On Friday evening, the Supreme Court released a final opinion—with no noted dissents—that disallows Missouri Republicans’ ultra-gerrymandered congressional map ahead of November’s midterm elections.
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that → release → elections
In 2025, at President Donald Trump’s urging, Missouri’s GOP-led legislature redrew its congressional map in an effort to give Republicans an additional seat by slicing up the heavily Democratic Kansas City area into several districts.
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legislature → lead → districts
The new map would have likely allowed Republicans to control seven of the state’s eight seats, as opposed to the prior 6-2 arrangement.
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Republicans → allow → arrangement
A group of Missourians collected the 300,000 signatures necessary to put the new map up for a popular vote in November—a move that, they argued, should stop it from going into effect for the 2026 election.
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they → collect → election
Chaos ensued.
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Chaos → ensue → ?
After a lengthy delay, Missouri’s Republican Secretary of State, Denny Hoskins, waited until the day of the states primary elections to declare the referendum invalid, and Missouri conducted those primaries with the new, heavily gerrymandered map.
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Missouri → wait → map
Weeks later, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the referendum was indeed valid and barred the state from using the new map in November.
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referendum → rule → November
Hoskins appealed to the Supreme Court on September 4, asking the justices to reinstate the new Republican map.
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Hoskins → appeal → map
Hoskins’ argument was so weak that Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, promptly denied his appeal; the case didn’t go to the full Supreme Court.
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case → deny → Court
But yet another challenge was brewing.
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challenge → brew → ?
Two Republicans running for Missouri office in November—and two individual voters—went to federal court seeking to keep the redistricted map in place.
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Republicans → run → place
Their argument: the state should use the same map for the general election as it did for the primary.
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it → use → primary
On September 8, District Judge Stephen Clark agreed, issuing a temporary restraining order telling the state to use the newly gerrymandered map in the general election.
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Clark → agree → election
A federal appeals court soon upheld Clark’s ruling.
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court → uphold → ruling
At this point—if you’re keeping track—the Missouri Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court were saying the state should use the 6-2 map, but a federal trial judge and a federal appellate court were telling the state to use the 7-1 map.
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judge → keep → map
The Supreme Court was apparently not amused.
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Court → amuse → ?
On September 10, in an unsigned order, it blocked Clark’s ruling, bringing us back to the older, 6-2 version of the map.
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it → block → map
But the Republican-dominated federal appeals court didn’t give up, moving once again to reinstate the 7-1 map.
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court → dominate → map
The group that collected signatures for a voter referendum back in 2025, People Not Politicians, went back to the Supreme Court Tuesday night, stressing that it was too late to return to the new map, particularly given that absentee and overseas ballots for the November elections have already been mailed out.
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ballots → collect → elections
Now, in a final five-page decision, the Court has not only blocked the Republican map and ordered state officials to use the previous map, from 2022—it has instructed lower courts in exacting detail to quit interfering, sternly warning them against any move that would “require Missouri to use the 2025 map in the 2026 congressional election.”
It’s a stark contrast with the Court’s ruling earlier on Friday in League of Women Voters v. DHS, a 6-3 decision that allowed the Trump administration to use a modified Homeland Security database containing citizenship information to monitor voter rolls.
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administration → block → rolls
The decision may not bode well for other Republican redistricting efforts across the country, which have already stripped Democrats of a number of safe House seats—although Missouri seems to have been uniquely successful in irritating the justices.
“Given this Court’s two prior orders in this litigation,” they wrote, “our conclusion…should come as no surprise.”
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conclusion → bode → surprise
The Aporia
