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missouri
As SC GOP Fails to Advance Trump's Gerrymandering, Missouri Supreme Court Upholds Rigged Map
"MAGA loyalists are using every lever they control, from legislatures to courts, to rig the system and lock voters out of fair representation," said the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
May 12, 2026
While five Republican South Carolina senators joined Democrats in blocking a GOP effort to advance President Donald Trump's national gerrymandering push in the state on Tuesday, the Missouri Supreme Court handed him a key win, approving a rigged congressional map forced through last year.
"MAGA loyalists are using every lever they control, from legislatures to courts, to rig the system and lock voters out of fair representation," said the National Democratic Redistricting Committee after Missouri's top court rejected multiple challenges to the map that targets the 5th Congressional District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
In one consolidated case, the court found that opponents of the map failed to show that it "clearly and undoubtedly violates the requirements of Article III, Section 45 of the Missouri Constitution."
Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, said in a statement that "the arguments in this case, which were presented before the Missouri Supreme Court just this morning, took less than an hour and elicited zero questions from the court for the lawyers for either the plaintiffs or defendants."
"While one might be inclined to hope that these justices managed to grapple with a highly complex, nuanced, and consequential issue in just six hours, it seems clear the justices were not interested in the day's proceedings and simply had their opinion already finalized even before this morning's argument," Jenkins continued. "With this decision, the Missouri Supreme Court has shown Missourians the lack of seriousness with which it takes cases that pertain to protecting their right to vote—a complete and dangerous abdication of the judiciary's role."
Another case stems from a political group that has collected signatures to force a referendum vote on the state's redistricting. The court found that the filing did not automatically suspend the map under the state constitution.
As KOMU reported Tuesday, People Not Politicians Missouri has submitted over 300,000 signatures to Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, but the Republican has not yet said whether his office will approve or reject its inclusion on the ballot.
"The secretary of state's own data confirms what more than 305,000 Missourians already made clear: This referendum is sufficient, and the people have a right to vote," Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri, said in the statement after the state court's decisions on Tuesday.
"Today's ruling from the Supreme Court confirms this fact. A sufficient petition suspends the law the day it is turned in," he continued. "Unnecessary delays by politicians do not change this fact. If he continues to delay, then he is moving forward under a map that has been suspended by the people."
Missouri Republicans won’t stop trying to illegally rig our maps. We collected 305,968 signatures to put their rigged map to a vote of the people, and they still refuse to do their job.So my name is Laura, and I’m here to bully my government. #FairMaps #Missouri #moleg
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— Laura Burkhardt (@lauraannstl.bsky.social) May 12, 2026 at 12:04 PM
Meanwhile, in South Carolina—a state already known for Republican map-rigging—the state Senate voted 29-17, two votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to move forward on redistricting to help the GOP, despite Trump's public call to "GET IT DONE!"
Welcoming the result, the state's Senate Democrats said that it "sent a clear message that South Carolina should not be dragged into another unnecessary and divisive redistricting battle driven by Washington insiders."
"South Carolina rejected a politically motivated power grab orchestrated by a White House shaped by perpetually online New York City activists with little understanding of South Carolina," the Senate Democrats continued. "The people of this state expect us to focus on the real issues affecting their daily lives, not carry out an outside political agenda."
They pledged that "Senate Democrats will continue fighting for fair representation, transparency, and a government focused on the needs of South Carolina families rather than national political gamesmanship."
While the Republican-led Indiana state Senate similarly rejected a Trump-backed gerrymander last December, GOP legislators in Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas have caved to pressure from the president and enacted new maps ahead of November's midterm elections, in which Democrats hope to claim majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Tennessee's redistricting came after the right-wing US Supreme Court last month found that Louisiana's map was an "unconstitutional racial gerrymander" and gutted what remained of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The nation's top court on Monday also paved a path for Alabama lawmakers to break up their state’s majority-Black district.
In response to GOP attacks on voting rights across the South, "All Roads Lead to the South," the No Kings coalition, community members, faith leaders, and other organizations are planning demonstrations at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery as well as Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge on Saturday, May 16, with solidarity actions across the country.
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'Promising Milestone': Missouri Campaign Submits Signatures to Protect Voter-Approved Laws
"What voters are saying now is that democracy is sacred."
May 04, 2026
Organizers in Missouri on Sunday said they reached an important milestone in a campaign to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot this year that would stop Republican officials in the state from trying to sabotage ballot initiatives.
Respect Missouri Voters, a coalition aimed at protecting and strengthening the state's ballot initiative process, announced that it has delivered more than 367,000 signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State's office in favor of a constitutional amendment that enact two key policies to protect voter-passed laws.
First, as the Fairness Project summarized on Monday, it would "require that all future ballot measures in the state be summarized for voters in fair, clear, and easily understandable terms"; and second, it would demand "that any attempt by the Legislature to refer a voter-approved measure back to the ballot clear an 80% threshold in each chamber, a high bar designed to prevent politicians from undoing what voters have already decided."
