The Supreme Court said on Thursday that Texas can use the congressional map drawn by Republicans that gave them five more GOP-friendly districts. The decision follows a previous lower court ruling that stated the map likely discriminates based on race.
Texas filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court after the lower court handed down its ruling. The justices’ decision allows Texas to use the map for the 2026 election, a goal pushed by President Donald Trump.
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Justices disagreed with the lower court that race had a role in the redrawn map. They said in an unsigned opinion that state lawmakers had “avowedly partisan goals.”
Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the dissenting opinion, said the majority opinion “ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race.”
Texas redistricting
This summer, Trump urged Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional map, which would enable them to pick up more seats in the House of Representatives. State lawmakers ultimately approved a congressional map that gives Republicans five House seats, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed in August.
However, in November, a three-judge panel ruled that Texas can’t use the new map and instead must use one from 2021. One of the judges, Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed by Trump, said the “public perception of this case is that it’s about politics.”
“To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics,” Brown said. “Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”
Texas Attorney General Paxton maintained, though, that “Texas engaged in partisan redistricting solely to secure more Republican seats in Congress and thereby better represent our state and Texans.”
What other states are redistricting?
Since Texas passed its maps, other red states have followed suit, including North Carolina and Missouri. In response, Democratic-led states, like California, also began redistricting. Lawmakers in the Golden State passed Proposition 50, a state redistricting measure that gave Democrats five additional favorable districts. Voters later approved the measure.
California lawmakers originally included a trigger provision in their redistricting map. This would’ve prevented the state’s new map from appearing in the special election, but it was taken out before, and voters ultimately decided to enact the new map.
Illinois is also debating whether to redistrict but has said that would depend on if Indiana went forward with its redistricting plan. Indiana lawmakers recently began work on a redistricting plan that would add two more GOP-friendly districts.
Straight Arrow News’ Krystal Nurse has an in-depth look at all the states planning redistricting.
