Lawsuit, threat of criminal charges part of GOP effort to block vote on Missouri map

Protesters gather in the Missouri Capitol rotunda Sept. 10 in opposition to a gerrymandered congressional district map (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent)

As the campaign to repeal Missouri’s gerrymandered congressional map approaches the 106,000 signatures needed to put the issue on the 2026 ballot, Republicans are pulling out all the stops to block it.

Secretary of State Denny Hoskins announced Wednesday that roughly 100,000 signatures gathered so far for the referendum won’t count — and that gathering them before his office approved “constitutes a misdemeanor election offense.”

Later in the day, Attorney General Catherine Hanaway filed a lawsuit arguing that holding a referendum on the congressional map is unconstitutional and asking a federal judge to stop it.

“Missouri politicians continue to try to confuse, intimidate and, frankly, silence us,” Richard Von Glahn of People Not Politicians, the committee behind the referendum campaign, told reporters Thursday.

People Not Politicians is already in court challenging Hoskins’ decision to reject its initial referendum petitions because they were filed in September before the governor signed the redistricting bill.  If those petitions aren’t valid, neither are the 100,000 signatures already gathered for the referendum.

Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green set the case for a trial on Nov. 4.

“This office remains committed to transparency, accuracy and protecting Missouri voters’ trust in the democratic process,” Hoskins said Wednesday.

At the heart of the debate is Missouri’s congressional map, which has eight districts with six currently represented by Republicans.

Lawmakers returned to the Capitol last month to gerrymander one of the Democratic seats in a way that would adhere to President Donal Trump’s instructions to create a new GOP district before the 2026 midterms.

The target was the 5th District, based in Kansas City and represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver since 2005. It is carved up under the new map with portions attached to the 4th and 6th Districts. Heavily Republican areas stretching along the Missouri River to Boone County were added to the remaining Kansas City portions.

Hours after the map won legislative approval, People Not Politicians filed for a referendum to put it on the ballot. Under the Missouri Constitution, if the group gathers 106,000 signatures before Dec. 11, the map will not go into effect until after a statewide vote.

The referendum poses a real threat to the new map. Of the 27 times a referendum has been placed on the Missouri ballot, voters have rejected actions by the General Assembly all but twice. That includes 1922, when voters rejected a new congressional map drawn by the legislature.

A referendum was last deployed in Missouri seven years ago, when labor unions collected 300,000 signatures in 90 days to put a question on the statewide ballot repealing a GOP-backed right-to-work law.

A year later, the secretary of state’s office used procedural maneuvers to derail a referendum campaign that sought to overturn newly-passed restrictions on abortion.

That 2019 referendum never got off the ground because of the secretary of state’s actions. But it sparked a 2022 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that determined the laws the secretary of state used to obstruct the citizen-initiated referendum process were unconstitutional.

“We’ve been here before,” said Chuck Hatfield, an attorney representing People Not Politicians. “The Secretary of State knows better.”

People Not Politicians has raised $2.6 million in six-figure donations since the campaign began last month. According to disclosure reports filed with the state ethics commission, more than $1.2 million of that has gone directly towards signature gathering.

Most of the group’s money has come from out-of-state nonprofits who are not obligated to disclose their donors. Last week, Kansas City-based Health Forward Foundation donated $750,000.

Hanaway pointed to People Not Politicians out-of-state donors in announcing her federal lawsuit seeking to block the referendum.

“Missouri’s redistricting process cannot be dictated by out-of-state special interests,” Hanaway said. “We will not allow dark money groups to silence Missouri voices or hijack the work of the General Assembly.”

Hatfield called the actions of Hanaway and Hoskins “outrageous” and a “full on tantrum about the right of the people to overrule these congressional districts, which is a right the people are guaranteed in the constitution.”

In particular, he called the accusation that gathering signatures could ever be considered a crime “totally ridiculous.”

“This is nothing,” Hatfield said, “but an attempt to intimidate and deny people the right to petition their government.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.