By Kacen Bayless November 13, 2025 4:40 PM
A trial over the fate of more than 92,000 signatures to strike down Missouri’s gerrymandered congressional map was delayed for the second time in two weeks on Thursday. Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green was scheduled to hold a one-day bench trial over whether Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins illegally delayed a campaign to hold a statewide vote on the map — and if tens of thousands of petition signatures to force that vote will be valid.
But that trial will move to Nov. 21 after Put Missouri First, an opposition group backed by national Republicans, intervened and asked for a new judge. Cole County Circuit Court Judge Cotton Walker will now hear the case next Friday. The delay comes after a previous trial was canceled last week because Green reportedly had an illness. The pair of delays comes as the campaign, called People Not Politicians, races to collect signatures across the state to force a statewide vote on the map. The eventual ruling could determine the future of Kansas City’s political representation. The decision will have sweeping implications for Missouri’s congressional map, which Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed into law this fall under pressure from President Donald Trump. The ruling could bolster the campaign trying to repeal the map or effectively crush it.
Richard Von Glahn, the campaign’s executive director, in an interview, framed Thursday’s delay as a tactic intended to stifle the campaign. “They are absolutely terrified of, you know, the people of the state having a chance to weigh in on the illegal partisan gerrymandering,” Von Glahn said. Attorneys for Put Missouri First, the opposition campaign, did not immediately respond to calls for comment. The lawsuit targets Hoskins’ decision to reject, on multiple occasions, the campaign’s paperwork that indicated their intent to hold a referendum. Additionally, the campaign takes aim at Hoskins’ claim that any signatures gathered before his Oct. 15 approval would be invalid. “There can be little doubt that the Secretary’s rejection as to form interfered with and limited the amount of time Plaintiffs have to gather signatures,” Chuck Hatfield, an attorney for the campaign, wrote in his pre-trial brief. Hatfield argued that if Hoskins opposed the referendum, he was free to campaign against it. But he did not have the right to “subvert the people’s right to petition their government,” he said. While the eventual ruling won’t determine whether the signatures themselves are valid, the campaign wants an order banning Hoskins from rejecting them solely because they were collected before he approved the paperwork. Hoskins’ claim regarding the signatures put in doubt the validity of roughly 92,000 of the campaign’s more than 200,000 signatures collected across the state. Campaigners face a Dec. 11 deadline to turn in enough signatures to force the statewide vote. Attorneys from the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, which is representing Hoskins, have made several arguments against the lawsuit, including that the legal action was premature because Hoskins had not yet rejected any signatures for the referendum. Additionally, they argued that Hoskins was correct when he rejected the campaign’s paperwork because it was filed before Kehoe signed the map into law. “The Court should hold that only signatures collected following the October 14 approval as to form must be counted,” attorneys in the Attorney General’s Office wrote in their pre-trial brief. But Hatfield argued that the legal precedent was on his client’s side, pointing to a 2022 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that found similar tactics by former Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft were illegal. “The Secretary should ‘know his role,’” Hatfield wrote in his brief, which offered a nod to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. “Because he doesn’t, this Court must intervene to set the matter straight.”
The maneuvers from Hoskins, such as his rejection of the paperwork and claim about the validity of signatures, echo a playbook utilized by other Republican officials in fights against proposed ballot measures Republicans disagree with. The fight over Missouri’s map The upcoming trial comes after a chaotic fall in which Missouri lawmakers returned to Jefferson City intent on redrawing the state’s congressional maps at the behest of Trump. Six of the state’s eight districts are currently represented by Republicans, while Democrats hold two — one in Kansas City and the other in St. Louis. The new map, signed by Kehoe, is intended to allow Republicans to control seven districts as Republicans nationwide seek to maintain control of Congress after the 2026 election. The map takes direct aim at Kansas City and longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, carving the city’s voters into three Republican-leaning districts. It also slices more than 70,000 minority voters out of Cleaver’s district, a move that faces fierce criticism in Kansas City. People Not Politicians launched its referendum campaign shortly after the vote and almost immediately began collecting signatures to strike down the map. Referendum campaigns, outlined in the Missouri Constitution, allow voters to challenge most bills passed by state lawmakers. Campaigners have until Dec. 11 — or 90 days after the legislature adjourned — to collect enough signatures in at least six of Missouri’s eight congressional districts to force a November 2026 statewide vote. The campaign must collect the amount of signatures that equals 5% of voters in each of those districts, based on numbers from the most recent election for governor. That number would be around 106,000, according to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office. If the campaign turns in enough valid signatures by Dec. 11, the map would be blocked from taking effect until the November 2026 vote.
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