The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled Friday that Missouri must use its 2022 congressional district map for the 2026 elections, striking down the Republican-drawn 2025 map that critics had labeled a partisan gerrymander. The unsigned decision declared that state law governs the matter and that the court's earlier September 10 order had already established the 2022 map as the operative boundaries for the upcoming election cycle.

The ruling concludes a three-week period of legal turbulence during which the map governing Missouri's November congressional elections changed five times, drawing repeated court intervention at the state, federal district, appellate, and Supreme Court levels. The court found that both the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. Chief District Judge Stephen Clark had misread the September 10 order when they subsequently directed use of the 2025 map, and that reinstating the newer map at this stage would create, in the court's words, 'electoral chaos.'

The 2025 map, drawn by the Republican-controlled Missouri legislature, was widely seen as targeting U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, by extending his 5th Congressional District deep into rural Republican-leaning counties along the Missouri River. Under the 2022 boundaries, Cleaver won his district with 60 percent of the vote in each of the past two election cycles. The gerrymander was designed to give Republicans a better chance at capturing a seventh Missouri seat in the U.S. House.

The practical fallout of the decision is significant for local election administrators. Voters in 28 counties will find themselves in different congressional districts for November than they were during the August 4 primary, affecting the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th districts in addition to the 5th. Missouri Solicitor General Lou Capozzi, writing on behalf of Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, had argued in the state's final brief that election chaos was unavoidable regardless of the outcome, citing likely violations of federal deadlines for sending ballots to military and overseas voters.

Rep. Cleaver, in a joint fundraising appeal with 1st District Rep. Wesley Bell of St. Louis sent Friday morning before the ruling, described the prolonged litigation as 'a never-ending case of Groundhog Day.' The decision effectively closes Republican efforts to redraw Missouri's congressional map for this election cycle, though the underlying legal and legislative disputes over redistricting in the state may continue beyond 2026.