Telling the justices that “[a] federal-election-administration catastrophe 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 Courtroom that might require the state to make use of the map that it adopted in 2022 reasonably than a brand new map which may give Republicans a further seat within the U.S. Home of Representatives that it adopted final 12 months and utilized in its main elections in August. “No courtroom in American historical past has ever given such a rare treatment, which inflicts unprecedented chaos on Missouri,” Hoskins contended.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency appeals from the area that features Missouri, has instructed Richard von Glahn, the challenger within the case, to reply by midday EDT on Monday – a federal vacation, which means that the courtroom intends to maneuver shortly on the request.
The dispute has its roots in a push from President Donald Trump final 12 months for states with Republican legislatures to attract new congressional maps – typically a comparatively uncommon step exterior of the conventional redistricting that follows the decennial census. In September 2025, the Missouri Legislature handed – and Gov. Mike Kehoe signed – HB 1. If profitable, Republicans would maintain seven of the state’s eight seats within the U.S. Home.
On Dec. 9, 2025, organizers submitted bins containing greater than 300,000 signatures in assist of a petition to place a statewide referendum on the brand new maps on the 2026 poll. On Aug. 4, 2026, the final day on which he may make his certification resolution and the day of the state’s main election, Hoskins rejected the petition, explaining that the state’s structure “doesn’t authorize a referendum on congressional redistricting plans handed by the Basic Meeting.”
Von Glahn, one of many proponents of the petition, went to state courtroom, searching for to reverse Hoskins’ resolution and block the state from utilizing the brand new map. On Thursday, the Missouri Supreme Courtroom granted that request. In a unanimous ruling, the state supreme courtroom defined that “the plain language of … the Missouri Structure authorizes a referendum as to ‘any act of the final meeting’ and no exception applies.” Because of this, the courtroom concluded, the referendum petition “was authorized, adequate, and well timed.”
The state supreme courtroom rejected Hoskins’ argument that permitting the referendum to go ahead and never utilizing the brand new congressional map would create “confusion, expense, and sensible difficulties,” calling it “wholly unpersuasive.” Amongst different issues, the courtroom recommended, Hoskins himself created these issues by delaying his motion on the referendum petition till the final day to take action.
Hoskins, the state courtroom mentioned, additionally essentially misunderstood the standing of HB 1 pending the vote on the referendum. The brand new map doesn’t develop into legislation except a majority of the voters approve, the state courtroom harassed; “the 2022 map is the one map in impact.”
In his submitting on Friday night time, Hoskins argued that the Missouri Supreme Courtroom’s resolution violates the U.S. Structure’s elections clause. That provision, he mentioned, provides state legislatures – not a small variety of voters who signal a petition – the facility to prescribe the “Occasions, Locations, and Method” of federal elections. The Supreme Courtroom, he mentioned, “has by no means held that simply 3.3% of a State’s voters can unilaterally droop a disfavored congressional map by submitting a referendum petition.”
The state supreme courtroom’s ruling, he continued, additionally unconstitutionally disenfranchised “tons of of 1000’s” of voters by placing them in new districts, the place they are going to be “compelled to vote on Basic Election candidates they’d no function in selecting.”
Hoskins recommended that the state was “genuinely uncertain whether or not it will possibly change its governing congressional map in time to run a well timed federal election.” In contrast, he emphasised, von Glahn “will get his referendum vote on Missouri’s congressional map no matter what this Courtroom does. The one query is whether or not he (joined by a small minority of the State’s voters) can void a congressional map earlier than he will get his vote.”
Lastly, stressing the significance of “a lot wanted readability” for “confused election officers,” Hoskins requested the justices to enter an administrative keep – that’s, a direct pause of the state supreme courtroom’s ruling to present them time to contemplate his request.