The upcoming congressional elections in Missouri face potential chaos following a swift but ultimately unavailing Supreme Court denial and a subsequent conflicting federal court order regarding the state's congressional maps. Last Thursday, the Missouri Supreme Court halted a 2025 state law that would have redrawn the congressional maps, potentially awarding Republicans an additional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Republicans and Missouri's Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to enforce the new, more GOP-friendly maps. However, the high court dismissed their request in a terse, six-word order attributed solely to Justice Brett Kavanaugh: "Application (26A304) denied by Justice Kavanaugh." While a single justice can sometimes dispose of a case, invoking this procedure typically signals that the matter is considered one-sided.
This case, known as Hoskins v. von Glahn, took an unexpected turn minutes later when federal district judge Stephen Clark ordered the state to proceed with the GOP-favored maps. Although Clark's case, Onder v. Missouri, involves different plaintiffs—a Republican member of Congress is the lead plaintiff—the legal issues are nearly identical. Clark's ruling acknowledged Kavanaugh's prior denial of the same relief.
The dispute stems from a Republican effort to gerrymander congressional maps ahead of the midterms, a strategy that Democrats have contested with mixed success. This preelection litigation is characteristic of what is expected to be a chaotic election season, with new policies and competing court orders potentially confusing election officials and voters.
Unclear Maps and Judicial Conflict
It remains unclear which congressional maps Missouri will ultimately use for the upcoming elections. The outcome may hinge on the reasoning behind Justice Kavanaugh's dismissive order in the Hoskins case.
One potential explanation for Kavanaugh's ruling is that Hoskins, the official who sought the Supreme Court's review, may have created the problem he asked the court to solve. The Republican legislature enacted the new maps on September 12, 2025. However, under Missouri's constitution, voters could trigger a referendum on these maps by submitting petitions by a specific deadline, which opponents met on December 9, 2025. The state constitution stipulates that laws subject to a referendum do not take effect unless approved by voters. Therefore, as the Missouri Supreme Court concluded, the new maps were not legally in effect.
Despite the clarity of this constitutional provision, the process was delayed. Opponents of the maps requested an earlier ruling, but the Missouri Supreme Court, in a May 12, 2026, opinion, stated it could not rule until after Hoskins issued his decision on the referendum petitions. Hoskins waited until August 4, the final day to rule on the petitions and the date of the state's primary election, to reject the referendum. The Missouri Supreme Court's subsequent ruling found Hoskins erred in rejecting the petitions, thus confirming the maps were not in effect.
This sequence of events has placed Missouri's election officials in a difficult position, requiring them to prepare for an election with potentially different congressional districts than those used in the recent primary. This change could affect voter assignments and create logistical challenges.
Legal Arguments Under Scrutiny
Another possible reason for Kavanaugh's decision is the perceived weakness of the Republican legal arguments. The GOP presented three constitutional arguments in favor of their preferred maps.
The first argument invoked the "independent state legislature doctrine" (ISLD), which posits that state legislatures possess largely unchecked authority over federal election rules, free from state constitutional constraints or judicial review. The Supreme Court has previously rejected this theory, most recently in its 2023 Moore v. Harper decision. Even Judge Clark rejected the ISLD argument in the Onder case.
Clark did, however, agree with the Republicans' other arguments: that it is unconstitutional to use different congressional districts for a general election than those used in a primary election. He cited U.S. v. Classic (1941), which protected voters' right to have their primary ballots counted, and claimed that reassigning voters constitutes unconstitutional discrimination by creating distinct classes of voters. Critics argue that Classic did not prohibit altering districts for general elections and that the Constitution does not forbid discrimination based on which district a voter participated in during a primary.
This situation leaves Missouri election officials in limbo, unable to finalize preparations for the upcoming election until the legal uncertainty surrounding the congressional maps is resolved.