Telling the justices that “[a] federal-election-administration disaster is unfolding in Missouri,” Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins came to the Supreme Court on Friday night, asking the justices to intervene in a battle over the state’s congressional maps. Hoskins urged the justices to pause a ruling by the Missouri Supreme Court that would require the state to use the map that it adopted in 2022 rather than a new map which could give Republicans an additional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives that it adopted last year and used in its primary elections in August. “No court in American history has ever given such an extraordinary remedy, which inflicts unprecedented chaos on Missouri,” Hoskins contended.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency appeals from the region that includes Missouri, has instructed Richard von Glahn, the challenger in the case, to respond by noon EDT on Monday – a federal holiday, which suggests that the court intends to move quickly on the request.
The dispute has its roots in a push from President Donald Trump last year for states with Republican legislatures to draw new congressional maps – generally a relatively rare step outside of the normal redistricting that follows the decennial census. In September 2025, the Missouri Legislature passed – and Gov. Mike Kehoe signed – HB 1. If successful, Republicans would hold seven of the state’s eight seats in the U.S. House.
On Dec. 9, 2025, organizers submitted boxes containing more than 300,000 signatures in support of a petition to put a statewide referendum on the new maps on the 2026 ballot. On Aug. 4, 2026, the last day on which he could make his certification decision and the day of the state’s primary election, Hoskins rejected the petition, explaining that the state’s constitution “does not authorize a referendum on congressional redistricting plans passed by the General Assembly.”
Von Glahn, one of the proponents of the petition, went to state court, seeking to reverse Hoskins’ decision and block the state from using the new map. On Thursday, the Missouri Supreme Court granted that request. In a unanimous ruling, the state supreme court explained that “the plain language of … the Missouri Constitution authorizes a referendum as to ‘any act of the general assembly’ and no exception applies.” As a result, the court concluded, the referendum petition “was legal, sufficient, and timely.”
The state supreme court rejected Hoskins’ argument that allowing the referendum to go forward and not using the new congressional map would create “confusion, expense, and practical difficulties,” calling it “wholly unpersuasive.” Among other things, the court suggested, Hoskins himself created these problems by delaying his action on the referendum petition until the last day to do so.
Hoskins, the state court said, also fundamentally misunderstood the status of HB 1 pending the vote on the referendum. The new map does not become law unless a majority of the voters approve, the state court stressed; “the 2022 map is the only map in effect.”
In his filing on Friday night, Hoskins argued that the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision violates the U.S. Constitution’s elections clause. That provision, he said, gives state legislatures – not a small number of voters who sign a petition – the power to prescribe the “Times, Places, and Manner” of federal elections. The Supreme Court, he said, “has never held that just 3.3% of a State’s voters can unilaterally suspend a disfavored congressional map by submitting a referendum petition.”
The state supreme court’s ruling, he continued, also unconstitutionally disenfranchised “hundreds of thousands” of voters by putting them in new districts, where they will be “forced to vote on General Election candidates they had no role in choosing.”
Hoskins suggested that the state was “genuinely unsure whether it can switch its governing congressional map in time to run a timely federal election.” By contrast, he emphasized, von Glahn “will get his referendum vote on Missouri’s congressional map regardless of what this Court does. The only question is whether he (joined by a small minority of the State’s voters) can void a congressional map before he gets his vote.”
Finally, stressing the importance of “much needed clarity” for “confused election officials,” Hoskins asked the justices to enter an administrative stay – that is, an immediate pause of the state supreme court’s ruling to give them time to consider his request.
Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Missouri urges Supreme Court to allow for use of congressional map expected to aid Republicans, SCOTUSblog (Sep. 5, 2026, 11:47 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/09/missouri-urges-supreme-court-to-allow-for-use-of-congressional-map-expected-to-aid-republicans/