MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Missouri's mid-decade redistricting fight now has an answer from the full U.S. Supreme Court. On September 10, 2026, the Court issued an unsigned order temporarily blocking Missouri from using its newly drawn congressional map, leaving the state's 2022 map in place for the November 3, 2026, elections, per CBS News and SCOTUSblog. The order, in People Not Politicians v. Onder, No. 26A326, noted no dissents.
It was the second Supreme Court action in three days. On September 8, 2026, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, acting alone, denied the Missouri Secretary of State's emergency application to use the new map, the event The 901 Report covered in its prior post. Less than an hour later, Chief U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark issued a temporary restraining order directing the state to use the new map anyway, SCOTUSblog reported. The September 10, 2026, order from the full Court paused Judge Clark's order at the request of the referendum's organizers.
The blocked map was drawn in a 2025 mid-decade redistricting push to favor Republicans. On September 3, 2026, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that a citizen referendum petition suspended the map and placed it before voters in November 2026. With the September 10, 2026, order, the districts Missourians voted under in 2022 and 2024 are the districts in place for November 2026.
The order is temporary in form. It holds Judge Clark's order while the litigation continues, including an appeal of that order before the Eighth Circuit, rather than deciding the underlying dispute. But with the September 19, 2026, deadline to send ballots to military and overseas voters days away, SCOTUSblog reported, the order is likely to settle which lines Missouri uses this cycle.
Why It Matters for Memphis
Tennessee ran its own mid-decade redistricting in May 2026, passing a congressional map that divides Memphis days after the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act ruling. Missouri's fight is the nearest test of how far a mid-decade map can get when courts intervene, and so far the answer this cycle is: not onto the ballot. The legal theories that blocked Missouri's map are state-specific, so the outcome does not directly govern Tennessee's, but the pattern of emergency litigation reaching the Supreme Court weeks before ballots move is now the template for both.
The Oversight Question
Missouri's legislature spent a special session and the state's litigation budget on a map that, for now, is not on the ballot. What did the redistricting push cost the state's taxpayers in legal fees, and who will publish that number?
Update, October 11, 2026: The Eighth Circuit appeal this post flagged was decided September 21, 2026, when a federal appeals panel upheld Judge Clark's order and directed him to enter a permanent order requiring the 2025 map, SCOTUSblog reported. On September 25, 2026, the Supreme Court stayed that ruling in an unsigned order with no noted dissents, People Not Politicians v. Onder, No. 26A388, writing that "as a matter of state law" the 2022 map "must be used in the 2026 congressional election." The 901 Report covered that order in The Supreme Court Ends Missouri's Mid-Cycle Map Fight: 2022 Lines in November.
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