JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A federal appeals court panel on Thursday weighed whether to revive Missouri’s new congressional districts, which were supported by President Donald Trump but barred by the U.S. Supreme Court from use in the November election.
The three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the protracted fight over Republican-drawn U.S. House maps that Missouri used for its August primary. Still, the practical effect of a ruling favoring the new districts remained uncertain. The U.S. Supreme Court has already put a lower-court order backing the map on hold while a possible appeal and eventual high court decision remain pending.
For now, Missouri is scheduled to conduct its November election using the same congressional districts in place for the 2024 and 2022 elections. That outcome follows earlier rulings by both the Missouri Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Local election officials told the court in a filing that ballots reflecting those districts are already being printed. They also face a Friday deadline under federal law to send absentee ballots to overseas voters and members of the military. Under Missouri law, absentee ballots must be available to all other voters by next Tuesday.
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Attempting to switch congressional districts so close to the election would be “practically impossible” and would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities said in its filing.
Missouri’s redistricting dispute has become the longest, most complicated and most confusing among about a dozen states that have sought to alter their U.S. House districts during the past year. Trump prompted the unusual wave of mid-decade redistricting by encouraging Republican-led states to redraw maps in hopes of gaining an advantage in the midterm elections, which will decide control of Congress and shape his agenda.
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