Regional Industry & News

Cole County judge upholds Secretary of State’s decision to reject petition to put new Missouri congressional map on the ballot

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (First Alert 4) - A Cole County judge’s decision to uphold the rejection of the People Not Politicians petition is almost certain to be appealed.

Missouri lawmakers drew a new congressional map last year. A veto petition challenging the map gathered more than 300,000 signatures. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected that petition, leading to Wednesday’s trial in the Cole County Circuit Court. Wednesday’s ruling from is a step toward the Missouri Supreme Court, where the case is expected to ultimately be decided.

A Missouri Supreme Court justice wrote a letter urging everyone involved in the case to work quickly toward a final resolution before the Sept. 8 deadline to print November ballots.

Gov. Mike Kehoe signed the controversial new congressional map into law after a special session in September 2025. The map creates new districts for Missouri’s representation in the U.S. House and is likely to send one more Republican to the capital. It redraws Missouri’s congressional districts, splitting up Kansas City into three districts.

The lawsuit is drawing national attention because the outcome of this November’s election has the potential to shift the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives. Marc Ellinger, an attorney representing the Republican National Committee, said the RNC’s interest is protecting votes cast in the primary election.

“We don’t wanna see hundreds of thousands of voters disfranchised,” Ellinger said.

Richard von Glahn, with the People Not Politicians campaign, said the RNC is protecting the new map, which is likely to send another Republican to Washington in place of current Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.

“My understanding is that this map was drawn in Washington, D.C., so I guess they continue to care about their work product and want to see it all the way through,” von Glahn said.

Von Glahn’s lawyers argued the new congressional map, which favors Republicans, should be paused, and that Hoskins’ rejection of the petition should be reversed to put the map to a vote in November.

“If the referendum is sufficient, the map is not, has never been, and according to the Missouri constitution, cannot be in effect without a vote of the people,” von Glahn said.

Chuck Hatfield, an attorney for People Not Politicians, questioned why the secretary of state’s office waited until the deadline to certify the petition to raise its objection to its constitutionality.

“Why do people go and get opinions from their lawyers when they’re doing something? Because they doubt that what they’re doing is fully legal. And in this case, the Secretary got a letter from the Attorney General,” Hatfield said in open court.

The RNC argues the new map must be used because it was already used in the August primary, and the petition to vote on the map is unconstitutional.

Louis Capozzi, representing the state, argued in court Missouri law must clearly authorize a referendum on redistricting before one can proceed, and said voters would not have enough information to weigh in on competing maps. Capozzi also argued changing the map now would conflict with federal law.

“You can’t change the map in the middle of the election,” Capozzi said. “It would clearly violate federal law to force hundreds of thousands of Missourians to vote for different candidates in the general election, candidates they had no role in choosing in the primary election. ... That is, again, profoundly undemocratic.”

Hatfield responded that the map itself is not what’s barred from referendum.

“No one is proposing a congressional map that was not approved by the legislature. The legislature drew a map in 2022, it is the law today. The legislature tried to do another map in 2025, the question is which of those two legislatively drawn maps will we use?” Hatfield said.