Missouri’s New Congressional Map Remains in a Ping-Pong Match
Kavanaugh denied request to block the ruling throwing out the new map, but hours later, a federal judge restored it with a temporary restraining order.
Three things happened with Missouri’s new congressional map in the last five days.
- September 3: Missouri Supreme Ct Throws Out New Congressional Maps — After Primaries Already Held
- September 8: Kavanaugh rejected a bid to block the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision.
- September 8: Federal judge restores the new map.
Kavanaugh did not explain his denial.
But Kavanaugh’s rejection meant that Missouri could “renew its application with another Justice, while separate federal lawsuits remain pending that seek to restore the new map for November.”
Chief Judge Stephen Clark restored the map a few hours later with a temporary restraining order (TRO).
“Plaintiffs face irreparable harm absent a TRO because many Missouri voters would have to cast their general-election votes for candidates whom they had no role in nominating,” wrote Clark. “Candidates who had no choice but to campaign and raise money in the HB 1 districts that Missouri’s highest election authority presented to them, have spent their funds and campaign efforts in districts that would no longer exist.”
Therefore, using any other map than the new map, “would disenfranchise primary-election voters and undermine the nominations of candidates chosen in the primaries, leading to ‘certain’ and ‘great’ harm, not merely ‘speculative’ or ‘possible’ harm.”
Clark also said that any irreparable harm the TRO might cause the defendants “pales in comparison to the irreparable harm that Plaintiffs” and the public would suffer without it.
Plaintiffs also invoked the Elections Clause, arguing that the state constitutional provision must “‘supply [a] clear, deliberate statement’ to ‘divest its legislature of redistricting authority.'”
Clark concluded that the Plaintiffs likely won’t succeed on the merits with their Elections Clause claim since “the referendum is a licit part of the legislative power in Missouri.”
“States may choose to vest parts of the legislative power in bodies other than the General Assembly, and Missouri has so chosen,” wrote Clark. “In turn, states may permit their voters to challenge redistricting maps by referendum without running afoul of the Elections Clause.”
Clark rejected it for two reasons (omitted citations):
First, the referendum doesn’t divest the Missouri legislature of redistricting authority, as the people are part of the Missouri legislature through the referendum process.
Second, to the extent a clear statement rule applies in the Elections-Clause context, the Missouri Constitution’s referendum provision is as clear as the Ohio Constitution’s provision upheld in Hildebrant—both referendum powers apply to any law of the General Assembly
I will update this post if anything happens today.
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Comments
We’re getting whiplash here in the show-me state, but our SoS is a defiant stud vowing to use the already used-in-the-primary 2025 district map.
The MOSC is not happy and wants to hold our SoS in contempt. He is easy to find. He usually wears a bright red blazer.
“The contempt fight erupted hours after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected Missouri officials’ emergency request to stay the state court ruling. Minutes later, Chief U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark of the Eastern District of Missouri issued a temporary restraining order barring Hoskins from using any congressional map other than the 2025 version.”
Pass the popcorn.
https://missouriindependent.com/2026/09/08/us-supreme-court-denies-gop-effort-to-revive-gerrymandered-missouri-congressional-map/
Which district are you in this morning? Which one tonight? Tomorrow?
Are your neck muscles getting a workout?
What a mess!
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This re-districting fight comes down to dismantling decades-old lefty power strongholds, mainly the middle districts. That’s why this whole business is so hotly contested.
Old map: the 5th district is basically Jackson County which is basically Kansas City, MO (not to be confused with lil sis, kansas city, kansas across the river; it’s complicated). That’s a lot of federal, county, and municipal power concentrated in a relatively small area of the state (similar to St. Louis).
New map: KCMO is split between the 4th (mostly rural & red) and the 5th (extended east into rural & red counties) in order to dilute the leftists’ stronghold of the old 5th district.
Old map: The state capitol of Jefferson City is in the 3rd district as is Columbia Missouri, home to MU – a blackhole intense haven of marxist meat puppets, whackjob perfessors, and far-left domestic terrorists (which this blog has done a superb job of documenting).
New map: all of Jeff City is in the new 5th district (mostly rural & red) while Columbia is split between the new 4th (rural & red), and new 3rd (still a leftist craphole).
