The referendum fight that loomed over Missouri’s congressional map for months came to a head on August 4, 2026, when Secretary of State Denny Hoskins declined to certify the referendum petition, declaring it unconstitutional a few hours before polls closed in the state’s primary election. Hoskins refused to tell reporters whether the petition contained enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot, saying the count was irrelevant because the Missouri Constitution does not permit a referendum on redistricting. “Whether they had one signature or 500 million signatures doesn’t really matter because they are unconstitutional,” Hoskins said, noting that the political action committee People Not Politicians had turned in more than 300,000 signatures in December. After the press conference, Hoskins released opinion letters from Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who wrote that for a referendum on redistricting to be authorized, the Missouri Constitution “would need to speak through a clear statement divesting the legislature of its authority under the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause,” and that it contains no such statement.
People Not Politicians executive director Richard von Glahn filed a lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court late Tuesday, arguing that the constitution exempts only appropriation bills and emergency laws from the referendum power and that a redistricting plan is neither. The outcome carries unusual weight because of how the referendum mechanism works: a law validly referred to the people is suspended until voters approve it, so the 2025 map’s effective date depends entirely on whether the December petition filing was valid.
The Missouri Supreme Court has not ruled on whether the referendum power reaches redistricting, but in its May decision it laid out the two paths that would follow. Writing for the court, Judge Ginger Gooch explained that because certification was still unfinished, it was “impossible to say” whether the map “went into effect on Dec. 11 or whether (the map) was referred to the people as of Dec. 9 and can only go into effect when approved by a majority of the votes cast.” If the petition is legally sufficient and the referendum power applies to redistricting, the map was suspended as of the December 9 filing and never took effect, which would mean the August 4 primary was conducted under district boundaries that were never legal. If the petition fails on either count, the map took effect normally on December 11. Hoskins’ refusal to certify is the trigger the court had been waiting on, and by rejecting the petition on constitutional grounds rather than on a signature count, he has sent the unresolved question directly back to the courts.
Hoskins acknowledged that his reasoning runs opposite to the same court’s earlier holding in the map litigation, where it rejected the argument that the legislature lacked authority to revise the map simply because the constitution did not explicitly grant it. He maintained the two situations were not parallel, saying, “Here we’re trying to compare apples and oranges.” Separately, Hoskins rejected a proposed constitutional amendment from the Respect MO Voters committee that would have limited the legislature’s power to change voter-approved initiatives, ruling it violated the single-subject requirement. Watch the press conference here.
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