The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a governor’s power to call lawmakers into a special session at any time, ending the last lawsuit intended to overturn the state’s newly gerrymandered congressional map without a statewide vote.
In an unanimous decision issued just a few hours after oral arguments, the court held that the Missouri Constitution’s section granting the governor authority to convene the General Assembly on “extraordinary occasions” means it can be done any time the Legislature is not already meeting.
The section, Judge Mary Russell wrote, “does not include language suggesting the governor’s discretion to call an extraordinary session is limited in any way.”
The NAACP of Missouri filed a lawsuit challenging Kehoe’s authority to call a special session on the day lawmakers began meeting in September to consider revising congressional districts and a ballot measure to make it harder to pass constitutional amendments proposed by initiative.
Kehoe called the special session at the urging of President Donald Trump, who wanted to flip a Democratic-held district in the state.
Neither the circumstances nor the legislation was so urgent that a special session was justified, the lawsuit argued.
Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh ruled against the challenge in February, setting up Wednesday’s arguments before the state’s highest court.
Sharon Jones, an attorney representing the NAACP, told the judges Wednesday that nothing that happened last year triggered met the definition of “extraordinary occasions.”
She tried to convince the judges to limit the governor’s power to call the Legislature into session.
“It would mean the governor could call the General Assembly into session at any time for no reason,” Jones said.
In response, Joe Kiernan of the attorney general’s office argued that the NAACP was trying to overturn Kehoe’s actions because it has a political disagreement about the legislation that was passed.
That makes the controversy a purely political question, which the courts should avoid, he said.
“What they are not entitled to is to repackage those objections into a case asking this court to rewrite the Missouri Constitution,” Kiernan said.
The decision issued Wednesday afternoon did not address the question of whether the court should have the case. Because the court recognizes the governor’s authority, a footnote states, the court did not go into other issues.
The NAACP is wrong about the need for the extraordinary occasion to also be an unusual occasion, Russell wrote. And it doesn’t “specify a method for determining whether an occasion is sufficiently unusual to justify such a session. This court will not read words into a constitutional provision that do not exist.”
In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said the decision is victory for supporters of the new map.
“The Supreme Court unanimously ruled, almost immediately, that Governor Kehoe acted within his constitutional authority when he convened the special session which passed the Missouri FIRST Map,” she said. “I’m proud of our talented team who continue to win for Missourians.”
The Missouri Supreme Court has already ruled in three other cases challenging the map. On March 24, the court decided that lawmakers have the authority to revise congressional district lines at any time. On May 12, the court found the new map meets constitutional standards for compactness but left open the question of whether a referendum petition means the map will be used for this year’s elections.
Republicans currently hold six of Missouri’s eight seats in Congress. The partisan goal of the new map is to oust Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver in the 5th District by splitting Kansas City and adding voters in 14 counties along the Missouri River.
Six Republicans have filed to take on Cleaver. One, Taylor Burks, has already begun television advertising to persuade voters.
A referendum petition with more than 300,000 signatures challenging the redistricting law was filed Dec. 9 by the political action committee People Not Politicians.
In the May 12 opinion, Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ginger Gooch wrote that “it is impossible to say as of this opinion whether the Dec. 9 referendum petition filing was ‘legal, sufficient, and timely.’”
If it is, the Constitution says the redistricting law is not in effect until a vote in November.
In a footnote to the Wednesday ruling, the court further explained what it meant in the May 12 decision:
“If the December 9, 2025 referendum petition is sufficient after any judicial review—HB 1 never went into effect and will not go into effect unless and until approved by the voters, but—if the petition is insufficient after such review—HB 1 went into effect on December 11, 2025, and remains so,” the footnote states.
Secretary of State Denny Hoskins has until Aug. 4 — primary election day — to make that determination. The primary is being conducted using the gerrymandered map.
People Not Politicians has filed a case in Jefferson City seeking to speed up that decision.
The changes to initiative petitions, which would require constitutional amendments to win a majority in all eight congressional districts instead of a statewide majority, is on the Aug. 4 ballot as Amendment 4.
The question of whether there are limits on the governor’s discretion to call a special session has never been litigated, Jones told the judges. She recited a history of special session calls and said the nature of the reasons for convening lawmakers has changed in the past 20 years.
Prior to about 2005, she said, there were specific circumstances — the need to provide disaster relief after the 1993 flood or new federal laws that required state action — that triggered the governor to call lawmakers together.
There was nothing new or urgent about the legislation passed in the September special session, she said. There was no attempt to alter the congressional map during the 2025 regular session, she noted, and Republicans tried passing changes to the initiative petition process for at least 16 years without success.
“This is not a political question,” Jones said. “It is clearly a matter of constitutional interpretation.”
Jones wants both bills to be declared void, which would revert the Aug. 4 primary to the previous congressional map and strike Amendment 4 from the ballot.
If the courts rule for the NAACP, Kiernan said, judges should allow the elections under the new map and direct lawmakers to revise it next year.
There are no rulings anywhere in the country, not just in Missouri, where courts were willing to second-guess the actions of a governor convening special legislative sessions, Kiernan said.
The provision allowing the governor to call lawmakers into session on “extraordinary occasions” has been law in Missouri since the first Constitution from 1821 and just means times when the General Assembly is not already meeting, he said.
“They seek,” Kiernan said, “to redefine extraordinary occasions as some kind of emergency clause.”
This article was updated at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday to report the court’s decision.