The 1st district is basically St. Louis County which is basically St. Louis was left unchanged as a bone for the leftists to be satisfied. But, of course, they are not, so we have interminable court cases to fight out this power struggle.
Now you know more about Missouri political squabbles than anyone should know.
Popcorn?
That beats the old plan of: The district map for elections shall be created by the legislature…unless some judge somewhere decides otherwise and writes their own lines.
That’s bullshit. The state constitution says that if you get enough signatures for a referendum on a law the legislature made, then the law can’t come into effect until the referendum is held. That’s got nothing to do with any judges. The judges apply the law and the constitution.
Even this federal judge who says the new map is probably invalid but the state has to use it anyway, for now. Even he’s applying the law as he sees it.
He should use the map that was used in the primaries. Those are the people that got nominated legally. Screw these judges
1. That is what the federal district judge said. Or rather, that he can’t use any other map.
2. According to the state supreme court, which is the highest authority on interpreting state law, these people were no legally nominated. The new map is not and never has been the law, because a referendum was filed, and the Secretary of State verified all the signatures, which automatically puts the new map in abeyance. That’s what the state constitution says.
3. Also according to the state supreme court, the SoS could have avoided this whole mess, but deliberately brought it on. If he believed (as he says now) that redistricting is not subject to referendums, then he shouldn’t have validated the signatures. And if he did want to validate them he should have used just a sample, which would have got the result sooner. Instead he deliberately dragged it out until the last minute and then had the chutzpah to complain that it’s too late.
Anyway, we shall see what the 8th circuit has to say.
Yea the SoS really screwed the pooch on this one.
SCOTUS made this mess in 2023 when they decided that the word “legislature” in the Constitution didn’t really mean legislature but actually means “judges”. It’s so sad that the founding fathers didn’t know what the actually meant to say when they wrote the Constitution.
The only way the SoS can comply with both the state supreme court and the federal district judge is to cancel the election until after the referendum is held, and then hold a special election depending on which map prevails. If the referendum upholds the new map then there’d be no need for primaries, so the special election could be held almost immediately. If it rejects the new map then there’d need to be some sort of truncated primary process on the old map, and then a special election, so it might not be done by Jan 3.
If that were to happen, then Missouri’s 8 seats would not be filled until the special election can be held, which means that from Jan 3 until that date the House would probably have a temporary Dem majority.
Wouldn’t that violate the federal law specifying the first Tuesday after the first Monday in Nov as election day for Congress? They are stuck with no good options here.
I suppose they could authorize firehouse primaries for the political parties to officially nominate candidates in the old districts and use those lines. No matter what they do there is a problem.
The SoS could say that yes, that’s the election date set by federal law, but we can’t hold it then because we’re enjoined from using the old map, and the new map is not yet law, so we have no districts in which to hold these elections. Therefore we’re going to have to fill the vacancies by special elections, which we will hold as soon as possible. If the referendum upholds the new map, they could schedule the special election as little as a week later; everyone’s already done all their campaigning. But if it doesn’t, then it gets more complicated.
Or they can just use the map they already used for the primaries and say to hell with that judge. Stupid activist a******
What the hell are you talking about? If you think the federal judge is an activist and is telling them to use the old map then you obviously have either not read the article or can’t comprehend simple English.
It’s the state supreme court that says they can’t use the new map, because it is not the law. And the federal judge agrees that’s probably correct. But he says they can’t use the old map either.
So Clark says the plaintiffs (i.e. supporting the new map) likely won’t succeed on the merits, but they still get their TRO because in the unlikely case that they do succeed they will have suffered irreparable harm in the meantime.
Well, the state motto is ‘Show Me’.
…the money
Didn’t he find that the plaintiffs would likely prevail on the equal protection claim?
But not on the underlying merits. The new map is not the law. It’s a legal nullity until and unless the referendum endorses it. Or at least so says the state supreme court, which is the ultimate authority on the matter. Even federal courts have to take the state supreme court’s word on what state law means. They’re not allowed to interpret it for themselves.
So which of these maps shows Africa the biggest?
Maybe we should just go back to Pangea and Gondwana. I mean, navigation doesn’t really matter, and it has educational value, so we need to show ALL the maps.
Best t-shirt I saw back in the 90s. Stop Global Continental Drift – Preserve Gondwanda! (with a picture of the world showing staples across every fault line.)