A federal judge Monday refused to back Missouri’s Republican leaders efforts to block a statewide vote on a gerrymandered congressional district map, dismissing a case filed by Attorney General Catherine Hanaway.
U.S. District Judge Zachary Bluestone ruled he had no jurisdiction over the lawsuit brought on behalf of Secretary of State Denny Hoskins and the General Assembly claiming the U.S. Constitution bars state referendums on Congressional district plans.
The decision came just a few hours after Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh conducted a three-hour trial over when a referendum petition drive can begin and which signatures should be counted when petitions are submitted.
Limbaugh did not issue a ruling Monday and gave attorneys until Wednesday afternoon to file proposed judgments.
The redistricting bill forced through in September by Republicans at the insistence of President Donald Trump is scheduled to take effect Thursday for use in the 2026 elections.
Republicans hope to win seven of the state’s eight congressional seats by adding enough GOP votes to flip the 5th District, currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City.
If referendum petitions with sufficient signatures are submitted, the map will take effect only if it is upheld in a statewide vote in November.
The issues in the now-dismissed federal case can all be decided in state court, wrote Bluestone, a recent Trump appointee. All Hoskins has to do, he said, is reject the petitions gathered by People Not Politicians, the campaign committee seeking the referendum.
The deadline for submitting signatures is Thursday.
“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,” Bluestone wrote.
That would trigger litigation over the main question, he wrote.
“A decision that the Missouri Constitution does not permit a redistricting referendum would moot the state’s federal constitutional claims, while a decision that it does clearly permit them would significantly narrow the issues,” Bluestone wrote. “Further, abstaining here would avoid federal interference in a referendum process created entirely by the Missouri Constitution and state law.”
State lawsuit over signatures
The main question in the lawsuit heard Monday afternoon by Limbaugh is when a referendum petition drive can begin.
Attorney Chuck Hatfield, representing People Not Politicians, said the Missouri Constitution’s clause giving the people the “power to approve or reject by referendum any act of the general assembly” means signature gathering can begin as soon as lawmakers hold the final vote on a bill.
“We don’t need the governor’s signature on something to seek a referendum on it,” Hatfield said. “Nor do we need the secretary of state’s approval to gather signatures.”
Deputy Solicitor General William Seidleck, arguing for the state, said a referendum can only be held on a law. No bill, he said, even if passed by lawmakers, is a law until it is signed by the governor. And a law giving the secretary of state authority to approve or reject the form of a referendum petition, he said, means no signatures can be gathered until the approval is received.
“You can only have a referendum on an enacted law,” Seidleck said. “We submit that there’s no law without the governor’s signature.”
Marc Ellinger, who represents a campaign committee set up to defend the map, Put Missouri First, asked Limbaugh to throw the whole case out as premature. No signatures have been submitted, he said, so there’s no true controversy over which are being counted.
“They’re trying to get an answer on the validity of signatures before the statutory process is completed,” Ellinger said.
To force a referendum on a new law, petitioners must get signatures from 5% of voters in six of the state’s eight congressional districts. That is about 110,000 signatures.
People Not Politicians has enlisted more than 2,000 volunteers and gathered more than 300,000 signatures, including 12,000 last week, campaign Director Richard von Glahn said during a Monday morning conference call with the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition.
“We are going to continue to fight to make sure every Missourian’s voice is heard,” von Glahn said to coalition members.
In the afternoon, von Glahn was in a Cole County courtroom while Chrissy Peters, state elections director since 2017, testified that unless a court order says otherwise, no signatures collected before Oct. 14 will be checked against voter registration rolls.
That is a key date because it’s the day Hoskins approved the form of the petition. In the lawsuit, People Not Politicians is arguing that signatures gathered after Sept. 15, when the petition form was submitted, should be checked.
Of the 300,000 signatures the campaign says it has collected, the outcome of Monday’s hearing would only impact an estimated 92,000 that were pre-emptively rejected by Hoskins.
Limbaugh has another decision pending that will impact whether or not the referendum occurs. He heard arguments Nov. 12 in a lawsuit brought by opponents of redistricting over the state Constitution’s directive on when and how to draw congressional district maps.
If Limbaugh rules lawmakers did not have power to redraw the districts between census reports, the law would not take effect.
The Missouri redistricting fight is part of a national debate over when states can redraw congressional district boundaries for partisan advantage.
Republicans hold a 220-213 edge in the U.S. House, with two vacant seats previously held by Democrats. Six states, including Missouri, have enacted new congressional maps this year in response to the push initiated when Texas redrew its district lines to flip five Democratic seats. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the new Texas map last week.
California countered and revised its maps to move five seats to the Democratic Party,
North Carolina’s new map is intended to net one seat for Republicans, Ohio has passed a new map to add two GOP seats and a nonpartisan redistricting commission in Utah revised that state’s four districts in a way likely to favor a Democratic candidate in one.
Other redistricting efforts are underway. In Indiana, the legislature is meeting in special session to help the GOP gain two seats. Democrats who took supermajorities in the Virginia legislature this year are considering whether to revise lines in that state, where Democrats currently hold a 6-5 edge in the delegation.
As the date for delivering signatures in Missouri approaches, attacks on the petitioners and von Glahn have intensified. Hanaway is demanding personnel records from Advanced Micro Targeting of Dallas, Texas, which is being paid to help with the signature campaign. And Advanced Micro Targeting is suing other political consulting firms, accusing them of paying large sums to sabotage the petition drive.
Donald Trump Jr. led the attacks on von Glahn on social media, calling him a “leftist nut job” who is “trying to STEAL a GOP house seat in Missouri through an unlawful referendum.”
Trump Jr. included a link to a website that called von Glahn a communist.
Denise Lieberman, executive director of the Missouri Voter Protection coalition, called the attacks “absolutely disgusting and inexcusable” during the conference call.
Von Glahn said the insults are generating a counter-reaction.
“These are meant to be sort of psychological warfare, to make me and my family feel isolated and feel threatened,” he said. “It has been a complete backfire. I have gotten more messages of love and support across this state and across the country this week that I could have possibly imagined.”