A federal appeals court panel weighed on Thursday whether to keep alive Missouri’s attempt to reinstate a new congressional map that would net Republicans a House seat, potentially sending the messy legal saga to the Supreme Court for a third time.

The legal battle over which congressional map Missouri will use for the November election ramped up late last month, when the Missouri Supreme Court ordered that a new map, which was passed in 2025 and favors Republicans over Democrats, would have to face a referendum while the old map, passed in 2022, would be used instead for the November election. Missouri officials unsuccessfully tried to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court and simultaneously filed a lawsuit in federal court attempting to reinstate the 2025 map for the upcoming elections. While a federal district court ruled in favor of reinstating the 2025 map, the Supreme Court halted that ruling pending appeal, reinstalling the 2022 map for now — even though the state conducted primary elections in August using the 2025 map.