Supreme Court Temporarily Restores Texas' New Congressional Map
The Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily reinstated Texas' newly redrawn congressional map, which could yield Republicans as many as five additional U.S. House seats. The unsigned order, appearing to reflect a 6-3 majority, blocked a lower court injunction that had found parts of the map to be racially discriminatory.
The Court emphasized a longstanding principle that federal courts should generally avoid changing election rules close to an election, saying the district court "violated that rule here" and "improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections." The majority added that, based on a preliminary evaluation, Texas was likely to succeed on the merits of its appeal and that the district court committed "at least two serious errors" in concluding the map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
Dissent and Concerns About the Shadow Docket
“The court issued a 160-page opinion recounting in detail its factual findings,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Yet this Court reverses that judgment based on its perusal, over a holiday weekend, of a cold paper record.”
In dissent, the three justices criticized the Supreme Court's use of the emergency or "shadow" docket — decisions issued without the full briefing and oral argument typical of the regular docket — and warned that the High Court is not necessarily better positioned than the district court to resolve fact-intensive disputes.
Background and District Court Findings
The dispute stems from a mid-decade redistricting enacted by the Republican-led Texas Legislature this year. Six plaintiff groups, led by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), challenged the 2025 map and asked a three-judge federal panel to bar the state from using the revised lines in the 2026 elections.
In a 2-1 decision authored by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, the district court concluded that plaintiffs were likely to prove that race predominated over politics in drawing the map and that the legislature set and followed a racial target. Judge Brown wrote that while politics played a role, "substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map," and issued a 160-page opinion detailing his findings.
Procedural Timeline and Stakes
Texas officials quickly sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court after the district court ordered that the 2021 map be used for 2026 while litigation continues. Justice Samuel Alito initially granted temporary relief to reinstate the 2025 map; the full Court then blocked the lower court's injunction, allowing Texas to use the new lines for the upcoming congressional elections.
State lawyers told the Court the injunction disrupted election preparations: candidate filing opened shortly before the district court's ruling, the filing period closes Dec. 8, and early voting for the March 3, 2026 primary was only weeks away when the injunction issued. Texas argued the injunction would throw the election into disarray by changing nearly all of the state's 38 congressional districts after campaigns had already begun.
Positions of Parties and Outside Actors
Gov. Greg Abbott hailed the Supreme Court's action as a victory, saying the new map "better align[s] our representation in Washington D.C. with the values of our state." LULAC and other plaintiffs countered that keeping the 2025 map in force would force more than 10 million Texans into new districts and that race, not politics, predominated the legislature's map-drawing decisions.
The Trump administration also urged the Court to permit Texas to use the new map, calling the dispute an "openly avowed partisan gerrymander" and pointing to the Court's 2019 ruling that federal courts have no role policing partisan gerrymanders. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued there was "overwhelming evidence" of partisan intent driving the map changes.
Broader Context
The Texas fight helped catalyze mid-decade redistricting efforts in other states: California moved to redraw its map to potentially gain Democratic seats, while GOP lawmakers in North Carolina and Missouri advanced plans to flip Democratic-held districts. Those efforts, too, have prompted legal challenges.
The case will proceed on the merits in the federal courts. The Supreme Court's temporary order preserves the 2025 map for now while the appeal continues, leaving the question of whether the lines violate the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to be decided on a fuller record.
