Missouri’s Supreme Court upheld a Republican-drawn congressional map designed to deliver the party an additional House district in the November election.
The state’s top court held Tuesday that challengers failed to prove the map violated the Missouri Constitution’s compactness requirements. The map, which Missouri’s GOP-dominated government enacted last year with support from President Donald Trump, splintered the Kansas City-based 5th District of Rep.
“Appellants had to prove the 2025 Map and the challenged districts fail the compactness requirements, not that there is a better way to meet the requirements,” Chief Justice W. Brent Powell wrote in the opinion. “They failed to do so.”
The court also rejected a Democratic-backed request to freeze the congressional map until voters approve or reject it through a referendum process.
People Not Politicians Missouri, a voting-rights group, submitted a referendum petition with more than 300,000 signatures in an effort to block the new lines until a statewide vote can be held. The organization argued the act of submitting signatures automatically suspended the new map. About 107,000 valid signatures are needed to pause the map.
The court rejected that argument in a separate opinion written by Judge Ginger K. Gooch that was also issued Tuesday. Because Missouri election officials are still vetting the signatures in an ongoing certification process, “it is impossible to say as of this opinion” whether the referendum petition is legal, Gooch said.
The cases are: Healey v. State of Missouri, Mo., No. SC101570, Opinion issued 5/12/26 and Maggard v. State of Missouri, Mo., No. SC101581, Opinion issued 5/12/26
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