Supreme Court OKs redrawn Texas congressional map for midterms

The court’s brief, unsigned opinion granted an emergency stay, allowing Texas’ redrawn congressional map to be used for the 2026 midterm elections. The Trump-backed redistributing plan, which could hand Republicans up to five more U.S. House seats, passed the state legislature in August. A district court temporarily blocked the new map in response to a lawsuit by the League of United Latin American Citizens, which describes itself as a civil rights group. Its lawsuit accused the legislature of redrawing the districts based primarily on race.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who appealed to the Supreme Court, on Thursday said the new map reflected the state’s political climate. He would continue to defend it in court as the case continued, he said.

What was the Supreme Court’s reasoning? The lower court likely ruled against the map in error, in part because it failed to assume that the Texas legislature acted in good faith. Evidence of racial motivation behind the changes was circumstantial and ambiguous, or open to more than one interpretation, the court said. The majority also wrote that the district court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing confusion and interfering with the balance of power between the federal and state levels of government.

Did any justices disagree? Elena Kagan wrote a dissenting opinion, arguing that her fellow justices made a snap decision and did not establish that the district court made a clear error. The district court concluded that the redistricting plan was racially motivated after nine days of hearings, she noted. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined in Kagan’s dissent.

Justice Samuel Alito rebutted Kagan’s arguments in a concurring opinion. The new map only appeared racially motivated due to correlations between race and political affiliation, he wrote. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas joined in Alito’s concurrence.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report on the Justice Department’s lawsuit against California over its redistricting plan.