US Supreme Court will allow Texas to use redrawn voting maps

The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for Texas to use a new congressional map that could help Republicans’ efforts to expand their majority in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.

Thursday’s unsigned order comes after Texas filed an emergency request to block a lower court ruling blocking the new map passed by the state legislature last month and signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in August.

In an unambiguous 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court said that “in its preliminary assessment of this case,” Texas met the emergency relief requirements and that the lower court “made at least two serious errors.”

Three liberal justices dissented.

“By improperly involving itself in an active primary campaign, the District Court caused much confusion and upset the delicate federal-state balance in the election,” the ruling says.

A lower court in Texas in November said evidence showed the new voting districts were “racially gerrymandered” and ordered the state to use existing congressional lines before redistricting earlier this year.

In the United States, gerrymandering (the redrawing of electoral boundaries in favor of one political party) is illegal only if it is based on race.

The mid-decade redistricting challenges came after Democratic lawmakers in Texas fled the state over the summer to stop voting on the new map, helping spark a race in other states to change their maps as well.

California proposed new maps that voters approved in November’s special election to offset Texas’ gains. The U.S. justice department is suing over the state’s redistricting plan.

In November, Indiana became the latest battleground in the nationwide political conflict, and other states, including Utah and North Carolina, joined the fray.

The Supreme Court’s decision marks a victory for President Donald Trump. The new map could add up to five Republican seats for the midterm elections as the party struggles to maintain its slim majority and the president files a brief asking the high court to rule in favor of Texas.

But liberal Justice Elena Kagan, who has long opposed Thursday’s ruling, said it was “unfair to the millions of Texans the District Court found were assigned to new districts based on their race.”

In a brief concurring opinion, the court’s three conservative justices rejected the idea that Republicans in Texas were redrawing the electoral map based on race.

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, wrote that it was “indisputable” that the impetus to adopt the Texas map and then the newly drawn map in California was “partisan advantage, pure and simple.”

Texas Governor Abbott celebrated the legal victory and praised the high court for reinstating the state’s redistricting maps, saying: “We won! Texas is officially and legally redder.”

“The new congressional districts bring our representation in Washington, D.C., more aligned with our state’s values. This is a victory for Texas voters, common sense, and the U.S. Constitution,” he said.

Separately, Gene Wu, the Democratic leader in the state House, said the court had failed Texas voters and American democracy.

“This is what the end of the Voting Rights Act looks like: courts that fail to protect minority communities even when the evidence is staring them in the face.”

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who leads Democrats in the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., criticized the Texas map as “a partisan and racially discriminatory power grab designed to subvert the will of the voters.”