WASHINGTON -- The fight over Missouri's congressional map returned to the U.S. Supreme Court for a third time late Tuesday, after an appeals court ordered the revival of new districts backed by President Donald Trump.
The new map was drawn to help Republicans gain a U.S. House seat in the pivotal midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress. The Supreme Court has twice blocked efforts to use it in November.
The latest emergency appeal comes after a ruling by a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that ordered a last-minute return to a GOP-friendly map even after the Supreme Court halted such a move.
The justices had left in place a Missouri Supreme Court decision requiring the state to use its previous map. The state court ruled that the new districts could not take effect unless voters approved them in a statewide referendum.
The U.S. Supreme Court gave supporters of the new map until midday Wednesday to respond to the latest appeal.
The dispute has caused confusion for over a million potential voters who could be shuffled among districts.
Local elections officials already have sent absentee ballots to overseas citizens and military voters using the 2022 districts.
Local elections officials theoretically could scramble to change ballots again and send replacements for ones already distributed. But if voters already have cast an absentee ballot, they cannot change their vote, even if the district boundaries have changed.
To try to change districts at this late date would be "practically impossible" and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities had told appeals judges in a legal filing.
But an attorney representing Republicans who sued -- including U.S. Rep. Bob Onder and state Sen. Rick Brattin, a congressional candidate -- suggested during arguments last Thursday that there still is time to revert to the Trump-backed map.
The appeals panel agreed, pointing to other cases in which courts have ordered changes after absentee ballots already had been distributed.
The earlier 8th Circuit decision put the federal court at odds with Missouri's top court.
"The Constitution does not permit Missouri to use a different congressional district map in the November 2026 general election than it used in the August 2026 primary election," the appeals panel wrote in its decision.
Earlier this month, the Missouri Supreme Court said the state forbids the use of districts passed last September because opponents submitted thousands of petition signatures in December calling for a statewide vote on the new districts.
Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins waited until August -- on the same day that the primary was held under the new districts -- to reject the petition. He asserted that referendum petitions aren't allowed for congressional redistricting.
The Missouri Supreme Court reversed Hoskins' finding, ruling that the state must use the districts approved in 2022 for the November election. The high court then temporarily held Hoskins in contempt when he directed local election officials to use the 2025 map after a federal district court order favoring it.
The new congressional map backed by Trump significantly reshapes a Kansas City-based district held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. Republicans hope the map could help them win seven of the state's eight House seats -- one more than they currently hold.
Missouri's redistricting battle has been the longest and most complex among roughly a dozen states that sought to change their U.S. House districts over the past year. Districts are usually redrawn at the start of each decade, after a census. But Trump spurred a spate of mid-decade redistricting last year when he urged Republican-led states to redraw districts to gain an edge in the midterm.