JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026, ordered Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to put a referendum on the state’s mid-decade congressional map on the November ballot and barred the state from using that map unless voters approve it, The Missouri Times and KCTV reported.

The unanimous ruling reverses a Cole County Circuit Court decision and directs Hoskins to certify referendum petition 2026-R004 as sufficient by Sept. 8. Because organizers filed the petition before House Bill 1’s effective date, the court held the 2025 remap “is not the law and has never been the law.” The 2022 congressional map stays in force for the Nov. 3, 2026, general election unless voters approve HB 1; if they do, the new lines take effect 30 days later.

Republicans drew HB 1 in a September 2025 special session after pressure from President Donald Trump to squeeze an extra House seat out of Missouri. The map splits the Kansas City metro across three districts and was expected to flip the 5th District held by Democrat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. People Not Politicians gathered more than 300,000 signatures for a veto referendum; Hoskins rejected the petition on Aug. 4, arguing the Missouri Constitution does not allow referendums on congressional maps. The justices disagreed, pointing to Article III, Section 49’s reservation of referendum power over “any act of the general assembly” and noting that only commission-drawn state legislative maps are carved out of that process.

Attorney General Katherine Hanaway said the ruling is unprecedented between a primary and a general election and vowed to take the fight to federal court. “Never before in American history has a court overturned a congressional map after a primary and before a general election,” she said, calling it a “constitutional crisis,” per KCTV. Mid-decade remaps have become a national arms race; Thursday’s order puts Missouri voters — not the legislature alone — back on the map for November, with a hard Sept. 8 ballot-finalization deadline hanging over the Secretary of State’s office.

🚨 BREAKING: The Missouri Supreme Court has just REINSTATED the OLD US Congressional map, giving Democrats a seat back in the state, DESPITE the new map being passed into law a YEAR AGO— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) September 3, 2026

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