The Supreme Court halted an appeals court’s ruling reinstating a GOP-friendly congressional map in Missouri, clearing the way for the map from the 2022 and 2024 elections to be used for the November election and likely preventing any House pickups for the Republican Party in the state.
The high court affirmed that the Missouri congressional map passed in 2022, which gives Republicans a 6-2 advantage over Democrats, should be used for the November election in a per curiam ruling. A federal appeals court had ordered a map passed in 2025, which gave the GOP a 7-1 advantage over Democrats, to be used for the midterm elections, but the Supreme Court’s ruling reversed the appeals court’s order, keeping the 2022 map in place for the election in less than five weeks.
The Supreme Court’s ruling seemingly ends a messy legal saga that has sparked confusion over which congressional map Missouri would present to voters for the general election after the August primary was held using the 2025 map. The confusion began when the Missouri Supreme Court sided with the left-wing group People Not Politicians, finding that the 2025 map must be put up for referendum in November and also ordering that the 2022 map must be used in November. State officials appealed the state Supreme Court’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court and filed a separate lawsuit in federal court seeking to use the 2025 map for the November election.
The per curiam ruling rejected the claim that the Missouri Supreme Court unlawfully changed the map too close to the election, stating that “even though ‘federal courts should not impose changes close to an election, States are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests.’” The ruling also said that ordering the use of the 2025 map for the midterm elections would be more disruptive than keeping the 2022 map at this point.
“The election is not merely upcoming; it has already started. Ballots using the 2022 map have been printed and mailed. Absentee voting has already begun, as has military and overseas voting,” the U.S. Supreme Court’s Friday ruling said.
The per curiam ruling was unsigned and did not have any noted dissents.
SUPREME COURT ASKED TO END LEGAL MESS OVER MISSOURI’S CONGRESSIONAL MAP
The U.S. Supreme Court has had to rule in the case three times through its emergency docket in the past month, with the third time coming after early voting began in Missouri.
The November elections are expected to be hotly contested as Democrats and Republicans vie for control of both the Senate and the House, both of which currently have GOP majorities, for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term in the White House.