How The Missouri Midterms Wound Up A Constitutional Crisis

Last week, Missouri found itself spiraling into a constitutional crisis created by the Missouri Supreme Court, and the people of the Show-Me State deserve better. How we got to this point is a highly complicated litigation story. Almost a year ago, Gov. Mike Kehoe signed into law a new congressional map, the Missouri First Map, as the state has called it, which would have created a 7-1 map in favor of Republicans as opposed to the 6-2 that was previously in effect. The lawsuits began almost immediately.

The Map Challenges

Four separate challenges were filed in September 2025. The first, NAACP v. Kehoe, argued Missouri’s governor lacked the authority to call the legislature into special session to draw a new congressional map. A trial court disagreed, and in May 2026 the Missouri Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Gov. Kehoe had the power to call the legislature into special session.

The second, Luther v. Hoskins, claimed Missouri’s constitution barred mid-decade redistricting. Again, a trial court disagreed and in March 2026 the Missouri Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that Missouri’s constitution did not prohibit mid-decade redistricting.

The third, Wise v. Missouri, alleged that the map was drawn mid-decade in violation of the Missouri constitution, that the map was inadequately compact, and that the map was both noncontiguous and malapportioned.

Finally, Healey v. Missouri also claimed Missouri’s new map was unconstitutionally drawn mid-decade (echoing Luther and Wise) and that the map was not adequately compact under Missouri’s constitutional compactness requirement (like Wise). The trial court consolidated Healey and Wise and found the Missouri First Map complied with the Missouri constitution. The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the trial court in Healey and Wise in May 2026.

Referendum Process

There were also multiple challenges filed regarding the referendum process in Missouri, but only one of those is relevant here.

On Dec. 23, 2025, Maggard v. Missouri was filed, claiming that under Missouri’s referendum rules an act of the legislature is effectively paused when enough signatures are filed via the referendum in opposition to the law. The state argued this was absurd because the petitions needed to be validated first and that process could take months to complete. In fact, and this is very important, both parties and the court agreed that the secretary of state’s statutory deadline to certify the petition was Aug. 4, 2026. The Supreme Court of Missouri held unanimously once again that the state was correct and the challenge failed.

The Missouri Supreme Court noted in Maggard that if the petition was certified then the Missouri First Map could be retroactively frozen but gave no guidance to the state on what map to use or not use for the 2026 primary elections scheduled for Aug. 4, 2026. In fact, Maggard did not address, let alone reject, any argument that it was too late to change any maps after this deadline.

The Missouri First Map had survived all challenges and was used to determine party nominees for the 2026 general election.

An Inevitable Crisis

Once the Missouri Supreme Court issued its opinion in Maggard, the state was on a collision course with the current crisis. Missouri was using its new map, the Missouri First Map, for the 2026 primaries while county clerks and the secretary of state’s office were simultaneously determining whether a referendum petition was sufficient to be placed on the 2026 ballot and freeze the very same map the state was using.

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins had followed every order, complied with every law, and met every statutory deadline. Then, on Aug. 4, 2026, the statutory deadline to do so, Hoskins found the referendum was unconstitutional and could not be placed on the 2026 general election ballot. The primary was completed the same day. Plaintiffs sued that evening (von Glahn v. Hoskins) and lost at the trial court more than two weeks after the completion of the 2026 primary election.

The Missouri Supreme Court expedited an appeal two weeks later and ruled on Sept. 3 — two months before the 2026 general election — that the Missouri First Map was frozen pending a vote of the people in November but issued no guidance on how the secretary of state should handle party nominees, new primary nominations, and compliance with federal law. The Missouri Supreme Court told Hoskins to use the old maps without any guidance on how to ensure voters who cast ballots in the primary were not disenfranchised.

The state sought reversal from Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency matters arising from the Eighth Circuit, so the state could use the Missouri First Map for 2026. Last week, Justice Kavanaugh rejected the petition without issuing any reasoning. The Missouri First Map appeared dead.

Then, just minutes after Justice Kavanaugh’s order, Judge Stephen Clark of the Eastern District of Missouri issued an order in a different case finding that the state’s use of any map but the Missouri First Map would violate federal law. Secretary Hoskins and Missouri election officials could either obey a state court order that prohibited the use of the Missouri First Map or a federal court order that required using it. Secretary Hoskins rightly issued guidance to follow the federal court order. This set off emergency litigation in which the Eighth Circuit, in a 3-0 decision, refused to stay Judge Clark’s injunction. But the Supreme Court, in an unreasoned order, granted the stay.

The Missouri Supreme Court had threatened Hoskins with contempt for defying its order in von Glahn, but the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution required nothing else. This is especially true given that the Missouri Supreme Court provided no guidance to Hoskins on how to comply with its order. Ultimately, Hoskins agreed to institute the 2022 map due to the Supreme Court’s stay, but the Missouri Supreme Court found Hoskins in contempt anyway, though it held that the contempt was purged because Hoskins ultimately followed its order.

The Fallout

This has resulted in an unprecedented situation where the candidates from the August 2026 primary have just been mapped by district number back to the 2022 map and will face different voters in the November 2026 election than they faced when they ran in the 2026 primary.

The battle is not completely over. The Eighth Circuit has issued an expedited briefing schedule with oral argument to be held this week. But the collision course that happened in this case was entirely of the Missouri Supreme Court’s doing. It chose to issue an injunction after primaries had occurred on shaky legal grounds with no guidance on what compliance looks like. To make matters worse, it then threatened to hold Hoskins in contempt for following a federal judge’s order. It remains to be seen how the case plays out, but the people of Missouri deserve better, and Judge Clark recognized as much when he enjoined the Missouri Supreme Court’s remedy.

Now, many Missouri voters will have candidate choices for the 2026 general election they did not have any opportunity to vote for or against in the 2026 primary election. A very “Missouri Mess.”

Abhi Kambli is a partner at Holtzman Vogel representing clients in high-stakes appellate and complex litigation, constitutional challenges, and matters involving state attorneys general and federal agencies. Kambli previously served as deputy associate attorney general at the Department of Justice, where he acted as lead counsel in high-priority matters for the Trump administration, oversaw the department’s civil components on behalf of the associate attorney general, advised the White House Counsel’s Office and federal agencies on litigation risk and strategy, and developed the department’s national affirmative civil litigation strategy.