Missouri’s congressional map fight is hurtling toward another potential Supreme Court showdown, with courts at odds over which districts should govern the November election after more than 1.2 million Missourians voted in the August primary under a different map. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled Monday that Missouri must use its 2025 congressional map in November, finding that switching to the state’s 2022 districts after the primary would violate the U.S. But the appeals court paused its order until Sept. 28, 2026, opening a narrow window for another visit to the U.S.
Abhishek Kambli, a partner at Holtzman Vogel and former deputy associate attorney general at the Justice Department, told Fox News Digital the Supreme Court’s previous intervention does not necessarily signal how the justices will handle the latest ruling. "It’s unpredictable how they’ll rule, mostly because we didn’t get their reasoning in the last order," Kambli said. "So, we don’t know the precise reason why they decided to stay at that time." ELECTION CHAOS IN THIS RED STATE JUST GOT EVEN STRANGER FOR REPUBLICANS AFTER SUPREME COURT RULING The Supreme Court previously stayed a federal district court's temporary restraining order requiring Missouri to use the 2025 map.
The Eighth Circuit has now directed the lower court to enter a permanent injunction requiring the newer districts, putting the dispute in a different procedural posture. "So unless the Supreme Court steps in again, the state will be required to use the seven-one map for this election," Kambli said. Missouri held its Aug. 4, 2026, primary under the 2025 map.
Roughly a month later, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that voters could challenge the map through a referendum, leaving the 2022 districts in place for the November election. Kambli said switching congressional maps between the primary and general election raises serious constitutional concerns. "You would have had a large number of Missourians who would have been disenfranchised because they voted for one set of candidates in the primary and will be voting for another set in the general," Kambli said.
MISSOURI AG FILES PETITION ASKING SUPREME COURT TO REVIVE TRUMP-BACKED REDISTRICTING MAP "And what's even more concerning is sometimes those candidates are unopposed so that they miss their only chance to vote as a result of what the Missouri Supreme Court did here," Kambli continued. "So that's what's really at issue — is whether everyone gets an equal voice in a situation where the primary election is integral to the electoral system of the state." But Yale law professor Akhil Amar and University of California, Davis, law professor Vikram Amar have argued the opposite. After the Supreme Court’s earlier stay, Vikram wrote on SCOTUSblog that using the 2025 map in November would not protect anyone’s right to vote if those lines were never legally in effect.
Akhil agreed with his analysis. "HB1’s district lines lack the force of law, full stop," Vikram wrote. "These lines cannot be used wrongly in November just because they were previously used wrongly in the primary.
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