JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ) Missouri Supreme Court Justices heard arguments Wednesday in what an attorney on the case affirmed is the last lawsuit avenue to overturn the 2025 congressional map. The NAACP presented arguments against Gov. Mike Kehoe, challenging his authority t o call for last year's special session to redraw Missouri's congressional map. Attorney representing the group, Sharon Geuea Jones, argued the governor can only call an extraordinary session for emergencies, like following severe weather or in the event legislators don't pass the state's budget. "We're asking the court to say, in our modern time, where the legislature meets every year, the governor does not need to exercise this kind of authority on a regular basis, the way he has been," Geuea Jones said in an interview after the court hearing. Assistant Solicitor General Joseph Kiernan argued the law authorizes Kehoe to call an extraordinary session anytime outside of the regular session. "They [the plaintiffs] take these two words 'extraordinary' and 'occasion,' they cherry-pick modern dictionary definitions of each word, and they offer a multifactor three-part test the governor must meet to exercise his own article four power," Kiernan said. He goes on to say that the subsection of the law he mentioned shows no indication of any requirements that Kehoe must meet to call an extraordinary session. "If the framers of our state constitution wanted to constrain the governor, they would have said so," Kiernan said. The lawsuit challenges that the governor's proclamation did not meet the legal requirements to justify an extraordinary legislative session. In February, a Cole County judge ruled that Kehoe did act within his legal authority to call for a special session. If the Supreme Court justices rule in the NAACP's favor, then it will overturn both the 2025 congressional map and initiative petition reform. If not, voters are expected to vote in their new congressional districts and approve or deny the initiative petition reform. Kiernan argues the NAACP is pressing a political question, not a legal question. "They are asking this court, as a judicial branch at large, to supervise an inherently political decision made by the governor," Kiernan said. Wednesday's appeal of the judge's decision questions whether challengers had the legal ability to sue because the session had ended and whether the lawsuit is moot or capable of being repeated but evades review. Keirnan argued the lawsuit is moot because the session has ended and the map passed. The post Missouri Supreme Court hears arguments in final NAACP appeal to overturn the 2025 congressional map appeared first on ABC17NEWS. ...read more read less