Catherine L. Hanaway
Overview
Catherine L. Hanaway is Missouri’s attorney general. This entry documents her office’s role in litigation and public advocacy concerning the referendum on Missouri’s 2025 congressional-redistricting plan, House Bill 1 (HB 1). The entry’s inclusion basis is the project’s public-official democratic-process category; each factual assertion below is sourced in the linked record claims.
The referendum dispute
In October 2025, Hanaway’s office announced federal litigation seeking to prevent a referendum on the new congressional map. After referendum petition 2026-R004 was submitted, Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected it on August 4, 2026; the state’s emergency application records that the certificate incorporated an Attorney General opinion setting out the legal grounds.
On September 3, 2026, the Supreme Court of Missouri unanimously held that the referendum was legal, sufficient, and timely. It held that HB 1 had not taken effect, that the 2022 congressional districts remained in force, and restrained Hoskins and persons acting in concert with him from implementing or requiring the HB 1 map unless voters first approved it. The decision concerned Missouri’s referendum power. It did not hold that mid-decade congressional redistricting itself was unconstitutional; the court had upheld the Legislature’s authority to conduct such redistricting in Luther v. Hoskins.
Hanaway’s positions and later proceedings
Hanaway publicly characterized the September 3 ruling as a “full-fledged constitutional crisis,” asserted that it disenfranchised voters, and announced an immediate U.S. Supreme Court request. Her office represented Hoskins in Hoskins v. von Glahn, No. 26A304; Justice Kavanaugh denied the emergency stay application without deciding the merits.
In the federal Onder case, the state’s filing described the state-court reasoning about HB 1’s non-operation as a “legal fiction.” On September 8, a federal district court temporarily restrained use of maps other than HB 1. That order did not purport to vacate the Missouri Supreme Court’s injunction or decide whether HB 1 was Missouri law. On September 10, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed that federal temporary restraining order pending further proceedings; it likewise did not decide the ultimate merits.
Related record
Hanaway’s office represented Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in this litigation. That professional relationship is documented as such and is not an ideological-association finding.
Editorial scope
The project’s classification concerns conduct affecting a constitutionally protected referendum process, not Hanaway’s political party, policy views, or the ordinary fact of litigating a case. Court findings, official statements, legal arguments, and editorial classification are presented separately in the cited claims.