Supreme Court rules for Texas Republicans, allowing new election map to go into effect

WASHINGTON- The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Texas and its Republican leaders on Thursday, clearing the way for the state to use a new voting map in 2026 that is expected to send five additional Republicans to Congress.

The justices overturned, for now, a 2-1 decision by district judges who called the state’s map a racial gerrymander. Thursday’s vote was 6-3 as usual, with the conservative justices in the majority and the three liberals dissenting.

The court’s five-paragraph order says the district judges “failed to honor the legislature’s presumption of good faith by interpreting ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature.”

“The impetus for adopting the Texas map (like that subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage, pure and simple,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in a concurring opinion.

Texas lawmakers said they acted for partisan, not racial, reasons.

“Today’s order disrespects the work of a district court that did everything that could be asked to carry out its mission – that set aside all considerations except that of resolving the issue before it,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent. “And today’s order disadvantages the millions of Texans who the district court ruled were assigned to their new districts based on their race. Because this Court’s precedent and our Constitution demand better, I respectfully disagree.”

She was joined by judges Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The decision supports Republicans in their bid to maintain control of the House, and is a setback for Democrats and voting rights advocates.

This is consistent with the conservative majority’s view that drawing voting districts is a “political matter” left to state legislators, not judges. But in the past, the court has also ruled that racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional under the 14th and 15th Amendments.

In response to Texas’ mid-decade redistricting, California Governor Gavin Newsom won voter approval to redraw his state’s congressional districts with the goal of electing five additional Democrats in 2026.

On November 21, lawyers for the state of Texas filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, urging the justices to act quickly to block the lower court’s decision.

They argued that Texas’ new electoral map was drawn based on partisan advantage, not the race of voters. And they said a further delay would disrupt the upcoming elections because Dec. 8 is the deadline for nominations.

They invoked the so-called “Purcell Principle” to justify overturning the district court’s decision because it approached an upcoming election.

Texas’ mid-decade restrictions emerged in July.

“Texas also clearly demonstrated that it suffered irreparable harm and that the actions and public interest favored it,” the Supreme Court ruling said. “This Court has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should not normally change election rules on the eve of an election. The district court violated that rule here.”

Acting at the behest of President Trump, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called for a special session of the Legislature to redraw his 38 congressional districts in an effort to oust five Democrats from the House of Representatives.

To justify himself, he cited “constitutional concerns” raised by Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department.

She argued that the state had several unconstitutional “coalition districts” that had a “non-white” majority made up of black and Latino voters.

Voting rights advocates said Texas Republicans followed his view and redrew districts near Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth to erase those where Latino and black voters formed the majority.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown said the evidence demonstrated that “the Texas Legislature redistricted not for the political purpose of appeasing President Trump or gaining five Republican seats in the House of Representatives, but to achieve the Justice Department’s racial goal of eliminating coalition districts.”

If that’s the case, he said, the new map should be set aside and the state should use the 2021 map drawn by the GOP.