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Missouri voters will be given the chance to weigh in on maps redrawn by the Republican-led state legislature last year, which created congressional boundaries many critics have said are both racial and political gerrymanders.

In a unanimous ruling on Thursday, the Missouri Supreme Court found that a “veto referendum” ballot initiative was unduly blocked by Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R).

In 2025, as part of President Donald Trump’s push for Republican-led states to gerrymander congressional districts for political gain in the 2026 midterms, Missouri lawmakers split up a district in Kansas City, dividing the municipality into three other districts and diluting the Black vote in the area. The resulting maps meant that it was likely Republicans would gain a seat in Congress, while Democrats would lose one.

In response, a nonprofit group called People Not Politicians Missouri organized and gathered more than 300,000 signatures statewide to veto the law, sometimes referred to as HB 1. After the group submitted their signatures in December, Hoskins waited for the longest possible time permitted to him under state law to block the initiative, doing so in early August by deeming the measure unconstitutional, arguing that such ballot measures........

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