The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Missouri to use the 2025 Congressional map in the November elections, not the 2022 map.
Missouri already held its primaries using the 2025 Congressional map.
The new map is expected to give Republicans another seat in Missouri by splitting Democrat Emanuel Clever’s 5th Congressional District located in Kansas City.
A federal judge restored the 2025 Congressional map a few hours after the Supreme Court rejected a bid to block the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision to throw it out in another lawsuit.
The Eighth Circuit refused to issue a stay, so the defendants rushed to SCOTUS.
SCOTUS paused the federal judge’s decision, restoring the 2022 map for the midterms.
Key word: pause. SCOTUS did not reject the case. A stay meant that the lawsuit could proceed in the appeals court.
See, District Judge Stephen Clark had concerns since Missouri already held its primaries using the new map.
The Eighth Circuit agreed:
Using the 2025 map also will lead to the least amount of confusion for voters subjected to a string of changes this month. For approximately one year, Missouri operated under the 2025 map. During that time, Missourians filed to run for Congress, met candidates, watched campaign advertisements, received campaign mail, and voted under the 2025 map. Any confusion stems from the last-minute decision by a state court to switch the congressional map.
Currently, Missouri has six Republicans in the House and two Democrats.
The 2025 map splits Democrat Emanuel Clever’s 5th Congressional District, based in Kansas City, “by reassigning portions to two neighboring districts and stretching the remainder into Republican-heavy rural areas.”
The court argued that if Missouri uses the 2022 map in November then “some Missouri voters will have more say than others on who represents them in Congress.
The majority wrote:
For example, more than half of the Missourians living in the Fifth Congressional District under the 2025 map used in the August 2026 primary election—57%—will find themselves in other districts if the 2022 map is used in the November 2026 general election. As a result, a majority of residents in the Fifth Congressional District had no voice in who will appear on their November 2026 ballot; they will be forced to choose from nominees selected by a minority of residents in the district as well as voters who are no longer in the district. The Supreme Court has rejected this outcome: “It would defeat the principle solemnly embodied in the Great Compromise—equal representation in the House for equal numbers of people—for us to hold that, within the States, legislatures may draw the lines of congressional districts in such a way as to give some voters a greater voice in choosing a Congressman than others.” Yet some voters will have a greater voice if the 2022 map is used for the November 2026 general election.
The court gave the defendants a week to go to SCOTUS, which they will do:
People Not Politicians, the political action committee that circulated the referendum petition, plans to appeal, attorney Chuck Hatfield said in a text to The Independent.
The judges “make it clear that we have until the 28th to get a stay and that there is no requirement to switch back to (the 2025 map) until then,” Hatfield wrote. “So we have a couple of days.”
In a statement, Richard von Glahn, director of People Not Politicians, said he is confident the U.S. Supreme Court will again find that the map used in the 2022 and 2024 elections will be used in November.
“Ballots have been printed, and Missourians have already voted,” von Glahn said. “Thousands more will vote before this order seeks to take effect. Officials should stop wasting taxpayers’ money on pointless legal action and instead focus on administering our elections.
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