By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump criticized the U.S. Supreme Court on Sunday after the justices intervened for a third time in Missouri’s congressional redistricting dispute, preventing lower federal courts from requiring the state to use a Republican-backed 2025 map in the November midterm election.
The Supreme Court issued an unsigned order Friday staying decisions from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a federal district court that would have required Missouri to conduct the Nov. 3 congressional election using districts enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature last year. No justice publicly dissented. The ruling leaves Missouri on course to use its 2022 congressional map, which is currently used for six Republican-held and two Democratic-held U.S. House seats.
Trump responded Sunday by accusing the court of repeatedly overturning lower-court decisions he believed were correct.
“The Supreme Court of the United States will just not let Missouri have an Election Victory.
“They continuously, three times now, overrule Judges who came to the correct decisions. Thank you to the Governor, and all of the Great People of Missouri, who are fighting so hard for Fairness and Election Security.
“Such tremendous Spirit and Love of our Country. I won Missouri BIG, all three times, and I couldn’t be more proud of doing so. A great place — I love you all! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
Trump carried Missouri in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections. His Sunday statement followed weeks of conflicting state and federal court decisions over whether the congressional boundaries adopted in 2025 could legally be used before Missouri voters decide the map’s fate in a statewide referendum.
Missouri’s Republican-led General Assembly passed House Bill 1 during a special legislative session in September 2025, and Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed the new congressional boundaries into law on Sept. 28, 2025. Kehoe had called the special session in August and said at the time that the state should adopt new congressional districts before the 2026 midterms.
The 2025 map substantially reshaped the Kansas City-based 5th Congressional District represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. Republicans hoped the changes would improve their chances of winning seven of Missouri’s eight congressional seats instead of the six they currently hold. Approximately 59% of potential voters in the revised 5th District were new to the district, and more than 1 million Missouri voters statewide were affected by changes between the two maps, according to an Associated Press analysis.
The 2025 map was used for Missouri’s Aug. 4 congressional primaries, but its status changed after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Sept. 3 that the state Constitution permits voters to subject congressional redistricting legislation to a referendum.
Opponents of House Bill 1 had gathered enough valid signatures to place the law before voters. The Missouri Supreme Court held that the new map could not take effect unless voters approved it and ordered Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to place the referendum on the Nov. 3 ballot. The court also barred use of the 2025 map in the general election unless and until voters approve it.
The referendum, listed as Proposition A, asks Missouri voters whether they approve House Bill 1 and its replacement congressional boundaries. According to the official ballot language, a “yes” vote approves the 2025 redistricting law while a “no” vote leaves the congressional boundaries enacted in 2022 in place.
Missouri officials then sought emergency relief from the U.S. Supreme Court. On Sept. 8, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency matters originating in the 8th Circuit, declined to stay the Missouri Supreme Court decision, leaving the 2022 boundaries in effect at that stage of the litigation.
Hours later, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark issued a temporary restraining order in a separate federal lawsuit filed by Republican Rep. Bob Onder and other plaintiffs. Clark concluded that using one map for the August primary and another for the November general election created federal constitutional problems and ordered Missouri to use the 2025 districts.
The U.S. Supreme Court intervened again Sept. 10, staying Clark’s order without a publicly noted dissent. Following that decision, Hoskins directed local election officials to use the 2022 map for the November election.
The case nevertheless continued in the 8th Circuit.
On Sept. 21, a three-judge appellate panel sided with the Republican plaintiffs and concluded that changing congressional boundaries between the primary and general election would violate federal constitutional requirements.
“This Court holds that Missouri’s current plan to use the 2022 map in the November 2026 general election violates the Constitution. Only use of the 2025 map complies with the Constitution and federal law. We affirm the district court1 and remand for entry of a permanent injunction,” the panel wrote.
The appellate panel consisted of Judge James Loken, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, and Judges David Stras and Justin Smith, both appointed by Trump. The court reasoned that voters who participated in a primary within one district could be moved into a different district for the general election, leaving some voters participating in only part of a congressional election process.
The 8th Circuit said Missouri’s use of the 2025 map during the August primary meant that reverting to the 2022 boundaries for November violated Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. It directed the district court to enter a permanent injunction requiring the newer map but delayed implementation to permit an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.
People Not Politicians, the organization behind the referendum effort, promptly returned to the Supreme Court.
By then, election administration under the 2022 map was already well underway. Overseas and military ballots had been distributed, absentee voting had begun, and election officials had printed ballots based on the older districts. Local election administrators warned that another last-minute change would require ballots to be reprogrammed, reprinted and redistributed.
Friday’s Supreme Court order stayed both the 8th Circuit mandate and the subsequent district court injunctions. The justices instructed the lower federal courts not to prohibit use of the 2022 map and not to require Missouri to use the 2025 map for the 2026 congressional election.
The court pointed to its two previous actions in the same dispute and emphasized that the election was already underway under the older boundaries. The justices said changing maps once voting had begun would create substantial disruption and made clear that their Sept. 10 stay remained in effect.
The Supreme Court also described the underlying state-law posture differently from the 8th Circuit. Relying on the Missouri Supreme Court’s interpretation of state law, the justices noted that the 2025 map has not taken legal effect because the referendum petition obtained enough signatures to require voter approval.
The decision does not prevent Missouri voters from considering the 2025 map itself. Proposition A remains scheduled for the Nov. 3 ballot, but Friday’s federal order means the congressional election being held that same day is set to proceed using the 2022 districts unless the Supreme Court issues another order.
The litigation has become part of a broader national fight over mid-decade redistricting. Trump encouraged Republican-controlled states in 2025 to reconsider their congressional maps as the party sought to protect its narrow House majority going into the 2026 elections. Missouri was among the states that acted, while Democratic-led states pursued their own redistricting efforts in response.
The legal dispute in Missouri has differed from a conventional partisan-gerrymandering challenge because much of the current fight centers on the interaction between Missouri’s referendum provisions, the map used in the August primary and federal constitutional requirements governing the November general election.
For now, the Supreme Court’s latest order resolves the immediate question facing state and local election administrators: the November congressional election is to proceed under Missouri’s 2022 boundaries while voters separately determine whether to approve the 2025 redistricting law.
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