Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins conceded Tuesday that it’s too late to change the state’s congressional districts to the gerrymandered map lawmakers passed in 2025.

In a legal filing in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who is representing Hoskins, said that the districts won’t remain the same between the primary and general elections.

“This fall, hundreds of thousands of Missouri voters will consider a slate of congressional candidates in the 2026 General Election that they never had the opportunity to consider in the Primary,” Hanaway wrote.

Though the case will no longer impact which map voters will use in November, it could decide whether Missourians could challenge a redistricting map via a referendum ever again. Hanaway said the court’s decision “will impact elections through the Eight Circuit for decades to come.”

Hanaway reiterates the claims made in the earlier federal lawsuit. She argues that the U.S. Constitution should prohibit referendums on congressional maps and that changing district lines between a primary and general elections violate constitutional provisions about the election of representatives and the equal protection clause.

When a federal judge in St. Louis heard the case last week, he said he believed the state isn’t likely to succeed in its arguments about maps being subject to referendum, but would likely prevail on its other claims.

Ongoing legal battle

The concession comes after a head-spinning legal battle between supporters and opponents of the 2022 and 2025 congressional map.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the state must use the maps drawn in 2022, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld last week.

But minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, a federal judge in St. Louis issued a temporary restraining order that would’ve prevented election officials from using any map but the 2025 map. The U.S. Supreme Court paused that order until the case in the 8th Circuit is resolved, leaving only the 2022 map in play in the general election.

Some top Republicans have held out hope that the 8th Circuit could reverse the decision at the last minute and institute the map designed to give Republicans an additional seat in Congress.

But Hoskins’ concession came just hours after the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities, a statewide coalition of election officials, said it would be “practically impossible” to use the map with upcoming federal deadlines to prepare ballots for overseas voters.

“At this point, it is practically impossible to revert to the HB 1 map due to the extensive time and cost required to reprint and distribute new ballots within statutory timelines,” the legal filing says.

It continued: “Any further change inflicts additional vertigo on local election authorities — and the millions of Missourians who rely on them —after ostensibly-final resolution consistent with Missouri law.”

The brief was written by Evan Kennedy, former chief counsel under Gov. Mike Parson. Parson signed the 2022 map into law.

County clerks and election officials must have their ballots prepared by Saturday under federal law.

“Accordingly, Missouri election officials must transmit ballots on September 18,” according to the filing. “A late change to the ballot would risk not only their compliance with state and federal laws, but also the adequacy of votes from military and overseas voters.”

_____

©2026 The Kansas City Star. Visit kansascity.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.