The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, September 25, ordered that Missouri conduct its November congressional election under the map drawn in 2022, staying orders from the Eighth Circuit and the Eastern District of Missouri that would have required use of a map the legislature passed in a 2025 special session. The unsigned order in People Not Politicians v. Onder, No. 26A388, drew no recorded dissents and stated plainly: “In short, as a matter of state law, the 2022 map, not the 2025 map, must be used in the 2026 congressional election.” It was the third time in three weeks the Court declined to let the newer map take effect.
The dispute began when Missouri Republicans, at President Donald Trump’s urging, redrew the state’s eight congressional districts in September 2025 in a configuration expected to yield a 7-1 Republican advantage by dividing the Kansas City-based district held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. Opponents organized as People Not Politicians gathered more than 300,000 signatures for a veto referendum, and on September 3, 2026, the Missouri Supreme Court held that the successful petition suspended the 2025 law, meaning the map never took effect and the 2022 districts remained operative. A federal suit by U.S. Rep. Bob Onder and state Sen. Rick Brattin then produced conflicting orders, a contempt finding against Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and two earlier Supreme Court interventions on September 8 and September 10. On September 21 a three-judge Eighth Circuit panel sided with Onder and Brattin, directing the state to use the 2025 map and giving opponents one week to seek relief in Washington. Our earlier report covers that sequence in detail.
The Court grounded Friday’s order in the Purcell principle, which counsels federal courts against altering election rules as an election approaches. Noting that ballots had been printed and absentee and overseas voting had begun, the order observed that “the election is not merely upcoming; it has already started,” and that “[a]t this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos.” The justices faulted the appeals panel for how it handled that analysis, writing that “[t]he Eighth Circuit panel dealt with Purcell by casting blame on the Missouri Supreme Court for its September 3 decision prohibiting use of the 2025 map,” and adding that “[s]tates are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests.” On the lower courts’ reading of its earlier orders, the Court was blunt: “Given this Court’s two prior orders in this litigation, our conclusion that this was error should come as no surprise.”
The order closed with instructions that the district court and court of appeals “should not enjoin or otherwise prohibit the use of the 2022 map,” and equally “should not order or otherwise require Missouri to use the 2025 map” in this election. The practical stakes were narrow and concrete: in St. Charles County alone, 410 of 1,889 ballots already sent to voters in the 2nd District could have been rendered uncountable by another change. Proposition A, the referendum on the 2025 map, remains on the November 3 ballot and will determine whether those districts ever take effect. The Eighth Circuit’s September 21 judgment held that using the 2022 map violates the Constitution and directed entry of a permanent injunction; Friday’s order stayed that judgment rather than vacating it, leaving the holding intact and subject to a certiorari petition due December 21.
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