The Supreme Court on 25 September stayed the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals' 21 September mandate and 22 September order in People Not Politicians v. Onder (application 26A388), with no noted dissent1. A mandate is the formal order sending an appeal ruling back to the trial court. Lower courts "should not order or otherwise require Missouri to use the 2025 map in the 2026 congressional election", the Court wrote.
Missouri's 2022 map therefore governs 3 November. The overseas and military ballots the state began mailing on those lines on 18 September stand without reissue. The 2022 lines are expected to elect six Republicans and two Democrats; the 2025 map, House Bill 1, was drawn for seven and one.
This per curiam opinion, issued in the Court's name rather than a named justice's, is the first of its Missouri orders to give reasons. Its 10 September order had stayed a restraining order from Chief Judge Stephen R. Clark of the federal court in eastern Missouri, who had pointed the state at the 2025 map. The new opinion rejects the 8th Circuit's reading of the Purcell principle, the doctrine that warns federal courts off changing rules close to a vote. "The election is not merely upcoming; it has already started," the Court wrote.
The opinion puts the confusion at the door of Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, whom the state's own Supreme Court held in civil contempt on 10 September, a finding later purged. Citing Maggard v. State, a Missouri Supreme Court decision of May 2026, the Court wrote that Hoskins "was well aware that conducting the August primary election with the 2025 map carried significant risks". He ran the primary on House Bill 1 anyway.
