The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday reinstated Texas’ new congressional redistricting map for now, allowing the state to use the boundaries in the 2026 elections. The ruling halts a lower court’s decision to block the map based on findings of racial gerrymandering.
In a 6-3 split, the high court said in an unsigned order that the federal district court “violated” a well-established rule discouraging lower courts from altering election procedures shortly before an election. “The District Court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections,” the Court wrote.
The district court had earlier ruled 2-1 that the map adopted by Texas lawmakers this summer unlawfully sorted voters by race in violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments. In a 160-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote that there was “substantial evidence” the state racially gerrymandered the map to favor Republicans in at least five additional congressional districts.
Justice Elena Kagan dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In her dissent, Kagan wrote, “The court issued a 160-page opinion recounting in detail its factual findings. Yet this Court reverses that judgment based on its perusal, over a holiday weekend, of a cold paper record.” She added, “We are a higher court than the District Court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott praised the high court’s ruling in a statement issued after the decision: “We won! Texas is officially—and legally—more red.” He added, “The new congressional districts better align our representation in Washington D.C. with the values of our state.”
Democratic lawmakers criticized the ruling. Texas state House Democratic Leader Rep. Gene Wu said in a statement, “The Supreme Court failed Texas voters today, and they failed American democracy. This is what the end of the Voting Rights Act looks like: courts that won’t protect minority communities even when the evidence is staring them in the face.”
The Texas Legislature redrew its congressional map in mid-2023 during a special session called by Abbott, part of broader national efforts by Republican-led states to shift district lines in a cycle outside the traditional census-based redistricting timeline.
Six sets of plaintiffs challenged the new boundaries, including the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), which argued that the map reconfiguration would force more than 10 million voters into different districts and mainly targeted multi-racial areas based on race.
LULAC’s lawyers argued in a court filing that restoring the 2021 map would prevent disruption: “All candidates for Congress will run in the districts they thought they were running in until 13 weeks ago when the Texas Legislature enacted a new map.”
Texas countered that the district court’s injunction came too late—just 91 days before the March 3, 2026 primary—and would “throw the election into disarray.” The state also claimed mapmakers acted primarily for partisan purposes and not on a racial basis. In a Supreme Court filing, Texas said, “This summer, the Texas Legislature did what legislatures do: politics.”
The Trump administration also supported Texas’ position, with Solicitor General D. John Sauer stating in a filing that the redistricting was “an openly avowed partisan gerrymander.” The Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts have no jurisdiction over partisan gerrymandering claims.
The Supreme Court’s decision echoes that precedent and will allow the 2025 map to be used in upcoming elections while litigation continues.
