The Missouri Supreme Court found Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in contempt on Thursday for telling officials to use a new congressional map for the November election, but that Hoskins had “purged” himself of the contempt by reversing course later in the day.
The contempt finding stemmed from a weeklong legal war over whether state officials should use a congressional map passed in 2025, which would likely give Republicans a 7-1 advantage over Democrats, or the congressional map passed in 2022 and used in the 2022 and 2024 elections, which has given the GOP a 6-2 advantage over Democrats. The Missouri Supreme Court found last week that the 2025 map would face a referendum in November, and that the 2022 map would therefore be used for the upcoming election, despite the fact that the 2025 map was used for the August primary election. But a federal district court ordered Missouri officials to use the 2025 map on Tuesday, setting up conflicting rulings between state and federal courts.
Hoskins had said after the federal district court ruling that he would use the 2025 map, prompting the state Supreme Court to schedule a contempt hearing for Thursday. A federal appeals court declined to halt the district court order, but Thursday morning, just minutes before the contempt hearing, the U.S. Supreme Court halted the district court ruling that had ordered officials to use the 2025 map. After a tense hearing before the Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday morning, state officials agreed to use the 2022 map for the November election.
During an afternoon hearing, Chief Justice W. Brent Powell issued the state high court’s finding that Hoskins was in contempt, but that because he reneged and ordered officials to use the 2022 map, in compliance with the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling, he was no longer in contempt.
“The court finds that the secretary has since corrected his contemptuous conduct by informing this court of his notifications to the local election authorities that the governing order in effect from this court and directing all local election authorities to use the 2022 congressional district map, the secretary therefore has purged himself of said contempt,” Powell said.
Hoskins said in a statement ahead of the hearing that the only “governing court order in effect is from the Missouri Supreme Court” after the U.S. Supreme Court halted the federal district court’s order, adding that his office would be “directing local election authorities to use the 2022 congressional map.”
SUPREME COURT REINSTATES PREVIOUS MISSOURI CONGRESSIONAL MAP WEEKS BEFORE MIDTERM ELECTIONS
While proceedings continue in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in the federal lawsuit, it appears likely the 2022 map will be used in November, with deadlines for mail ballots to be shipped out to service members set for next week.
The result of the legal saga in Missouri is that Republicans are not likely to gain an additional seat in the Show-Me State, hurting the GOP’s chances of holding their narrow majority in the House of Representatives.