Dueling rulings cause chaos over Missouri maps

lawdork.com · Chris Geidner · September 9, 2026

# Dueling rulings cause chaos over Missouri maps

Author: Chris Geidner Published: 2026-09-09T03:57:04+00:00 Source: lawdork.com (lawdork.com) Language: en

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# Dueling rulings cause chaos over Missouri maps

### By Tuesday night, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins faced an order from the Missouri Supreme Court to show cause why he should not be held in contempt.

Sep 09, 2026

A federal district court judge on Tuesday did what the U.S. Supreme Court — via Justice Brett Kavanaugh — had refused to do earlier in the day: Jump into Missouri’s congressional elections, spreading chaos in the state on the day after Labor Day.

Following a unanimous Missouri Supreme Court decision issued on September 3 blocking the use of new maps passed by Republicans in the state aimed at benefitting Republicans in the 2026 general election, a longshot request from Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to the U.S. Supreme Court sought to block that ruling — which would have allowed the use of the new maps.

Kavanaugh — without even referring the matter to the full court — denied Hoskins’s request on Tuesday in his role as the circuit justice for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which includes Missouri. Such an order, while very simple, made abundantly clear that the Supreme Court had no interest in getting into the questions about Missouri’s congressional elections following the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling.

Despite that, soon thereafter, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark granted a temporary restraining order in a longshot case filed on September 4 challenging the use of the earlier, 2022 congressional map in the 2026 general election.

With his TRO, Clark, a Trump appointee, appeared to require the use of the new maps in the 2026 general election — the same maps that the Missouri Supreme Court five days earlier ruled could not be used in the 2026 general election.

Before the end of the night, and after Hoskins expressed readiness to act on Clark’s order, the Missouri Supreme Court issued an order for Hoskins to show cause by Wednesday why he should not be held in contempt — and set oral arguments over that question for Thursday morning.

Clark’s ruling would be bad enough on those terms. The problems, however, are all the more egregious if you scratch the surface in any direction.

First, the underlying reality: Hoskins created this entire problem by delaying several aspects of this year’s elections — both relating to a referendum challenging the 2025 map, known as HB1, and as to candidates’ petitions for this year.

As the Missouri Supreme Court put it, in no uncertain terms:

Because of Hoskins’s actions, the HB1 map was improperly used in this year’s congressional primary elections.

As the Missouri Supreme Court explained, Hoskins was wrong not to certify the referendum challenging the map and, because of that, HB1 — and with it, the new maps — were never properly in effect and could not be used for the general election this year.

As such, the court ruled:

Not willing to leave that be the final word, Hoskins went to the U.S. Supreme Court the next day seeking a stay of the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling:

The arguments raised included claims that the Missouri Supreme Court ruling violated the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution; Article I, Section 2, which “provides that ‘[t]he House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States’“; and the Equal Protection Clause.

On Tuesday afternoon, Kavanaugh denied that request without opinion and without even referring the matter to the full court.

Before the dust settled on that, however, Clark rode in with his TRO in a case filed by some Republican congressional candidates led by Republican Rep. Bob Onder and voters — making those same three federal claims.

The TRO ruling is very bad on law, as I've detailed in a thread at Bluesky. Although Clark rejected the Elections Clause argument, he found the plaintiffs likely to succeed on both the Article 1, Section 2 argument and the Equal Protection argument. Neither makes sense — particularly in light of the Missouri Supreme Court ruling.

One of several fundamental problems with Clark’s ruling is that he refused to acknowledge the effect of the Missouri Supreme Court’s September 3 ruling. Clark insisted that “the status quo” means using “the same map for the general election that Missouri used for its primaries.” That’s not what “status quo” means at all, and it is not the status quo here.

The status quo in the moments before Clark’s order was issued was explained very clearly by the Missouri Supreme Court just five days earlier:

HB 1 is not the law and has never been the law. There is only one valid congressional redistricting in effect-the congressional redistricting the General Assembly established in 2022. Under article III, section 52(b), HB 1 “shall take effect when approved by a majority of the votes cast thereon, and not otherwise.” Unless and until the voters approve HB 1 at the November 2026 general election, HB 1 is of no force and effect and did not take effect on December 11 because it is subject to a sufficient referendum petition filed on December 9. Regardless of any confusion, expense, or practical difficulties caused by the secretary’s delay and incorrect assumption about whether the referendum petition would be deemed sufficient, simply continuing to utilize the congressional redistricting in HB 1 does not comport with the Missouri Constitution because the 2022 map is the only map in effect.

That was the status quo as Clark faced reality from the time the complaint was filed in the case.

Clark’s rulings as to the Article 1, Section 2 argument and as to the equal protection argument falter as they continue to build upon that fundamental misstatement of the status quo.

The equal protection argument falls particularly flat, combining its misapprehension of the effect of using the HB1 maps in the primary with an astoundingly nonsensical equal protection claim:

Plaintiffs have demonstrated a sufficient likelihood of success on the merits of their Equal Protection Clause claim. In the August primaries, voters have already cast their ballots and candidates already ran using the HB 1 map. Doc. 1 at ¶¶ 21–24. Replacing the HB 1 map after the primary would sort “hundreds of thousands” of voters into different districts and cause candidates to run in districts covering voters to whom those candidates have not campaigned. Id. at ¶¶ 36–37. Using any map other than HB 1’s for the general election creates two classes of voters: those who happen to stay in their HB 1 congressional districts, and those who do not. Likewise, it divides candidates between those who retain the same electorate, and those who do not. In both situations, those who “do not” are divested of their fundamental electoral rights.

This logic, such as it is, would mean anyone ever moved from districts in any redistricting would have an "equal protection claim" for being disadvantaged from those in the other "class" whose districts aren't changed.

Clark wraps all of this up in a “disenfranchisement” bow that offends actual disenfranchisement and falls away the second any reasonable person examines it. No one is being disenfranchised. The secretary of state used the wrong map. Everyone in the state is dealing with that reality (except for Hoskins, Onder, and Clark), and everyone will get to vote in the districts that are lawfully in place — from the 2022 map — in the 2026 general election.

And yet, here was Clark’s conclusion:

Now, there are two arguably conflicting orders out there: A Missouri Supreme Court order that says Hoskins and “and all of those acting in concert with him are restrained and enjoined from implementing, using, or mandating the use of the congressional redistricting in HB 1 for the N

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Missouri News

September 2026