Missouri’s congressional map has flipped for the third time in this election cycle after a federal judge ordered the state to use the newly drawn HB 1 map for the November 3 general election, overturning what had appeared to be a settled outcome just an hour earlier.
Chief U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark of the Eastern District of Missouri issued a temporary restraining order late Tuesday afternoon requiring Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to use HB 1, the map that splits the state into a lopsided partisan configuration, rather than the older map that the Missouri Supreme Court had just ordered restored.
The order came less than an hour after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh declined to intervene in a separate dispute, a decision that appeared to leave the old map in place for November. Judge Clark’s ruling, issued in a different case, Onder v. Missouri, reversed that outcome entirely.
What the Missouri Supreme Court Decided
The Missouri Supreme Court had ruled on a narrow state-law question: whether Missouri voters can use the referendum process to challenge a congressional redistricting law. Judge Clark did not dispute that ruling, and he does not overrule either the state high court or the U.S. Supreme Court.
In fact, Clark agrees with the Missouri Supreme Court on the underlying legal question, finding that federal plaintiffs are unlikely to succeed on their argument that the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution bars Missouri from using a referendum in this way. Supreme Court precedent allows states to fold referendums into their legislative process for congressional redistricting.
The Problem: The Primary Already Happened
Clark’s order turns instead on what happens once a primary election has already been conducted under one map. Missouri held its congressional primary using HB 1. Switching to a different map now, Clark reasoned, would place voters into general-election districts where they had no say in choosing the party nominees on the ballot.
Clark found that this raises serious problems under Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which treats primaries as an integral part of selecting members of Congress. He wrote that changing maps now would effectively nullify voters’ primary ballots, and he found plaintiffs have a “high probability of success” on that claim.
Clark also identified an Equal Protection Clause problem. Under the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling, some voters would remain in the same district for both the primary and general elections while others would be shifted into an entirely different district — meaning some candidates keep the electorate they spent months campaigning to win over, while others suddenly face a new set of voters altogether. Clark found this unequal treatment likely burdens fundamental voting rights, again giving plaintiffs a high probability of success.
Purcell, in Reverse
Clark also invoked the Purcell principle, which normally warns federal courts against changing election rules close to Election Day. He wrote that this case presents “Purcell in reverse, but with no less weight” — because Missouri’s election process, in a meaningful sense, has already begun through the HB 1 primary. Clark treated HB 1, not the older map, as the operative status quo, and warned that switching back now would “wreak havoc” and cause widespread voter confusion.
What Happens Next
The TRO lasts 14 days unless extended or replaced, and Clark has scheduled a hearing on a preliminary injunction. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said the state “is prepared to follow and comply with” Clark’s order, which bars Secretary of State Hoskins from using any map other than HB 1 for November.
The ruling is widely expected to be appealed. As it stands, the sequence of decisions has been dizzying: a lower state court backed the new map, the Missouri Supreme Court restored the old one, Justice Kavanaugh declined to disturb that result, and a federal judge then reinstated the new map anyway — on entirely separate constitutional grounds.
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