A Missouri appeals court on Thursday rewrote the ballot summary for a proposed referendum on the state’s newly gerrymandered congressional map, ruling Secretary of State Denny Hoskins’ description still included unsupported claims about the map approved by lawmakers last year.
The Western District Court of Appeals reversed part of a Cole County ruling and certified a shorter summary for the referendum petition backed by a political action committee called People Not Politicians. If the referendum qualifies for the November ballot, voters would be asked whether to approve the redistricting plan passed during a 2025 special session and signed by Gov. Mike Kehoe in September.
The court’s certified summary says the legislation repeals Missouri’s existing congressional plan and replaces it with new boundaries “that keep more counties intact.”
That is narrower than the summary Hoskins certified in November, which said the 2025 map repealed an “existing gerrymandered congressional plan that protects incumbent politicians” and replaced it with districts that “keep more cities and counties intact, are more compact, and better reflect statewide voting patterns.”
People Not Politicians sued in Cole County one week after Hoskins certified the language, arguing the summary was written to tilt voters toward the new map. The case landed in the Western District after Cole County Circuit Judge Brian Stumpe agreed parts of Hoskins’ wording were unfair but left other claims in place.
Stumpe removed the references to the current map as “gerrymandered” and protecting incumbent politicians. He also struck the claim that the new map better reflects statewide voting patterns. But he allowed the ballot summary to say the new districts keep more cities and counties intact and are more compact.
The appeals court said that went too far.
Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Judge Alok Ahuja said the claim about counties could stay because the 2022 and 2025 laws identify which counties are split among congressional districts. The 2022 map split nine counties, while the 2025 map splits five, the court found.
But the court said the claim that the new map keeps more cities intact could not be verified from the legislation or official maps alone. The same problem applied to the claim that the new districts are more compact, the court said, because compactness in congressional redistricting cannot be judged simply by whether districts look like squares, rectangles or hexagons.
The court also faulted Stumpe for removing the word “existing” from the description of the 2022 congressional plan, noting referendum proponents had not challenged that word and the trial court made no finding that it was unfair or insufficient.
The ruling does not decide whether the 2025 map is currently in effect while the referendum process plays out. The appeals court said that question is being litigated separately. But it found that if the referendum qualifies for the ballot, the 2022 map could fairly be described to voters as Missouri’s “existing” congressional plan because voters would be deciding whether to approve the one passed by lawmakers last year.
In a statement, Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri, said the ruling marked the second time a court found Hoskins’ ballot language misleading.
The attorney general’s office could not be immediately reached for comment on the appeals court ruling.
The ballot-title fight is one piece of a broader legal battle over the 2025 map, which was drawn in a mid-decade special session and could help Republicans pick up another U.S. House seat by reshaping the Kansas City-area district represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.
