Supreme Court temporarily reinstates Texas Republicans’ redrawn congressional map

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday temporarily allowed Texas to use the Republicans’ new congressional map that a federal court blocked earlier this week.

Alito’s order comes after Texas asked the high court to intervene following a ruling Tuesday by a panel of federal judges barring the state from using new district boundaries designed to help Republicans win five additional House seats in next year’s midterm elections.

The lower court ruling, signed by Judge Jeffrey Brown — a nominee of President Donald Trump — had ordered Texas to instead use a previous map drawn in 2021, after finding that “substantial evidence shows that Texas racially truncated the 2025 map.”

The administrative suspension is a temporary ruling that allows Texas to continue using its new map for the time being while the Supreme Court reviews the case.

The Supreme Court ordered civil rights groups that challenged the map to file a response by 5 p.m. Monday. The deadline for filing nominations in Texas before the March primaries is December 8.

The district court’s ruling represented a significant setback for Trump, who has urged Republicans in Texas and across the country to adopt new maps to help solidify the party’s narrow majority in the House.

While congressional maps are typically reevaluated at the start of each decade, when new census data is available, Texas’ redrawn map has sparked a national mid-cycle redistricting battle between the two parties. Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina also passed new maps this year to strengthen their parties, while Trump continues to pressure Republican lawmakers in Indiana to do the same.

The Justice Department has joined a Republican-led lawsuit challenging a Democratic-drawn map in California approved by voters earlier this month.