Missouri Supreme Court Keeps GOP-Backed Congressional Map in Place

The Missouri Supreme Court delivered a major win for Republican leaders this week, upholding the state’s GOP-backed congressional map as the national fight over redistricting continues to intensify.

In two unanimous decisions issued Tuesday, Missouri’s high court ruled that the “Missouri First Map” may remain in effect while ongoing legal and procedural disputes play out over a referendum effort aimed at overturning it.

The map, supported by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe and approved by GOP lawmakers last year, was drawn with a clear political objective: shift one of Missouri’s two Democrat-held congressional districts into Republican hands and move the state toward a 7-1 Republican congressional delegation.

For Republicans, the ruling represents another important victory in the broader battle over congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

But some Missouri conservatives are already looking beyond the current map.

Even before the court issued its rulings, leading Republicans in the state were openly discussing whether Missouri should pursue an even stronger redraw that could eliminate the final Democratic-held congressional seat and produce an 8-0 Republican map.

“I would love to see an 8-0 map,” Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins said Tuesday, pointing to the Supreme Court’s recent decision limiting race-based districting.

“We have racial gerrymandering right now in St. Louis in Congressional District 1,” Hoskins added. “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that there is no more racial gerrymandering.”

The Missouri Supreme Court rejected arguments from the ACLU and other activist groups that a referendum petition should have automatically paused the new congressional map after organizers submitted more than 300,000 signatures last December in an effort to overturn the law.

Democrat-aligned plaintiffs claimed the map should have been immediately frozen once the referendum petitions were filed.

The court disagreed.

Siding with the state, the justices ruled that Missouri’s Constitution does not automatically suspend a law simply because petition boxes have been submitted.

Judge Ginger Gooch wrote that if the framers of the state constitution had intended such an automatic suspension, “they would have so stated.”

The court also upheld lower court findings that rejected claims that the map violated constitutional compactness requirements.

Much of the legal fight centered on Kansas City, where Republicans divided the city across multiple congressional districts under the new map.

The map places portions of Kansas City into three separate congressional districts, including a division along Troost Avenue, long known as a historic racial dividing line in the city.

Republicans have defended the redraw as a lawful map based on political and geographic considerations, arguing that it aligns with the Supreme Court’s new direction on limiting race-based districting.

The Missouri ruling comes as Republican-led states across the country move more aggressively in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais.

That ruling narrowed the legal standards that had previously been used to defend majority-minority districts under the Voting Rights Act.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote that racial districting standards had increasingly been used as a way to mask what were, in reality, partisan gerrymandering claims.

Republicans have taken that ruling as a green light to revisit congressional maps in states such as Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri as they work to protect and expand their House majority before the 2026 midterms.

Democrats and left-wing activist organizations, meanwhile, have responded with lawsuits accusing Republicans of weakening minority representation and locking in partisan control.

Missouri Republicans argue the Supreme Court has now clarified that states should not be forced to preserve districts built around racial engineering.

The Missouri First Map already puts one Democratic seat in serious jeopardy. But the fact that Republicans are openly discussing an 8-0 map shows the redistricting fight in the state may be far from finished.

The next major target could be Missouri’s last Democratic stronghold, the St. Louis-based 1st Congressional District, if GOP lawmakers decide to pursue another round of mapmaking.

For now, the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling keeps the Republican-backed map in place while election officials continue reviewing and verifying the referendum signatures.