Missouri voters will decide fate of GOP congressional map

Missouri voters will get the final say on a Republican-drawn congressional map aimed at flipping the Kansas City district represented by U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, one of the state’s two Black members of Congress.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that a referendum challenging the new map must appear on the Nov. 3 ballot. The court also ruled that the map cannot take effect unless voters approve it.

For Cleaver, a Democrat who has represented the Kansas City area in Congress since 2005, the ruling means he will seek another term under the congressional boundaries that existed before Republicans redrew his district last year.

“Democracy prevails,” Cleaver said after the decision, saying the ruling affirmed that “the people should choose their politicians, not the other way around.”

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said the state will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe also criticized the ruling and said he would continue defending the new map.

The fight carries particular significance for Missouri’s Black political representation.

Cleaver represents the 5th Congressional District. U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell, also a Black Democrat, represents the St. Louis-based 1st District. They hold Missouri’s only two Democratic seats in Congress; Republicans hold the other six.

The Republican-controlled Legislature targeted Cleaver’s district for a major overhaul after President Donald Trump urged Missouri Republicans to redraw congressional boundaries before the 2026 midterm elections. The goal was to create a map that could give Republicans seven of Missouri’s eight U.S. House seats instead of the current six.

Under the Republican plan, Cleaver’s Kansas City-based district was stretched more than 100 miles eastward into Republican-leaning rural areas. About 59% of voters in the reconfigured district were new to it, according to an Associated Press analysis.

Republicans used those boundaries for the Aug. 4 primary, when state Sen. Rick Brattin won the GOP nomination to challenge Cleaver.

But opponents of the new map had already launched a referendum drive. The group People Not Politicians submitted more than 300,000 signatures in December seeking a statewide vote on whether the map should stand.

Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected the referendum Aug. 4, arguing that Missouri’s Constitution does not allow congressional redistricting to be challenged through the referendum process.

The Supreme Court rejected that argument.

“The referendum petition was legal, sufficient, and timely, and the secretary incorrectly concluded otherwise,” the court said.

The justices found that the Missouri Constitution gives voters the power to approve or reject acts of the General Assembly and does not exempt congressional redistricting from that authority.

The map was approved as House Bill 1 during a special legislative session in September 2025. The legislation repealed Missouri’s existing congressional districts and replaced them with the new boundaries. The referendum petition includes the legislation and its detailed district descriptions.

Because referendum organizers submitted their petitions before the legislation’s Dec. 11 effective date, the court said the Republican map never legally took effect.

It put the point plainly: The legislation “is not the law and has never been the law.”

Voters will decide the map’s future on Nov. 3. If they approve it, the Republican-drawn boundaries can take effect 30 days after the election. If they reject it, the 2022 map remains in place.

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