Group seeking to put Missouri’s GOP-drawn congressional map before voters submits signatures

A Democratic-supported group in Missouri opposed to the state’s new congressional map drawn by Republicans is one step closer to potentially repealing it through a voter referendum.

The group, People Not Politicians, submitted more than 300,000 signatures Tuesday for a petition that seeks to block the new district lines from going into effect before next year’s midterm elections. Missouri’s Republican secretary of state will still need to certify the petition before it can appear on the ballot.

“This process is an important historic check on legislators’ power or power grabs,” People Not Politicians Executive Director Richard von Glahn said in an interview before his group submitted the signatures. “This is why this part of our democracy exists — for moments like this, for people to both exercise and protect their power as voters.”

The development marks the latest wrinkle in the national redistricting fight, which was sparked by President Donald Trump in an effort to shore up the GOP’s narrow House majority.

In September, Missouri’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed a new congressional map that carved up one of two districts currently represented by a Democrat, that of Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, in a way that likely turns it into a GOP-leaning seat.

But opponents of the redistricting effort utilized a provision in Missouri law that allows for a citizen referendum that would allow voters statewide to have a final say on the map. They had until Thursday to gather approximately 107,000 signatures from six of the state’s eight congressional districts.

People Not Politicians said it had submitted Tuesday almost three times that number.

“To get that amount of signatures that quickly is pretty amazing. It really shows you that the people don’t want” the map to happen,” Doug Beck, the Democratic minority leader in the Missouri state Senate who supported the effort, said in an interview.

Under Missouri law, the submission of the signatures effectively pauses the new law that created the map.

From here, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, must determine whether the group has submitted a sufficient number of valid signatures. His office faces a July deadline for signature verification, though the process will likely be completed much earlier. Hoskins has previously signaled his opposition to the measure, having initially rejected in October the legal grounds for the petition effort.

Hoskins’ spokesperson Rachel Dunn said their office wouldn’t comment on the process moving forward until after the Thursday deadline had passed.

If the petition is certified, the Legislature would then move to schedule an election that allows voters to weigh in on the map.

There are likely to be several more complications along the way. Any ruling by Hoskins is almost certain to face litigation. Office-seekers would also be left in limbo not knowing what the final map for the 2026 election would look like. Candidates can begin filing to run for Congress in Missouri in late February and the filing deadline for the August primary closes in March.

And then there’s the timing of the election itself. If the redistricting measure was placed on the ballot for the general election in November 2026, the new map wouldn’t be in effect for the midterms.

State lawmakers could place the measure on the ballot for an earlier existing election or call a special election. Republicans enjoy a supermajority in both legislative chambers.

“The election day — that will be another fight within the Legislature,” Beck said.

Millions of dollars on both sides — including from both the national Democratic and Republican parties — have poured into the fight around Missouri’s map.

In interviews, Missouri Republicans said they had concerns about money coming from donors and interests outside the state to help boost the referendum effort. They also said they would continue to work toward the new map being in place for the November election regardless of how the secretary of state rules on signature verification.

“There’s so much out-of-state involvement in something that is really supposed to be Missouri law here, right?,” said Republican state Sen. Brad Hudson, who supports the redrawn map. “This is our representation in Congress. This is for Missourians, so I have some concerns about the process.”

“I hope that, eventually, the outcome that comes out of all this is support for the map that was passed by the Legislature,” he added. “It is both a legal and constitutionally sound map.”

The referendum campaign seeks to employ a clause in the Missouri Constitution stating that any law referred to voters cannot take effect unless approved by a majority vote. The process to refer a law back to a voter referendum has occurred only about two dozen times in the state’s history.

“It’s a process that is sort of reserved for extreme times — and I would say that’s how we are experiencing this issue,” von Glahn said.

The effort is already mired in a series of legal fights.

In October, Hoskins, following an opinion from Republican state Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, initially rejected the petition effort, arguing that while the legislation redrawing the maps was approved weeks earlier, the bill had not actually been signed into law at the time the petition was submitted to the state for review. People Not Politicians sued to challenge the move.

People Not Politicians has also sued Hoskins separately, alleging that he certified “misleading and unconstitutional ballot language” for when the referendum could be placed on the ballot. The suit notes that Hoskins certified language for the potential measure that describes the state’s maps before the latest redraw as “gerrymandered.”

In addition, Hanaway sued People Not Politicians in federal court in October, alleging that the effort to refer the map to a referendum is unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, Hanaway’s office is also investigating a firm that helped collect signatures for People Not Politicians, alleging that the company, Advanced Micro Targeting, employed undocumented immigrants in the signature collection effort. Advanced Micro Targeting has denied the allegations.