The first part of the amendment is aimed at addressing problems created by Republican Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, who has repeatedly been taken to court for writing ballot initiative summaries that advocates say are misleading or provide incomplete information about what the initiatives would do.
As the Missouri Independent reported in February, a total of five summaries written by Hoskins have been thrown out by courts since October, as "judges at every level of Missouri’s court system have stepped in to block or rewrite ballot language" drafted by the secretary of state.
The second part of the amendment, meanwhile, was written in response to Republican legislators' efforts to overturn ballot initiatives passed in 2024 that legalized abortion in Missouri and established mandatory paid sick leave.
Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, a key backer of Respect Missouri Voters, said the gathering of more than 367,000 signatures is "a promising milestone for Missouri voters and for direct democracy."
"Perhaps more than in any other state, voters in Missouri understand what is at stake,” Hall added. "It’s in Missouri that extremist politicians have worked overtime to undermine the will of their voters, whether it’s been fighting to reinstate a wildly unpopular ban on access to abortion care, gerrymandering congressional districts, or undermining the ballot measure process. What voters are saying now is that democracy is sacred."
However, it's not just Missouri where direct democracy is under attack. The Fairness Project reported last September that “extremist” legislators across the United States “escalated their efforts to dismantle the ballot measure process in 2025 by 95%.”
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Virginia Democrats Pass New Political Map to Combat Trump—But Court Battles Continue
"Virginia has to fight back," said state House Speaker Don Scott. "We can't stand by and do nothing but to do everything in our power to level the playing field."
Feb 20, 2026
Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly on Friday passed a new potential congressional map and a later primary date—but it came after a setback in court for a pending referendum in which voters would decide whether to redistrict to combat a national GOP gerrymandering effort launched last year by Republican President Donald Trump.
After advancing in a 21-18 Virginia Senate vote on Thursday, HB29 was approved by the House of Delegates 59-35, with five Democrats not voting. The bill still needs a signature from Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, but VPM reported that House Speaker Don Scott (D-80) expects her to sign it as soon as Saturday, or by Monday at the latest.
"Virginia has to fight back," Scott said, accusing Trump of trying to rig the November midterm elections for the Republican Party. "We can't stand by and do nothing but to do everything in our power to level the playing field."
Spanberger—who is set to deliver Democrats' response to Trump's State of the Union speech next week—similarly said when she approved the referendum that "Virginia has the opportunity and responsibility to be responsive in the face of efforts across the country to change maps."
Trump has convinced Republicans in Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri to redraw their congressional maps in a bid to hold on to the GOP's dwindling majority in the US House of Representatives. That led to various court battles, a new voter-approved map in California crafted to benefit Democrats, and the ongoing fight for a similar one in Virginia.
If Virginia voters support Democrats' constitutional amendment to temporarily redistrict, the new map would give the party an advantage in 10 of the state's 11 congressional districts, and the June 16 primary would be delayed until August 4. However, a Thursday court order puts the referendum, scheduled for April 21, in jeopardy.
GOP-appointed Tazewell Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. on Thursday granted a temporary restraining order sought by the Republican National Committee, which is challenging the state Democrats' redistricting endeavor alongside the National Republican Congressional Committee and GOP US Reps. Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith.
In a written order that followed a bench decision, the judge prohibited Virginia officials from "administering, preparing for, taking any action to further the procedure of the referendum, or otherwise moving forward with causing an election to be held on the proposed constitutional amendment" until March 18. Early voting was set to start on March 6.
Thursday was the second time that Hurley "ruled against Democrats' redistricting agenda. In January, he ruled that a resolution for a constitutional amendment was illegally passed in a special legislative session and taken up too close to an intervening election," the Associated Press noted. "That case has been appealed to the state Supreme Court, and justices had said they would allow the referendum to proceed while they review the appeal."
Democratic Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones also vowed to challenge the temporary restraining order, saying in a statement that "my office will immediately appeal the ruling issued by the Tazewell County Circuit Court. These arguments are already before the Supreme Court of Virginia, the proper forum to consider the arguments, which has set a schedule for receiving arguments and has justifiably allowed the vote to proceed during this time."
Meanwhile, in Missouri, a four-day bench trial over Republicans' gerrymandering wrapped up before the Circuit Court of Jackson County. That GOP map targets the state's 5th Congressional District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
"Missouri's mid-decade gerrymander is a lose-lose situation for voters in Kansas City and those in smaller rural communities," said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, which is supporting plaintiffs in the case. "The strategic manipulation of district lines breaks up long-standing communities and forces urban and rural communities with vastly different needs to share the same member of Congress, which will now make these communities compete for their voices to be heard in Congress."
"What's happening in Missouri is not happening in a vacuum. The national gerrymandering crisis that Donald Trump and DC Republicans started in Texas, continued in Missouri and North Carolina, and it is showing no signs of stopping at this point," she said. "No one wins this race to the bottom. Least of all the American people. This court should send a strong signal that unconstitutional gerrymanders will not be tolerated in Missouri."
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