JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A federal appeals court panel on Thursday weighed an effort to revive new Missouri congressional districts supported by President Donald Trump, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to block their use in the November election.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the lengthy dispute over whether Missouri should adopt the Republican-drawn U.S. House map used during the state’s August primary. The consequences of a ruling in favor of that map remain uncertain, however, because the Supreme Court has already paused enforcement of a lower-court order supporting it while the justices consider a possible appeal and eventual review.
For now, Missouri is scheduled to hold its November election using the congressional districts in place for the 2024 and 2022 elections, following earlier rulings by both the Missouri Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
County election officials told the court they have already begun printing ballots based on those districts. They also face a Friday deadline under federal law to send absentee ballots to overseas citizens and military voters, while state law requires absentee ballots to be available to all other voters by next Tuesday.
Changing the districts at this stage would be “practically impossible” and would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a filing from the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities.
Missouri’s redistricting fight has become the longest, most complicated and confusing of roughly a dozen efforts by states to redraw their U.S. House districts over the past year. Trump prompted the unusual wave of mid-decade redistricting by urging Republican-led states to reshape congressional maps in hopes of gaining an advantage in the midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress and influence his agenda.
