People Not Politicians v. Onder (Amicus)

The ACLU, the ACLU of Missouri, and the Campaign Legal Center filed an amicus brief in People Not Politicians v. Onder in the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the Court to stay a temporary restraining order issued by a federal district court requiring Missouri to use a congressional map that has not lawfully taken effect.

Missouri has eight congressional districts, one of which has historically been based in the Kansas City area. In direct response to partisan calls to gerrymander congressional districts before the 2026 midterm elections, Missouri engaged in mid-decade redistricting and passed HB 1, which seeks to dismantle Kansas City-based Congressional District 5. HB 1 would crack the city into three pieces and split them between three rural districts. This fracturing of Kansas City would prevent the area’s residents from uniting to have their voices heard by a single member of Congress.

The redraw of the lines around Kansas City was along racial lines—and is aimed at unseating one of the two Black members of Congress representing Missouri. In one highly populated area of Kansas City, the new lines bisect Black and white neighbors, literally placing different racial groups on opposite sides of the track.

After HB 1’s passage by the Missouri legislature in September 2025, more than 300,000 Missourians signed a referendum petition, as part of a campaign organized by People Not Politicians and Richard Von Glahn, to force the State of Missouri to put HB 1 to a vote by the people. A referendum would suspend HB 1 and prevent it from taking effect unless and until the people of Missouri approve the referendum. That would ensure that the midterm elections in November 2026 could be held using the districts in effect before Missouri’s mid-decade gerrymandering.

Missouri’s Secretary of State, however, refused to determine whether the referendum petition was legally sufficient, until one hour before the statutory deadline of 5:00 p.m. on August 4, 2026, when he issued a finding that the referendum petition was insufficient, arguing that the Missouri Constitution does not authorize referenda on congressional redistricting plans.

Mr. von Glahn, an organizer and signatory of the referendum petition signers, filed suit in Missouri state court that same day arguing that the Secretary violated state law and that he should be restrained from implementing, using, or mandating HB 1. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with Mr. von Glahn and held that HB 1 must be subjected to the referendum process and that it cannot be used for the midterm elections in November 2026. The State sought a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied the request on September 8, 2026.

Less than an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Missouri entered a temporary restraining order in Onder v. Missouri, enjoining the Secretary from implementing any congressional plan except HB 1. Richard Von Glahn and People Not Politicians sought a stay of the district court’s order before the U.S. Supreme Court

On September 9, 2026, the ACLU, ACLU MO, and the Campaign Legal Center filed an amicus brief in support of the stay application in the U.S. Supreme Court. The brief argued that under longstanding federal precedent, the federal Elections Clause does not exempt redistricting legislation from the state's lawmaking process, including referenda, and that the Purcell principle foreclosed relief at this juncture, particularly given the confusion caused by the district’s court order, which had left the State of Missouri with no usable congressional districts on the eve of ballot mailing.

The next day, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of the district court’s order, which confirms that the State of Missouri must now implement the congressional districts as they existed before the 2025 gerrymander. Thus, Missouri’s 2022 congressional redistricting plan remains in effect, protecting the congressional district in the Kansas City area where voters have been electing candidates of their choice to Congress for over 100 years.