Federal Court Hears ‘Unprecedented’ GOP Bid to Deny Missouri Voters a Voice on Gerrymander

Missouri’s new gerrymandered congressional map can’t actually be used in the 2026 election – at least, not unless it makes it past voters, who have a right under the state constitution to veto legislation by collecting signatures and holding a referendum. 

But rather than work to win public support for the map, Republicans are deploying every conceivable tactic to stop Missourians from voting on the gerrymander, which GOP lawmakers passed earlier this year at President Donald Trump’s request.

Voters won’t get the final say on the map if Missouri wins a court case challenging their referendum right.

State Attorney General Catherine Hathaway (R) brought the case against referendum organizers People Not Politicians and its executive director, Richard von Glahn, arguing that voters cannot use state law to deprive the legislature of its authority to conduct redistricting.

Federal District Judge Zachary Bluestone held a hearing Tuesday on whether to grant Missouri a preliminary injunction in the case — just one of many redistricting challenges this year to be decided by a Trump appointee.

Chuck Hatfield, an attorney representing People Not Politicians and von Glahn, said state Solicitor General Louis Capozzi argued Tuesday that Missouri shouldn’t allow uninformed voters to make decisions on congressional maps. 

With a referendum deadline approaching, the judge has said he will rule by Dec. 8, Hatfield told Democracy Docket.

Ultimately, People Not Politicians’ argument was that Hathaway’s case got the state’s referendum process entirely backwards.

“Such a lawsuit—brought by a State and state actors against their own citizens, alleging that those citizens are committing federal and state constitutional violations by exercising their fundamental First Amendment right to petition their government—appears unprecedented,” they argued in a court brief.

The lead plaintiff in the case, the Missouri General Assembly, was not authorized by state law to sue, People Not Politicians argued. Not only that, but the state had no basis to seek a preliminary injunction, because it cannot be harmed by citizens submitting petition signatures, People Not Politicians said in a brief.

“Instead, it is Defendants and the tens of thousands of Missourians who have signed or seek to sign the referendum petition who would be harmed irreparably if an injunction were granted,” they argued. “An injunction literally would preclude them from exercising their fundamental right to petition their government, in clear violation of the First Amendment.”

State attorneys, however, argued in court briefs that Missourians would not be harmed by a preliminary injunction because they have “no right to seek the referendum” and they “remain free to advocate” for different maps using other means. 

“They can ask the members of the General Assembly to redistrict. They can advocate for Congress to exercise its vested oversight power over state elections. … They do not need a referendum to advocate for the (partisan) changes they desire,” the state claimed.

But Missouri voters did lobby their legislators on the map – and they were ignored, Hatfield said.

People Not Politicians has until Dec. 11 to submit more than 106,000 signatures to the state. Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, an elected Republican, has signaled he will reject around 90,000 signatures he says were collected too early, and he’s proposed ballot language for the measure that organizers have called deceptive and misleading. The referendum organizers are challenging the signature rejections and the ballot language in separate lawsuits. 

But the state attorneys claimed the referendum would violate a federal law because the Missouri Constitution’s referendum statute doesn’t explicitly state that it applies to redistricting.

“The U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause does not permit this scheme unless—at minimum—the Missouri Constitution provides a clear statement that federal congressional maps are subject to the initiative and referendum processes. No such clear statement exists in the Missouri Constitution,” they argued.

They also relied on a fringe argument known as independent state legislature theory – the claim that the constitution gives the legislature alone control of redistricting, and neither courts nor voters have a say in the process. 

“It vests congressional-redistricting authority in ‘the Legislature’ of each State, with only Congress itself having clear authority to override the decisions of state legislatures,” the state attorneys wrote.