Supreme Court hands GOP a redistricting win by striking down lower court block on Texas map

The Supreme Court handed a victory to the Republican Party on Monday, overturning a lower court’s ruling that blocked Texas’ plans to redraw its congressional districts.

The court suspended its order on reasoning from a previous decision in Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens, but did not provide details. The three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the ruling.

The decision comes after the Supreme Court temporarily green-lighted the state’s map in December and California’s in February. Both states spearheaded the mid-cycle redistricting struggles that are now surfacing across the country. The high court’s approval of the two states’ maps, giving Republicans and Democrats a five-seat advantage, respectively, served to undo each’s efforts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, asked the Supreme Court last year to stay the ruling of a three-judge panel in the Western District of Texas, which concluded 2-1 that race was too big a factor in its redraw.

The Justice Department also weighed in, asking the high court to step in and overturn the decision, saying Texas’ choice to change its map was motivated by “purely partisan goals,” not racial goals, which could violate the Voting Rights Act.

Voting rights groups that have challenged Texas and Abbott claimed the map was an illegal racial gerrymander, but the high court ruled Dec. 6-3 that the groups could not propose an alternative map that met Texas’ political needs.

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The high court said in the unsigned order that the lower court should not have “interfered with an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate balance between federal and state elections.”

This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.