Missouri Secretary of State Hoskins directed officials to use congressional map barred by state Supreme Court injunction

On September 8, 2026, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins emailed local election officials directing them to use the state's 2025 Republican-drawn congressional map for the November general election, attaching a copy of a same-day order from Chief U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark of the Eastern District of Missouri. Hoskins told officials Clark's order "takes precedence over the Missouri Supreme Court's order" — the Missouri Supreme Court's own September 3 ruling, which had permanently enjoined Hoskins from implementing or using the 2025 map after finding the map had never legally taken effect and ordering Missouri to revert to the map used in 2022 and 2024.

Hoskins's email came hours after a flurry of court activity: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected Missouri Republican officials' emergency application to stay the state court's order, after which Judge Clark — acting in a separate federal lawsuit filed by U.S. Rep. Bob Onder, state Sen. Rick Brattin and two voters seeking to keep the 2025 map in place — issued his own temporary restraining order requiring the state to use that map instead, producing dueling state and federal directives. Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said the state would comply with Clark's order.

People Not Politicians, the PAC that had forced the referendum blocking the 2025 map, filed a contempt motion the same night through attorney Chuck Hatfield, arguing that regardless of the federal order, "the Missouri Secretary of State must comply with this court's injunction" and that Hoskins's email directed election officials to use a map the state's highest court had expressly barred him from implementing. Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice W. Brent Powell ordered Hoskins to answer in writing by noon September 9 and to appear in person at a contempt hearing set for 10 a.m. September 10, asking Hoskins to explain why his email was not an affirmative violation of the court's injunction.