Gerrymandering Wars

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Missouri officials’ emergency request to use the state’s newly drawn congressional map in the November midterm election.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied the application Tuesday without a written explanation. The brief order leaves the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling in place while election officials prepare for November.

That means Missouri will conduct the general election under the congressional districts adopted in 2022, even though the newer map was used for the August primary.

Breaking: Kavanaugh declines to lift block on new Missouri congressional map in time for November elections https://t.co/K2OVBoeo5z

— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) September 8, 2026

The emergency fight grew out of House Bill 1, a mid-decade redistricting measure approved by Missouri’s Republican-led legislature in September 2025 and signed by Gov. Mike Kehoe.

The map was drawn to improve Republican prospects in a Kansas City-area district. President Trump had encouraged Republican-led states to pursue new maps as control of the U.S. House remained closely contested.

Missouri used the new lines during its August primary. But a referendum campaign seeking a statewide vote on HB 1 collected more than 300,000 signatures and challenged Secretary of State Denny Hoskins’ decision to keep the question off the ballot.

On September 3, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the state constitution allows voters to approve or reject congressional redistricting legislation through a referendum.

The central question was whether the referendum power over “any act of the general assembly” reaches a congressional redistricting bill. The state’s high court concluded that it does because none of the constitution’s listed exceptions applied to HB 1.

The court also rejected the claim that election laws are categorically exempt from referendum. It noted that HB 1 contained no emergency clause and described the redistricting as optional because the districts enacted after the 2020 census remained available.

The justices ordered Hoskins to certify the petition and place HB 1 before voters in November. They barred officials from using the new districts unless voters approve the measure, leaving the 2022 lines in force for the general election.

Breaking News: Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied a request from Missouri officials to use a congressional map that was redrawn to help Republicans try to pick up a Democratic-held House seat. https://t.co/OkEdtKMTFn

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 8, 2026

In their emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court, Missouri officials argued that switching maps between the primary and general election would create serious administrative and constitutional problems.

They said more than 1.2 million Missourians had already voted in the primary under the new districts. In their view, using different districts for the primary and general election would fracture a single election process and raise equal-protection concerns.

The filing warned that local officials would have to reassign hundreds of thousands of voters, explain new districts and revise months of election preparation in less than nine weeks. Missouri also pointed to federal deadlines for transmitting ballots to military and overseas voters.

The state further argued that the Missouri Supreme Court failed to account for federal election law when it restored the older districts. Officials asked Kavanaugh to pause the injunction while they pursued further review.

The challengers answered in an opposition filed Monday that HB 1 never legally took effect because the referendum petition suspended it under Missouri law.

They maintained that the 2022 districts never stopped being the lawful map for November. Their filing also said the federal claims had not been properly preserved in the state-court proceedings, creating a separate barrier to Supreme Court intervention.

The referendum supporters argued that state officials created the timing problem by waiting until August 4 to reject the petition, nearly eight months after organizers submitted more than 300,000 signatures. They disputed the claim that election administrators could not return to the earlier lines.

They urged Kavanaugh to leave the state court’s order untouched and allow voters to decide HB 1. Tuesday’s denial did exactly that for now, but it supplied no reasoning and did not resolve the broader constitutional arguments on the merits.

🚨BREAKING: Supreme Court DENIES Missouri’s emergency stay application leaving the 2022 congressional map protecting Black voters in Kansas City in place for the midterms.

A victory for Elias Law Group, its client and voters of Missouri! https://t.co/1zvon4eAnG

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) September 8, 2026

Attorney Marc Elias, whose firm represented the referendum supporters, called the decision a victory for his client and Missouri voters.

The political stakes are substantial. Missouri currently sends six Republicans and two Democrats to the U.S. House under the 2022 districts, while the newer map could have given Republicans a stronger opportunity to gain another seat.

For Missouri voters, the practical result is now clear: congressional candidates will compete under the 2022 map in November, while voters separately decide whether to approve or reject HB 1.

Read the full Supreme Court order here: Hoskins v. Von Glahn, No. 26A304.

Featured image: Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy at the White House in 2018. Official White House photo by Amy Rossetti, via Wikimedia Commons; public domain.