Supreme Court lets Texas use disputed voting map— for now

The temporary order keeps in place a Republican-leaning map backed by President Trump as legal battles over racial gerrymandering continue.

The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily cleared the way for Texas to use its newly redrawn congressional map in the 2026 midterm elections. Civil rights groups say the map was engineered to dilute the voting power of voters of color.

The order came late Friday (Nov. 21) from Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency matters arising from the region. His administrative stay blocks a lower-court ruling and gives the full court time to decide whether Texas can keep the map in place while litigation continues. Alito also directed the civil rights organizations challenging the map to file their response by 5 p.m. Monday, signaling the high court may move quickly.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had filed an urgent request only hours earlier, asking the justices to let the state use the map Republican lawmakers approved over the summer. The map is part of a broader redistricting campaign supported by President Donald Trump, who has been pressuring GOP-led states to redraw political boundaries ahead of the midterms.

The Supreme Court’s move follows a significant setback for Texas Republicans earlier this week. On Tuesday, a three-judge federal panel in El Paso blocked the state’s map, ruling 2–1 that the new boundaries likely amount to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote that “substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map.”

The 160-page decision ordered the state to revert to the congressional map approved by Texas lawmakers in 2021 pending the outcome of the case.

Paxton immediately vowed to take the fight to the Supreme Court, arguing Texas has the sovereign power to draw districts for partisan advantage. “We fully expect the court to uphold Texas’s right to engage in partisan redistricting,” he said in a statement.

The clash in Texas is just one front in a nationwide scramble to redraw political boundaries ahead of the 2026 midterms — a scramble that breaks sharply from the once-per-decade norm tied to the census. Some states have aligned with Trump’s pressure campaign, while others have resisted. In Indiana, Republican lawmakers recently rejected the former president’s push to redraw their congressional map.

Meanwhile, the justices are already weighing another high-stakes redistricting case. In October, the Court heard arguments over Louisiana’s post-census congressional map after a group of white voters claimed the creation of a second majority-Black district violated the Constitution’s equal-protection guarantee. A ruling is expected in late June or early July and could influence how the court approaches the Texas dispute.

Both parties are watching closely. In California, voters this month approved a dramatic overhaul of the state’s congressional map that could flip up to five GOP seats, sparking yet another legal challenge.

For now, Texas can move forward with its new Republican-favored map. Whether it survives the full scrutiny of the Supreme Court is a question that could shape the balance of power in Congress for years to come.