Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday once again blocked Missouri from using a redrawn map designed to give Republicans an additional House seat in the midterm elections.
The ruling allows Missouri to use the House district boundaries approved in 2022 for the Nov. 3 general election. Ballots based on that map have already been printed and mailed to voters in Missouri, as well as military and overseas voters. Absentee voting by mail and in person began earlier this week.
In an unsigned opinion issued without any noted dissents, the justices said, “the election is not merely upcoming; it has already started.” Requiring Missouri to return to the 2025 map now, the court added, “would usher in electoral chaos.”
The Supreme Court instructed the lower courts not to block Missouri from using the 2022 map in the 2026 congressional election. It also said the District Court and Court of Appeals should not order the state to use the map drawn in 2025.
The dispute over Missouri’s congressional map reached the Supreme Court for a third time late Tuesday, after a federal appeals court directed the state to reinstate House district lines approved by the GOP-led legislature last year. Backed by President Trump, the 2025 map gives Republicans an advantage in seven of Missouri’s eight House districts. The state’s current delegation consists of six Republicans and two Democrats.
The Supreme Court had already twice prevented Missouri from using the new plan in the Nov. 3 general election, which will help determine control of the House.
In the first action, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, acting alone, allowed a Missouri Supreme Court ruling to remain in effect. That decision barred the state from using the new House boundaries in the election.
Soon after Kavanaugh’s order, a separate emergency appeal over Missouri’s map returned to the Supreme Court. It stemmed from a federal district court ruling that required the state to use the new boundaries for the Nov. 3 election. The Supreme Court later paused that ruling, allowing Missouri to proceed with the 2022 House map.
The legal fight continued. On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled that Missouri’s plan to use the 2022 boundaries violated the Constitution and ordered the newer map restored. A federal district judge then issued a permanent injunction directing Missouri’s secretary of state to use the 2025 House districts in the general election.
Missouri used the new House districts in its August primary elections.
In an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, People Not Politicians, a group opposing the new map, argued that the 8th Circuit had circumvented the high court’s earlier order by declaring that only the redistricting plan adopted last year complied with the Constitution and federal law.
“The result is chaos on both sides of Election Day: confusion over how to conduct the election now, and uncertainty over the rules governing its results,” the group wrote in a request for emergency relief filed Tuesday.
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Missouri officials countered that using the 2022 map for the general election after voters participated in the primary under the newer districts would force the state to violate the Constitution and voting rights by moving voters between districts.
“The honest truth is that — regardless of what this Court does — Missouri will not be able to run an orderly 2026 General Election,” state officials wrote in a filing.
Officials said using the redrawn map would prevent the disenfranchisement of voters who participated in the primary, but would breach a federal deadline for mailing ballots to military and overseas voters. Missouri was required to send those ballots by Sept. 19.
By contrast, officials said reverting to the 2022 districts would leave voters and candidates confused, mark the state’s fifth court-ordered map change in September, disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of primary voters and force candidates to campaign in districts where they had not run during the past year.
Missouri officials said they believe holding the election under the newer map “better advances the public interest.”
Missouri election officials have said that returning to the congressional map drawn last year would be “practically impossible” because printing and distributing replacement ballots would be costly and time-consuming while voting is already underway.
Missouri was among several Republican-led states that moved to redraw their congressional districts midway through the decade at Mr. Trump’s urging, seeking to strengthen the party’s prospects of maintaining control of the House in November.
The Missouri legislature approved the new redistricting plan last year. The map divides the Kansas City area and makes Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s district more conservative.
