Supreme Court blocks Missouri’s 2025 map for 2026 election
The justices put Missouri’s 2025 congressional map on hold again, leaving the 2022 districts in place as voting is already underway.
By Deshawn Carter · Sports Writer
3 min read
The Supreme Court Missouri 2025 map fight has produced a clear answer for this year’s general election: Missouri will use its 2022 congressional districts. In a Sept. 25 unsigned ruling, the court granted a stay sought by People Not Politicians and stopped lower federal court orders that would have required the state to switch to a newer map.
The justices said ballots using the 2022 map had already been printed and mailed, while absentee, military and overseas voting had begun. Moving back to the 2025 map during an election in progress would bring “electoral chaos,” the court wrote in its per curiam order.
What map will Missouri use for the 2026 congressional election?
The 2022 map remains the one Missouri will use for its 2026 congressional general election. The Supreme Court paused the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ Sept. 21 mandate and Sept. 22 order, as well as federal district court injunctions issued Sept. 21 and 22 that had directed the state to use the 2025 map.
The order does not resolve every underlying constitutional argument. The court said the legal merits were not entirely clear-cut, but ruled that the usual factors for granting a stay favored keeping the existing map in place while voting is underway.
Why the 2025 map was blocked
Missouri’s Legislature enacted the current congressional map in 2022 and passed a replacement in 2025, according to the Supreme Court. But on Sept. 3, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the 2025 map was not state law because a referendum petition had triggered a public vote on it.
Under that state-court ruling, the 2025 map cannot take effect unless voters approve it in the 2026 referendum. That left the 2022 map as the governing plan for the general election.
The Supreme Court also said Missouri’s high court was not to blame for the late disruption. It noted that the state court had raised the referendum issue before the August primary, and that Secretary of State Denny Hoskins proceeded with the 2025 map for that primary despite the risk.
Three Supreme Court interventions in September
- Sept. 8: Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied Hoskins’ request to halt the Missouri Supreme Court decision, leaving the 2022 map in force for the general election.
- Sept. 10: The full court blocked a federal district court’s temporary order that effectively required use of the 2025 map. The order listed no dissent.
- Sept. 25: The court again stopped lower-court relief after the Eighth Circuit directed a permanent injunction requiring the 2025 map.
The federal case was brought by Republican candidates Robert Onder and Richard Brattin, along with two voters, SCOTUSblog reported. They argued that using the older map for the general election would put them in districts different from the ones used in the August primary.
The 2025 map was intended to give Republicans an opportunity to gain an additional U.S. House seat, according to SCOTUSblog and CNN. For the November election, however, the Supreme Court’s latest stay leaves the 2022 lines in place.
This story draws on original reporting from NBC News.