After Missouri Supreme Court ruling, state drags feet to deny voters a voice on gerrymander

When the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state does not have to pause implementation of a pro-GOP gerrymander despite a pending challenge to the map, it sent a clear message: Republicans have the greenlight to drag their feet and deny voters a chance to weigh in on the gerrymander. 

And state officials are hearing that message loud and clear.

The judges concluded that because election officials had not finished certifying the results of a petition to put the gerrymander to a statewide referendum, the court could not determine whether the new map’s implementation needed to be paused pending the vote.

In practice, that meant the gerrymandered map could be used in the 2026 midterms.

After the ruling, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that his office would take until Aug. 4 to complete the verification process — the legal deadline for him to provide an answer and the same day the state will hold its primary election.

People Not Politicians, the organization behind the referendum campaign, says Republicans are continuing their old strategy: delaying until it’s too late.

In theory, that could lead to the 2026 primaries being held under what the organization terms an “illegal map.”

“A sufficient petition suspends the law the day it is turned in,” Richard von Glahn, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement. “Unnecessary delays by politicians do not change this fact. If [Hoskins] continues to delay then he is moving forward under a map that has been suspended by the people.”

But in practice, it will be too late to stop the new map being used in the midterms.

Under the Missouri Constitution, voters have a right to put legislation passed by the Missouri General Assembly to a veto referendum. Typically, when they gather enough signatures to hold the referendum, the legislation should be paused until Missourians can vote.

People Not Politicians gathered over 300,000 signatures — more than three times the number required for a referendum. But Hoskins’ office decided to break with precedent and announced that the map would not be paused pending a referendum vote.

The ACLU of Missouri sued in a case that ended Tuesday in the state Supreme Court.

In the wake of that ruling, the organization says the map still should be suspended because election officials have already verified enough signatures to qualify the referendum for the ballot. It accuses Hoskins of unnecessarily dragging out the process by refusing to deny or certify the petition until the Aug. 4 deadline.

But Hoskins doesn’t even have to certify it; he could also declare the petition insufficient.

In October, Republican state officials filed a federal lawsuit arguing the referendum violated the Missouri and U.S. constitutions. But the judge dismissed the case, in part because he concluded Hoskins had the power to block the referendum on his own. 

“Fortunately for the State, Secretary Hoskins has a tool at his disposal that almost no other litigant could boast — the power to declare the petition unconstitutional himself,” U.S. District Judge Zachary M. Bluestone wrote.

If Hoskins chooses not to certify the petition, that could open the door for yet another legal challenge in the battle — further delaying a decision on whether Missouri voters will get to exercise their state constitutional right to weigh in.