The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected another attempt to revive Missouri’s Republican-backed congressional map, effectively settling a weeks-long legal battle over which districts will govern the state’s November midterm elections.
In a unanimous decision, the justices concluded that Missouri must use the congressional boundaries adopted in 2022 and used during the 2022 and 2024 elections rather than the new map approved by the Republican-controlled legislature last year.
“In short, as a matter of state law, the 2022 map — not the 2025 map — must be used in the 2026 congressional election,” the Supreme Court said in an unsigned opinion.
“The District Court and Court of Appeals should not enjoin or otherwise prohibit the use of the 2022 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri,” the hight court added. “And the District Court and Court of Appeals should not order or otherwise require Missouri to use the 2025 map.”
The ruling marks the latest Supreme Court intervention in an unusually fast-moving redistricting fight that has produced conflicting decisions from state and federal courts just weeks before Election Day.
At stake are Missouri’s eight U.S. House seats and, potentially, the partisan balance of the narrowly divided House.
Missouri’s current delegation consists of six Republicans and two Democrats. The 2025 map substantially altered Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City-based 5th Congressional District, potentially giving Republicans an opportunity to capture a seventh Missouri House seat.
President Donald Trump had encouraged Missouri Republicans to redraw the state’s districts as part of a broader push for mid-decade redistricting ahead of the 2026 elections.
Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe called lawmakers into a special session, and the legislature approved the new boundaries in September 2025.
Opponents responded by launching a ballot referendum campaign. The group People Not Politicians collected and submitted more than 300,000 signatures seeking to place the new congressional map before Missouri voters.
That effort eventually produced the central legal dispute: whether the legislature’s 2025 map could take effect while a valid referendum petition challenging it was pending.
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled Sept. 3 that it could not, even though it was used during the primary elections in August.
The state court determined that referendum supporters had submitted enough valid signatures to trigger Missouri’s constitutional referendum process.
As a result, the court concluded that the 2025 congressional plan had never become operative law and could not take effect unless voters ultimately approved it.
The Missouri Supreme Court said the newer map “is not the law and has never been the law.”
State officials then turned to the federal courts.
Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins initially asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the state court’s ruling.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency applications originating from the 8th Circuit, denied that request Sept. 8.
Hours later, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark issued a separate federal order directing Missouri to use the 2025 districts.
The Supreme Court stepped in again on Sept. 10, blocking Clark’s order and leaving the 2022 boundaries in place while litigation continued.
The dispute then reached the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Sept. 21, an appeals court panel sided with supporters of the newer map.
Among its concerns was the fact that Missouri had already conducted its August congressional primaries using the 2025 districts. The appeals court concluded that changing congressional boundaries between the primary and general elections created federal constitutional problems.
The Supreme Court rejected that reasoning.
The justices noted that the Missouri Supreme Court had explained before the August primary that the 2025 map could not become effective if opponents submitted a legally sufficient referendum petition.
The high court therefore rejected the suggestion that Missouri’s judiciary had unexpectedly changed the rules after voting had begun.
Instead, the justices focused on the secretary of state’s decision to conduct the August primaries under the 2025 boundaries despite the unresolved referendum dispute.
The Supreme Court also invoked the longstanding principle that federal courts should generally avoid ordering disruptive election changes close to Election Day.
“At this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos,” the court said.
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