Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has made a big move to try and help the Republican Party gain a massive advantage in the midterm elections to help secure control over Congress by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a stay on a September 3rd ruling from the Missouri Supreme Court concerning the state’s congressional districts.
Hanaway filed an emergency application on September 4th on behalf of Secretary of State Denny Hoskins that seeks to allow use of a map that was enacted in 2025 for the November general election. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is in charge of handling emergency matters from the circuit that includes Missouri, informed the opposing party that they need to respond by noon on September 7, 2026.
The Missouri Supreme Court had previously shot down the state’s request to pause its own order pending federal appeal. Last year, the Missouri General Assembly held a special session in which House Bill 1 was passed. The legislation establishes newly redrawn congressional district lines. That was the map used in the August 2026 primary election. Over 1.2 million people voted in the primary.
According to Trending Politics News, right after the bill was signed into law, organizers submitted a referendum petition with over 300,000 signatures on it, asking voters to accept or reject the new districts. Secretary of State Hoskins later certified the petition as insufficient, stating the Missouri Constitution doesn’t authorize a referendum on congressional redistricting legislation. A circuit court in Cole County upheld the certification.
Then, on September 3rd, the Missouri Supreme Court in a nearly unanimous ruling, reversed that decision. Judge Ginger K. Gooch stated in an opinion on the decision that Article III, Section 49 of the state constitution subjects “any act of the general assembly” to referendum and contains no exceptions for congressional maps. The court determined the petition was legal, sufficient, and timely.
As a result of the ruling, the 2025 map “did not go into effect and will not go into effect unless and until approved by the voters.” The 2022 map thus remains in force for the upcoming general election and the referendum question must appear on the ballot so Missouri voters can decide the issue for themselves. If voters do vote to approve the 2025 map, it would take effect 30 days later.
“Never before in American history has a court overturned a congressional map after a primary and before a general election. This unprecedented decision clearly violates federal law and has thrust our state into a full‑fledged constitutional crisis,” Hanaway went on to say following the court’s decision. “Our office will move immediately to seek relief from The Supreme Court of the United States.”
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“We are confident that the federal courts will not allow every Missouri voter to be disenfranchised—which is what today’s decision does,” the attorney general added. The state is making the case that the ruling is in conflict with the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution and with established principles that give advice against making late changes to election rules.
“No court in American history has ever given such an extraordinary remedy, which inflicts unprecedented chaos on Missouri. Looking backwards, the order renders a completed federal Primary Election utterly pointless—disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters who will now be moved into new districts and forced to vote for candidates they had no role in selecting,” the appeal filing says. The filing then goes on to say, “the State is genuinely unsure whether it can switch its governing congressional map in time to run a timely federal election.”
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