Overview
- The split rulings came on Tuesday when Justice Brett Kavanaugh declined Missouri’s emergency request to revive the GOP-drawn 2025 map and left a Missouri Supreme Court order in place that requires a return to the 2022 districts.
- Minutes later a federal judge, Stephen Clark, issued a temporary restraining order requiring use of the 2025 HB1 map that was used for the August primary and whose winners have already been certified.
- The two orders are both active as parties file emergency appeals to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and ask higher courts to resolve whether federal constitutional claims can override a state supreme court’s state-law ruling.
- State officials have said they are prepared to follow the federal judge’s order while local election boards and referendum organizers warn that switching maps now would confuse voters and risk missed deadlines for overseas and military absentee ballots.
- The dispute centers on a mid-decade Republican-drawn map that would have fractured Kansas City’s 5th District to make the seat more winnable for Republicans and a citizen referendum backed by People Not Politicians Missouri that collected roughly 305,000 signatures to pause the new map.