People gather at the Missouri State Capitol on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, in Jefferson City, Missouri, to protest the Legislature’s efforts to change the state’s congressional district maps.
Tammy Yungblud | Kansas City Star | Getty Images
In a fierce battle over the composition of Missouri’s congressional districts, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked the state from using a map redrawn to favor Republicans in the November election, a setback for President Donald Trump’s party as it seeks to maintain control of Congress.
The justices granted a request by the map’s challengers, including a group called People Not Politicians, to block a lower court ruling that required the use of redrawn U.S. House district boundaries for the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The dispute has played out in both state and federal courts, led to multiple conflicting court rulings, and left Missouri’s congressional district in limbo amid a back-and-forth legal battle over the nation’s highest judicial body. Absentee voting has already begun in Missouri.
The Supreme Court’s action comes after the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the Republican-drawn map must be used — even though the Supreme Court had blocked its use on Sept. 10, a ruling that was thought to have settled the issue.
The Eighth Circuit upheld a preliminary order by U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark in St. Louis upholding the Republican map. But then the Eighth Circuit ordered Clark, a Trump appointee, to make the interim order permanent. This step would likely require fresh intervention from the Supreme Court.
The challengers asked the Supreme Court for a quick fix, arguing that the 8th Circuit panel that handed down the decision, which included two judges appointed by President Trump and one judge appointed by another Republican president, undermined the justices’ Sept. 10 ruling.
“Applicants are not aware of any case in which a federal appeals court has ordered a district court to reissue the same relief that this Court (Supreme Court) has withheld through appellate and certifying review,” the petitioners said in their filing.
Adjudicative review refers to the formal process used by the Supreme Court to select and review cases decided by lower courts.
President Trump last year asked Republican-controlled states to redraw their congressional district lines to favor Republican candidates, increasing the chances of Republicans retaining a narrow House majority.
In 2025, the Missouri Republican Party adopted a new map, dissolving a Kansas City-based congressional district held by longtime Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver.
On September 3, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled that under state law, Republican-drawn maps cannot be used in midterm elections until they are first put on the ballot.
Missouri officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in permitting the map, but it was denied in a Sept. 8 ruling by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Later that day, Clark issued an order banning any map other than the 2025 redrawn map because the congressional district boundaries had already been used in Missouri’s Aug. 4 party primary. Mr. Clark represented Republican U.S. Representative Bob Onder of Missouri and other plaintiffs in a lawsuit following an unfavorable ruling by the state Supreme Court.
In response, the U.S. Supreme Court on September 10 blocked the redrawing of the map. None of the judges publicly objected to the simple order, which was unsigned and unexplained.
In response to the move, Republican officials said midterm elections would be held using the state’s previous congressional map passed in 2022. But the Eighth Circuit moved forward with an appeal of Clark’s interim order and upheld Clark’s decision on Monday, paving the way for the Supreme Court to act again.
