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Kagan’s Stinging Dissent: Supreme Court Approval Of Texas Map Risks Violating Voter Rights

02:46 AM, 12/06/2025

Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, issued a sharp dissent saying the Supreme Court’s approval of Texas’s congressional map risks violating the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. She criticized the Court for intervening hastily "over a holiday weekend" and undermining a three-judge District Court that found the map divided Texans largely along racial lines. The map could shift up to five districts toward Republicans; the ruling follows a federal panel’s nine-day hearing and a wider national debate over partisan redistricting.

Kagan Issues Sharp Dissent Over Texas Redistricting Ruling

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, delivered a forceful dissent Thursday, warning that the Court’s approval of Texas’s new congressional map threatens to undermine constitutional voting protections.

Kagan criticized the majority for acting swiftly and without a fuller record, writing that the Court intervened "based on its perusal, over a holiday weekend, of a cold paper record." She said that action shortchanged a three-judge District Court in Texas that conducted a careful review.

"The map largely divided [Texas’s] citizens along racial lines to create its new pro-Republican House map, in violation of the Constitution’s Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments," Kagan wrote, summarizing the District Court’s findings.

Kagan argued the lower court had done the work expected of it — setting aside all other considerations to get the issue right — and warned the Supreme Court’s order "disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race."

She further noted that Texas denied engaging in racial gerrymandering but cannot claim that pursuing pure partisan advantage is a compelling government interest. "It is not," she wrote.

The Court’s conservative majority defended its decision, saying the federal panel "improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections." Justice Samuel Alito emphasized that both Texas and California were motivated by partisan advantage.

The contested map, passed by Texas Republicans and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, is expected to shift as many as five congressional districts toward the Republican Party. Six plaintiff groups challenged the map; after a nine-day hearing a federal panel concluded the plan was likely a racial gerrymander and the case reached the Supreme Court.

This dispute comes amid broader redistricting battles nationwide, including a California map approved by voters that could shift up to five seats toward Democrats. The debate intensified after former President Donald Trump urged Republican-led states to redraw maps to help retain House control in the 2026 midterms.

What’s Next

The decision underscores ongoing tensions over how courts should balance federal oversight and state control of elections, and it signals continued legal and political fights over redistricting as states revise maps ahead of future elections.

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