The Supreme Court of the United States says a return to the 2025 map "would usher in electoral chaos"
Unsigned per curiam order of the full Court in No. 26A388, on an application referred by Circuit Justice Brett Kavanaugh
“In short, as a matter of state law, the 2022 map—not the 2025 map—must be used in the 2026 congressional election. … At this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos. Purcell protects against such disorder. … And the District Court and Court of Appeals should not order or otherwise require Missouri to use the 2025 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri.”
Source and context
Original text
About this source
Unsigned per curiam order on an application that Circuit Justice Brett Kavanaugh referred to the full Court. It stays the Eighth Circuit's September 21 mandate and September 22 order and the district court's September 21 and 22 injunctions, keeps the Court's September 10 stay in place, and says the lower courts should not prohibit use of the 2022 map or require use of the 2025 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri. The text of the order shows no separate opinion or noted dissent.
Original text
About this source
The Court's docket records the September 22 stay application, the September 23 responses and amicus briefs, and the September 25 order granting the stay.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Original text
About this source
One-page unsigned order staying the district court's September 8 order pending the Eighth Circuit appeal and any timely petition for certiorari. The order gives no reasoning.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
The Court had stayed the district court's first order requiring the 2025 map on September 10. On September 21, the Eighth Circuit ordered a permanent injunction requiring that map, and People Not Politicians and Richard von Glahn applied to the Court for a stay on September 22.
After the quotation
The order keeps the September 10 stay in place until the Court lifts it, and it says the district court and Eighth Circuit should not prohibit use of the 2022 map.
How this statement is classified
Responding to: Ordering Missouri to return to the 2025 map after ballots have been printed and mailed and voting has begun would create the electoral disorder that the Purcell principle exists to prevent.
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
The reference point is use of the 2025 map in the 2026 general election. The Court rejects that use on state-law and Purcell grounds and directs that lower courts not require it. The closest competing label, “Mixed or conditional”, loses because the order's caution that the merits are not entirely clearcut does not qualify its operative direction against using the 2025 map.
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Should Missouri be allowed to use its 2025 congressional map in the 2026 general election?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
More from this case
Read the full case“It is disappointing that today’s decision by the United States Supreme Court means Missouri will conduct its November general election under a different congressional map than its primary election. Voters deserved consistency and certainty, and not for the rules to be changed between elections. Nevertheless, Missouri will follow the Court’s order.”Read statement
Campaign Legal Center
“Pursuant to this Court’s orders and the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling on state law, election administration has proceeded under the 2022 map, ballots have already been mailed, and voting has begun. … This Court must once again step in to restore order by granting the Applicants’ requested relief.”Read statement
“to invalidate a primary in which 1.2 million Missourians chose their primary candidates is really to invalidate our whole electoral process by judicial fiat. A very bad decision by the Missouri Supreme Court, an excellent decision yesterday by the Eighth Circuit.”Read statement