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For the third time this month, the Supreme Court on Friday rejected an effort to restore Missouri's Trump-backed congressional map for the November midterm elections, ending a lengthy legal battle that had threatened to upend voting after absentee ballots were already underway.
In an unsigned opinion, the justices said switching maps at such a late stage would create "electoral chaos" and allowed Missouri to continue using the congressional districts adopted after the 2020 census.
Republicans had hoped the revised map would help them gain an additional House seat. The decision leaves Missouri voters casting ballots under the same district lines used in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
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Missouri Republican Governor Mike Kehoe posted Friday on X, "It is disappointing that today’s decision by the United States Supreme Court means Missouri will conduct its November general election under a different congressional map than its primary election. Voters deserved consistency and certainty, and not for the rules to be changed between elections. Nevertheless, Missouri will follow the Court’s order."
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In its unsigned opinion, the court emphasized that the election process was already underway.
"Ballots using the 2022 map have been printed and mailed," the justices wrote. "Absentee voting has already begun, as has military and overseas voting."
The court also cited Missouri election officials, who said it was "practically impossible" to revert to the 2025 map at that point.
Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri—the group behind the statewide referendum—responded to Friday's ruling.
"We are done with corrupt politicians trying to force their map into effect outside the process outlined in the Missouri constitution," von Glahn said in a statement to Newsweek. "We have said from the beginning, people, not politicians will be the final deciders on this DC power grab. We are moving forward to vote NO on Proposition A."
Friday's ruling came after weeks of conflicting decisions in state and federal courts over which map Missouri should use.
Missouri lawmakers approved a new congressional map in 2025, backed by President Donald Trump as Republicans sought to reshape the state's districts ahead of the midterms.
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled September 3 that the map could not take effect unless voters approved it in a referendum and ordered the state to use the districts adopted after the 2020 census for the 2026 election.
The U.S. Supreme Court let that ruling stand September 8. Later that day, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark issued a conflicting order requiring Missouri to use the 2025 map, but the Supreme Court blocked it September 10.
The dispute continued when the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled September 21 in favor of the Trump-backed map and directed the district court to require Missouri to use it for the November election.
The Supreme Court's Friday order again blocked that change.
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How Missouri's Congressional Map Changed
The 2025 map significantly reshaped Missouri's 5th Congressional District, which includes much of Kansas City and is represented by Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver.
The new boundaries removed portions of Kansas City from the district and extended the district farther east into rural Republican areas. The changes also affected voters in several other congressional districts.
Republicans currently hold six of Missouri's eight seats in the U.S. House and had sought to use the revised map to create an opportunity to gain a seventh seat.
The new districts were used in Missouri's August primary, but the November election will be conducted under the previous district boundaries. Missouri voters will decide in November whether to approve the 2025 map.
Republican State Senator Rick Brattin won the GOP primary for the 5th District under the revised boundaries. Cleaver was unopposed in the Democratic primary. Both remain the candidates for the general election despite the change in district boundaries.
Brattin was a plaintiff, along with Republican Representative Bob Onder and two other voters, in a federal lawsuit that led to the Eighth Circuit's ruling and the latest appeals to the Supreme Court.
Missouri's Redistricting Prompted a Major Legal Fight
At least 16 lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts related to Missouri's congressional redistricting.
The new map survived most of the lawsuits, including challenges arguing that mid-decade redistricting violated the state constitution and that the new districts did not meet requirements to be compact.
Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins waited until the legal deadline on Aug. 4—the same day the new districts were used in the primaries—to reject the petition seeking a statewide vote on the map. He said referendum petitions could not be used for congressional redistricting.
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled on September 3 that the referendum petition was valid. It ordered Hoskins not to use the new map and instead use the districts adopted in 2022 following the 2020 census.
The U.S. Supreme Court allowed that ruling to stand on September 8. Minutes later, Clark issued a conflicting order that would have allowed the new map to be used.
The Supreme Court blocked Clark's order from taking effect on September 10. That same day, the Missouri Supreme Court temporarily held Hoskins in contempt after he directed local election officials to use the new map in response to Clark's order.
The Eighth Circuit later ruled in favor of the Trump-backed map, setting up Friday's Supreme Court decision.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Edward T. Cummins
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