By Kacen Bayless | December 9, 2025 4:54 PM
A campaign to strike down Missouri’s gerrymandered congressional map submitted hundreds of thousands of petition signatures from residents across the state on Tuesday, a major step toward forcing a statewide vote on the map. The campaign, called People Not Politicians, said it dropped off 305,968 signatures at the Secretary of State’s Office, roughly two and a half times the estimated amount required to hold a statewide referendum vote in 2026.
The signature dropoff marked a critical moment for the referendum campaign. Supporters raced across Missouri to collect signatures in less than three months to repeal the map, which lawmakers passed this fall under pressure from President Donald Trump. “This unprecedented show of grassroots power signals the overwhelming public demand for Missourians to have a say in whether (the map) becomes law,” the campaign said in a statement. The fate of the referendum is now in the hands of Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, whose office will deliver signatures to local election authorities for verification. After Tuesday’s turn-in, the map will be on hold until the statewide vote sometime next year. Hoskins spokesperson Rachael Dunn confirmed the campaign submitted 691 boxes of signatures. The Secretary of State’s Office’s Election Division will be tasked with scanning and sorting the signatures so they can be verified by local election authorities, Dunn said. “The Secretary is always happy to serve the people of Missouri,” Dunn said in an email. “There is no specific statement regarding this referendum petition.” Whether the map reaches the statewide ballot is not certain. The campaign faces a series of attacks and is embroiled in an onslaught of legal fights with statewide officials, including Hoskins, who has attempted to cast doubt on the validity of roughly 90,000 signatures. Richard Von Glahn, the campaign’s executive director, told reporters on Tuesday that Hoskins’ office had two weeks to submit the signatures to local election authorities. Local elections offices likely have until this summer to complete their reviews. He emphasized that the campaign would monitor the effort to make sure those timeframes are followed. “If we need to continue to litigate to enforce our constitutional rights, we will,” he said.
Later on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway released a lengthy statement that claimed the map was not yet frozen until Hoskins certified that the referendum campaign met all qualifications. “By law, the Secretary of State is now required to conduct a careful review of the referendum petition—both to investigate whether an adequate number of legitimate signatures are submitted and to ensure the referendum’s constitutionality,” said spokesperson Isabelle Bryson. The attorney general’s office also referenced a lawsuit the office filed against the referendum campaign. A federal judge rejected that suit Monday evening, arguing that he did not have jurisdiction over the matter and that the lawsuit was premature because Hoskins still had the power to block the referendum. “The Attorney General looks forward to an orderly review process to determine whether the proposed referendum can qualify for a vote,” Bryson said. “Nothing in the Court’s holding prevents the State from re-filing its suit if and when the proposed referendum qualifies for a vote.” Attorneys for the referendum campaign, Chuck Hatfield and Alix Cossette, blasted Hanaway’s analysis of the law in a legal memo obtained by The Star on Tuesday. The attorneys emphasized that Missouri law requires the map to be frozen once signatures are turned in. They also argued that Hoskins was not authorized to conduct an investigation into the validity of signatures, adding, “He is not Sherlock Holmes.” “The Attorney General’s about face on whether the map is suspended is just another in a long line of losing legal positions she has taken in her short tenure as the state’s chief legal officer,” the memo said. “If this position must be litigated, there is little chance the Attorney General will be successful.” The referendum campaign has drawn intense national interest amid a broader redistricting frenzy across the country. Millions of dollars have poured into Missouri both to oppose and support the campaign. The map passed by Republican lawmakers carved Kansas City into three Republican-leaning congressional districts. The goal was to push out Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and allow a Republican to win his 5th Congressional District. Missouri’s map is an overt example of partisan gerrymandering, a term used to describe the practice of redrawing electoral district boundaries to favor one party over another. Republicans currently control six of Missouri’s congressional districts while Democrats hold the 5th District in Kansas City and the 1st District in St. Louis, under a map lawmakers approved in 2022.
Congressional districts are typically only redrawn once every decade based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Separately on Tuesday, Cole County Circuit Court Judge Christopher Limbaugh ruled that Missouri lawmakers were allowed to redistrict mid-decade, rejecting a lawsuit brought by Hatfield’s law firm on behalf of several Missouri residents. Hatfield, in a phone interview, implied that his office planned to appeal the ruling. “We always thought that case would be decided at the Missouri Supreme Court,” Hatfield said. “We’ve accomplished an important step, which is getting a ruling from Judge Limbaugh. And I think we’ll be off to the Missouri Supreme Court.”
Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article313546523.html#storylink=cpy