A federal appeals court in Missouri sided with Republicans on Monday afternoon, breathing new life into the party’s push for a more GOP-friendly U.S. House map in the state.
“This sounds so crazy because the ballots have already been printed,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat whose district was split up by the Republican-favored map, said when The Washington Sun told him of the decision. “Some people have voted.”
Just a week ago, the issue of which map Missourians would use in November seemed all but settled. The Supreme Court had blocked an order from a lower court that required state officials to use the new map.
But the federal appeals court flipped that Monday, ruling that the lower court should enforce that order in seven days unless the Supreme Court steps in. This tees up another emergency appeal to the high court, and People Not Politicians, the advocacy group opposed to the redistricting push, has pledged to do so.
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It will be the third time the court has dealt with Missouri’s redistricting efforts this year, in two separate cases. In the latest, on Sep. 10, the high court stopped Republicans from using the new congressional districts in a one-page order that did not include a reason for the decision and had no noted dissents.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling comes after Missouri began sending out its mail-in ballots to absentee voters on Friday based on the 2022 congressional map, which was left in place in a separate case where the Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal.
In its Monday decision, the 8th Circuit wrote that using the 2025 redrawn map would lead to the “least amount of confusion for voters subjected to a string of changes this month.”
Missouri was the second state to redraw its congressional map after President Donald Trump called on Republican legislatures to redraw their district lines in favor of Republicans. Almost exactly a year ago, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed the “Missouri First” map into law aimed at netting Republicans one more U.S House seat, setting off a slew of lawsuits against the redraw.
The map targeted Cleaver’s district, splitting Kansas City into three different congressional districts.
In Missouri, laws passed by the legislature can be put to a voter referendum by collecting a certain number of signatures. People Not Power submitted the signatures to Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in December, but Hoskins waited until August 4, the same day as the state’s primary elections, to announce he would not be certifying the petition.
“Ballots have been printed, and Missourians have already voted,” Richard von Glahn, the executive director of People Not Politicians, wrote in a statement.
“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. Missourians are already voting and will continue to vote no on Proposition A through November 3.”
This story has been updated with further information on the legal challenges.
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