The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down the state’s Republican-drawn congressional map, ordering that November’s election be run on the district lines Missouri used in 2022 rather than the lines the legislature passed last year to target Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
In a statement, DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene called the ruling “a victory for every Missourian who believes in free, fair elections,” and said Jefferson City Republicans “tried to fix the election before a single vote was cast.”
In court’s 14-page opinion, written by Chief Judge Ginger K. Gooch, barred Secretary of State Denny Hoskin from using the 2025 map “for the November 2026 general election or at any other time thereafter” unless voters approve it first. Hoskins had blocked it from the ballot to avoid giving voters a say.
The ruling caps a year-long fight that began last September, when Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe called a special session at President Donald Trump’s urging to redraw Missouri’s eight congressional districts. The new map split Kansas City three ways and turned Cleaver’s seat, a district Trump lost by double digits in 2024, into one he would have carried by more than 17 points. Missouri Republicans currently hold six of the state’s eight House seats, and the map was designed to push that to seven.
The advocacy group People Not Politicians gathered more than 300,000 signatures (roughly double what's required) for a referendum to allow voters to decide on the map. Hoskins declared the petition insufficient in early August, the same day as the state’s primary, arguing congressional maps aren’t subject to referendum under the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause. A circuit judge agreed, but Thursday’s ruling reversed the decision.
Cleaver, in a post on X, credited the “more than 305,000 Missourians” who signed the petition, saying “the people fought back and won” and that the outcome “reaffirms that the people should choose their politicians, not the other way around.”
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said her office would “move immediately to seek relief” from the U.S. Supreme Court, calling the decision a fully-fledged constitutional crisis.” Missouri's August primary was run entirely under the 2025 map, meaning candidates campaigned and won nominations in districts that no longer exist for the general election. Cleaver, for instance, was unopposed in a primary held under the redrawn lines. He’ll now run in November under the old boundaries, where he’s won with at least 60% of the vote in each of the past two elections.
Missouri was among the first states to act on Trump’s call last year for Republican-led states to redraw maps mid-decade and protect the party’s narrow House majority, a push that also produced new maps in Texas. Thursday’s decision is a rare instance of a court unwinding one of the Republican maps rather than upholding it.
(Photo: Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, via Facebook page)