A citizens group fighting a Republican-led redistricting effort in Missouri is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to deny a request from GOP state officials to allow new maps to go into effect ahead of the midterms.
Last week, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that voters should elect members of Congress from a 2022 map, not the new map passed by the state legislature during a special session in September 2025. Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the state court’s decision.
Missouri was one of the first states to take up President Donald Trump’s call to engage in mid-decade redistricting efforts ahead of the midterms. The new map would probably give Republicans seven of the state’s eight U.S. House seats, one more than they hold now, by slicing 11-term Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City district into three parts.
People Not Politicians Missouri, which sued the state over the redistricting plan and the state’s rejection of a petition to put the issue on the November ballot, responded Monday to a petition in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the state high court’s decision.That was the deadline the group had been given by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who covers this region for emergency appeals.
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“Now that the Missouri Supreme Court has rejected [Hoskins’] gambit, he asks this Court to deliver him the political victory to which he was never entitled under the Missouri Constitution,” People Not Politicians Missouri asserts in the filing. “This Court cannot and should not reward the Secretary’s scheme to outsmart Missouri voters, Missouri law, and the Missouri Supreme Court by granting Applicants the extraordinary relief they seek.”
The citizens group — which collected over 300,000 signatures from Missouri residents to force a referendum on the November ballot — accused Hoskins of filing a last-minute appeal “in the hopes of running out the clock on the judiciary’s tolerance for a last-minute reversion to the 2022 districts.”
The group argues that the Hoskins’ decision to block its “timely” referendum from the November ballot violated state laws that give “voters the power to suspend legislation through the referendum process.”
The state Supreme Court ruled that the old 6-2 map must be used in November’s general election — even though candidates had already won primaries in the newly drawn districts — and also required the referendum to be placed on the ballot.
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who filed the appeal to the federal high court, said the state Supreme Court’s decision disenfranchised Missouri voters.
The map switch from the primaries could create a potential political headache for the state, but proponents of the ballot referendum said it’s a necessary measure to ensure “the people [have] the ultimate say over matters that concern their political representation.”
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