Denny Hoskins, Missouri's secretary of state, applied to the Supreme Court of the United States for an emergency stay on Friday 4 September, hours after the Missouri Supreme Court refused him a stay of its own ruling. The docket entry reads Denny Hoskins, Secretary of State of Missouri, Applicant v. Richard Von Glahn, No. 26A304.1 An emergency application of this kind goes first to the circuit justice for the state's federal circuit, which for Missouri means Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the Eighth Circuit.
The application runs the Elections Clause theory the state court rejected the day before, and invokes Purcell, the principle that federal courts should not change election rules close to polling day.2 It counts 1.2 million votes already cast under the suspended districts at Missouri's 4 August primary.3 It argues urgency from a federal date: ballots must reach military and overseas voters by 19 September, and Missouri says a reversion to the 2022 lines this late risks a breach of that obligation.4 South Carolina missed the same federal deadline in July and had to sign an agreement with the Justice Department to manage it, so the risk Missouri describes is not hypothetical. The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and the Missouri Republican Party filed a brief in support the same day.5
Missouri's position has real force. Two courts moving a congressional map after a primary has been held and certified, on the turnout its own application cites, describes precisely the disorder Purcell was written to prevent. The state court's answer is that a referendum petition, not a judge, is what stripped HB 1 of effect, which puts the suspension outside the mischief Purcell addresses.
The docket records the next step and no more: "Response to application (26A304) requested by Justice Kavanaugh, due by Noon (EDT) on September 7, 2026".6 That hour has passed and no ruling has been entered. the Court has named no date for one, and this briefing assumes none.
