WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court today stayed a federal district court order that had required Missouri to conduct November’s congressional elections under HB 1, the mid-decade gerrymander enacted at President Trump’s urging that the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously held “is not the law and has never been the law.” This is the second time in three days that the U.S. Supreme Court has denied efforts to revive Missouri’s unlawful gerrymander.
The order in People Not Politicians v. Onder stays U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark’s September 8 temporary restraining order (TRO), which forced Missouri to use the new HB 1 map. This order definitively ends a complicated period that left Missouri election officials facing contradictory commands from a federal court and the Missouri Supreme Court less than eight weeks before Election Day.
With the district court’s order stayed, the Missouri Supreme Court’s September 3 injunction blocking HB 1 remains in effect. The November 3 general election will proceed under the congressional districts enacted in 2022, and HB 1 will go before Missouri voters as Proposition A and will take effect only if voters approve it.
Elias Law Group proudly represents People Not Politicians and its executive director, Richard von Glahn, before the U.S. Supreme Court in this case.
“Missouri Republicans have played their last card, and they lost,” said Elias Law Group Partner Abha Khanna. “Despite increasingly desperate tactics that threatened to throw this November’s election into chaos and drew a strong rebuke from the Missouri Supreme Court, it is now clear after two rejections from the U.S. Supreme Court that Missouri will not be allowed to ram through an egregious gerrymander before the voters have a say. We are proud to fight for People Not Politicians in this critical case.”
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