After Justice Brett Kavanaugh declined to intervene, a federal district court judge stepped in to reinstate Missouri’s controversial congressional map for the 2026 midterms.
Chief U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark, a Trump appointee in the Eastern District of Missouri, granted a temporary restraining order requiring the state to conduct November congressional elections under House Bill 1.
House Bill 1 is the GOP-drawn map that the Missouri Supreme Court ruled had never legally taken effect, making Clark’s intervention all the more striking to legal observers.
Kavanaugh, acting as circuit justice for the Eighth Circuit, had denied Missouri’s emergency bid to reinstate the gerrymander after the state’s own Supreme Court struck it down.
Clark explicitly acknowledged Kavanaugh’s denial in his own order before proceeding to grant the temporary restraining order anyway, a move that drew immediate criticism from legal commentators.
The ruling emerged from a separate federal lawsuit filed on Friday by Republican congressional candidates who were challenging the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate the map.
Clark granted a 14-day temporary restraining order in that suit, brought by Republican congressional candidates who argued the state court’s ruling should not stand.
The legal community responded with notable sharpness, with Chris Geidner calling the ruling “very bad on law” and describing Clark as spreading chaos across Missouri the day after the Supreme Court had pointedly refused to act.
Election law scholar Travis Crum was more measured, saying Clark heard the Supreme Court’s message and “decided to plow ahead anyways,” predicting the Eighth Circuit would relay that message a second time.
Crum suggested that if the Eighth Circuit panel somehow failed to reverse Clark, Kavanaugh would be willing to make the Supreme Court’s position clear once more.
Rick Hasen, who had already described Missouri’s state Supreme Court argument as “weak,” responded to the unfolding situation by noting that the night was still young.
The episode has raised serious questions about judicial hierarchy, with critics arguing a district court judge has no authority to effectively override a signal sent by a sitting Supreme Court justice.
The U.S. Supreme Court, not a federal district court, holds jurisdiction to review a Missouri Supreme Court judgment, a distinction that legal observers say Clark appeared to sidestep entirely.
The situation leaves Missouri election officials caught between competing judicial orders as the 2026 midterm election cycle moves into a critical phase.