By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
The Supreme Court on Friday halted another attempt to revive Missouri’s 2025 congressional map, leaving the state’s 2022 district boundaries in place for the November midterm elections after weeks of conflicting state and federal court decisions.
The unsigned order marked the third Supreme Court intervention this month involving the disputed map, which Missouri Republicans enacted in 2025 with the support of President Donald Trump and Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe. No justice publicly dissented from Friday’s decision.
The immediate issue before the justices was not simply which map should govern Missouri’s congressional races, but whether federal courts should require another change after the election process had already begun under the older districts.
“Ballots using the 2022 map have been printed and mailed,” the court wrote. “Absentee voting has already begun, as has military and overseas voting. At this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos.”
The justices stayed Sept. 21 and Sept. 22 orders from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri that would have required the state to return to the 2025 districts.
The Supreme Court directed the lower federal courts not to prohibit Missouri from using the 2022 map and not to require the state to use the newer districts in the 2026 congressional election.
The dispute stems from Missouri Republicans’ decision last year to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries in the middle of the decade rather than wait for the next census. Trump had encouraged Republican-controlled states to pursue new maps as the party sought to protect its narrow House majority ahead of the 2026 elections.
Republicans currently hold six of Missouri’s eight U.S. House seats. The 2025 map substantially reconfigured the Kansas City-based 5th Congressional District represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and was designed to improve Republican prospects of winning a seventh seat.
The revised districts removed portions of Kansas City from Cleaver’s seat and extended the remainder farther east into more Republican areas. An Associated Press analysis estimated that approximately 59% of potential voters in the redesigned district were new to it.
Missouri used those 2025 boundaries during its Aug. 4 primary.
The legal landscape changed Sept. 3, when the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that a referendum petition challenging the new map was valid under state law. The state court concluded that the 2025 map “is not the law and has never been the law” unless and until Missouri voters approve it in the November referendum.
That ruling meant the 2022 districts were to govern the general election.
Missouri officials then sought emergency relief from the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, acting as circuit justice for the 8th Circuit, rejected that request Sept. 8, leaving the older map in effect.
Hours later, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark issued a conflicting federal order requiring Missouri to use the 2025 districts because those boundaries had already been used during the August primary.
The full Supreme Court intervened Sept. 10 and stayed Clark’s order without any noted dissent, again clearing the way for election officials to proceed with the 2022 map.
The dispute returned to life Sept. 21 when a three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit ruled that Missouri could not constitutionally conduct its primary under one congressional map and its general election under another.
The appeals court ordered Clark to issue a permanent injunction requiring the 2025 map, but delayed implementation for seven days to permit another appeal to the Supreme Court.
Friday’s decision rejected that approach.
The Supreme Court said its precedents had not established that Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution requires a state to use the same map in its general election that it used during the primary. The justices also emphasized the principle that federal courts generally should avoid changing election rules close to an election.
The court rejected the 8th Circuit’s suggestion that the Missouri Supreme Court was responsible for creating the late disruption.
The justices noted that Missouri’s highest court had warned as early as May that the 2025 map would not take effect if voters submitted a legally sufficient referendum petition. State officials nevertheless proceeded to use the disputed districts for the August primary.
By the time the latest federal appeals ruling arrived, thousands of absentee ballots using the 2022 districts had already been mailed and some votes had already been cast. Military and overseas voting was also underway.
The ruling leaves Cleaver and Republican state Sen. Rick Brattin as the nominees in the Kansas City-area race, but they will compete within the older district boundaries rather than those used during their respective August primaries. Cleaver was unopposed in the Democratic primary, while Brattin won a six-candidate Republican contest under the 2025 map.
The congressional boundaries themselves remain subject to the statewide referendum. Missouri voters will decide in November whether the 2025 map should ultimately take effect.
Kehoe said Friday that the state would comply despite disagreeing with the outcome.
“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,” Kehoe said.
“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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