By Andrew Chung
Sept 23 (Reuters) - Challengers to a redrawn congressional map in Missouri aimed at favoring Republicans returned to the US Supreme Court on Tuesday, urging it to halt its use in November's midterm elections after a St. Louis-based federal court again ordered its reinstatement despite two previous Supreme Court orders to the contrary.
The latest emergency request involving the battle over the makeup of Missouri's US House of Representatives districts marks the third time in September
that the dispute has reached the nation's top judicial body.
On September 10, the Supreme Court blocked the Republican-drawn map, a decision thought to have settled the matter, at least for the November 3 elections. But the St. Louis-based 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled that the new map must be used, injecting still further confusion into the fight over the map.
President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans are striving to maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
With the midterms looming, the challengers, including a group opposed to the Republican-drawn map called People Not Politicians, asked the Supreme Court to block the 8th Circuit's ruling.
Missouri Republicans in 2025 adopted the new map, which dismantled a Kansas City-based House district held by longtime Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver, as part of a broader effort backed by Trump to redraw congressional districts in ways beneficial to Republican House candidates.
The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled on September 3 that under state law the Republican-drawn map could not be used in the midterms until it is first put to a voter referendum.
Missouri officials asked the US Supreme Court to intervene, but were rebuffed on September 8 in a decision made by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Soon after, US District Judge Stephen Clark in St. Louis, a Trump appointee, issued a temporary order barring any map except for the redrawn 2025 one because those congressional district lines were already used in Missouri's August 4 party primary elections.
Clark acted in a lawsuit by Republican US Representative Bob Onder of Missouri and other plaintiffs after the unfavorable ruling by the state's top court.
The map's opponents then turned to the US Supreme Court, which on September 10 blocked Missouri from using the redrawn map. No justice publicly dissented from that brief order, which was unsigned and gave no explanation. Following that action, Republican officials said the midterms would be held using the state's previous congressional map, passed in 2022.
But the 8th Circuit proceeded with an appeal of Clark's now-blocked temporary order, and on Monday it upheld Clark's decision. The 8th Circuit panel, which included two judges appointed by Trump and a third by another Republican president, also ordered Clark to make his temporary order permanent — a move that would require renewed Supreme Court intervention.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
