The Supreme Court cleared the way on Thursday for Texas lawmakers to use newly redrawn congressional maps favoring Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.
The decision overturns, at least for now, a lower-court ruling that the new maps were likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. That decision had blocked lawmakers from using the maps in the midterms.
The Supreme Court’s order comes days before a Dec. 8 deadline for candidates to file to run for office in Texas. It marks a victory for Texas Republicans and for President Trump, who has pushed Republican-led states to revise their congressional maps to try to secure Republican victories in the midterms.
The ruling also adds to the growing list of successes for the Trump administration before the justices, particularly on their emergency docket of cases heard without oral arguments, where the court’s orders are intended to be merely interim. Critics refer to it as the “shadow docket” and note the temporary decisions can have broad consequences.
The ruling outlines the state of play while litigation over the map continues through the lower courts — including potentially returning to the Supreme Court for further consideration. But given the deadline, the order means the map will be used for the key 2026 vote.
In recent months, Mr. Trump has pushed Republican-led states to swiftly redraw their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 elections to try to fend off the possibility of Democrats winning control of the House. If Democrats gain the House majority, they could launch investigations into Mr. Trump’s administration and otherwise stymie his agenda.
The midcycle redistricting push, outside the political norm, is at the center of Mr. Trump’s midterm strategy. It has set off similar redistricting efforts in Democratic-led states like California. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, championed a ballot measure to allow California to redraw its congressional map. The state’s voters passed the measure, clearing the way for Mr. Newsom’s plan.
Texas officials helped set off this national redistricting fight. In August, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into a law that redrew maps for the state’s 38 congressional districts, creating five new seats where Republicans were favored.
Civil rights groups sued to challenge the map, asserting that lawmakers had engaged in racial gerrymandering, preventing minority voters from being able to select their candidates of choice.
In November, a divided panel of three federal judges in Texas blocked the state’s map from going into effect. In a 2-to-1 decision written by Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, a district judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas and a Trump appointee, the panel issued a preliminary finding that sided with the civil rights groups.
In an extraordinary dissent, Judge Jerry Smith, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and a Reagan appointee, railed at his colleagues, accusing Judge Brown of “pernicious judicial misbehavior.” Judge Smith accused the majority of publishing its decision before he had finished his dissent.
Judge Smith also argued that the decision to redraw the lines was “all politics, on both sides of the partisan aisle.” The Supreme Court has said that lawmakers may draw maps for partisan advantage, provided they do not discriminate on the basis of race. He asserted that George Soros, the wealthy philanthropist known for championing left-leaning causes, was involved in challenging the maps.
On Nov. 21, Texas officials filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to step in and allow the state to use its new map.
In a brief to the court, Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas argued that politics, not race, had motivated the change to congressional district lines.
“This summer, the Texas Legislature did what legislatures do: politics,” Mr. Paxton wrote, asking the court to move swiftly to block the lower court order. He asked the court to rule by Dec. 1, citing the candidate filing deadline.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who is assigned to handle emergency applications from that region of the country, stepped in later that day, issuing a temporary block on the lower court ruling — what is known as an administrative stay — and setting a swift briefing schedule.
On Monday, the civil rights groups responded, asserting that the lower court’s determination was correct.
In a brief to the court, the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the civil rights groups that sued to challenge the maps, claimed that state lawmakers had “targeted and revised multiracial districts because of their racial composition” and had “purposefully sorted a significant number of voters, on the basis of race,” using “racial stereotypes by creating districts that legislators claimed would fulfill the political desires of Hispanic voters, but without any information about how the Hispanic voters in those districts vote.”
Abbie VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer and has an extensive background in investigative reporting.
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