in over the past year,” they said.

Missouri officials said they believe voting under the newer map “better advances the public interest.”

Missouri election officials have said that reverting to the congressional map drawn last year would be “practically impossible” because of the time and cost required to reprint and distribute new ballots, which would take place while voting is underway.

Missouri was one of several Republican-led states that moved to redraw their congressional districts in the middle of the decade at Mr. Trump’s urging to bolster the party’s chances of retaining control of the House in November. 

Missouri’s legislature approved the new redistricting plan last year. The map splits up the Kansas City area, making Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s congressional district more conservative.