Kehoe says he’s ‘disappointed’ GOP-favored map in Missouri is blocked again

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe said he was disappointed after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday prevented the state from using a Republican-drawn congressional map in the November general election. Kehoe, who backed last year’s redistricting effort, said voters deserved consistency between the primary and general elections and said the state will follow the court’s order. The Supreme Court’s unsigned opinion halted an appeals court decision that had permitted Missouri to adopt the 2025 map, which was engineered to give Republicans the opportunity to win seven of the state’s eight House seats. Because ballots for the general election are already being mailed, the justices concluded that switching maps this late would risk disrupting the ongoing election, and they left in place the older 6-2 map for November. That older map had been in effect under the 2022 boundaries. The 2025 lines, passed by the Republican-controlled legislature amid a mid-decade redistricting push, were used in Missouri’s August primary and targeted seats such as the Kansas City-area district held by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D), making that district more favorable to Republicans. The dispute over which map should govern the general election has been tied to a state-court finding that a referendum challenging the 2025 map must go before voters in November. The resulting legal back-and-forth moved to federal court, with Republicans arguing that changing maps between a primary and a general election raises constitutional concerns. The Supreme Court’s decision leaves the state using different maps for its primary and general contests and continues the broader debate over mid-decade redistricting in Missouri.