Supreme Court Officially Reinstates Texas’ Congressional Map 

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated Texas’ congressional map, which was gerrymandered in favor of Republicans last year. 

The Guardian reports that the move on Monday formally finalizes an emergency decision the court made last December. Despite a panel of lower court judges finding that Texas engaged in a racial gerrymander, which (as of now) is prohibited under the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas simply engaged in a partisan gerrymander, which is allowed. 

Texas was the state that launched the nationwide redistricting battle last summer. At the behest of President Donald Trump, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott exploited the devastating Kerr County floods to call a special legislative session focused on redistricting. 

The process didn’t go smoothly, as state Democrats filibustered and even left the state to deny the state legislature the quorum necessary to vote on the new map. When the Democrats returned to Texas, state Rep. Nicole Collier was held as a political prisoner on the House floor for not agreeing to police surveillance. 

The map was eventually passed, potentially giving Republicans four to five new House seats in Texas. All that effort was ultimately for naught, as California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a redistricting effort of his own intended to neutralize the gains made in the Texas map, which California voters would overwhelmingly approve. 

North Carolina and Missouri followed up with redistricting efforts of their own, adding one new seat each. At the moment, Virginia is poised to be the most consequential player in the ongoing redistricting battle. Virginia’s entry was quite a surprise and had no guarantee of success, given the procedural hoops the Grand Assembly had to jump through. 

Last week, Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment that would implement a congressional map giving Democrats four new House seats in the state. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the redistricting effort was illegal.

On the same day the Supreme Court announced its decision, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled a new congressional map that could create four new House seats for Republicans. That effort doesn’t guarantee success, though. State Republicans have already voiced concerns that a redistricting effort, at a time when Trump and the Republican Party at large are deeply unpopular, could wind up stretching Republican voters thin and make incumbents vulnerable. 

There are already concerns that Texas may have committed a dummymander, as its redistricting effort was built around the idea that Republicans would maintain the gains made with Latino voters during the 2024 election. Latino support for Trump has rapidly fallen throughout his second term, largely due to his handling of the economy and attacks on the pope.

With all that on the table, I wouldn’t be surprised if Florida’s redistricting effort winds up being a repeat of what we saw happen in Indiana and Maryland. Indiana and Maryland’s state legislatures currently have a Republican and Democratic supermajority, respectively. Despite the governors of both states supporting a redistricting effort, their respective state legislatures voted against it.

In Maryland, State Senate President Bill Ferguson said he didn’t bring the redistricting effort to a vote because he believed Maryland’s map was already heavily gerrymandered in favor of Democrats and that any further action would hurt the Party. In Indiana, there simply wasn’t support within the Party for redistricting. 

Despite the midterms being only six months away, the ongoing redistricting battle appears to be far from over. 

SEE ALSO:

Texas GOP Reveals Who Drew Map, DOJ Order In Redistricting Lawsuit

Racial Gerrymandering Lawsuit Filed Over Texas Voting Map