The US Supreme Court revived the pro-Republican Texas voting map

By John Kruzel

WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday revived a redrawn Texas electoral map designed to add more Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives, boosting President Donald Trump’s party’s quest to control Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.

The justices granted a request by Texas officials to overturn a lower court ruling that blocked the state from using a Trump-backed map, which could flip currently Democratic-held U.S. House seats to Republicans. A lower court concluded that the map was racially discriminatory in violation of US constitutional protections.

Republicans now hold slim majorities in both chambers of Congress. Handing control of the House or Senate to Democrats in the November 2026 elections would jeopardize Trump’s legislative agenda and open the door to a Democratic-led congressional investigation targeting the president.

The Supreme Court’s ruling comes amid a nationwide battle involving redrawing electoral maps to change the population makeup of congressional districts for partisan advantage in Republican-governed and Democratic-led states.

Justice Samuel Alito temporarily stayed the lower court’s decision on Nov. 21 as the Supreme Court weighed how to proceed with the case.

The process of redrawing the boundaries of electoral districts in a state is called redistricting. A decades-long legal battle has raged in the Supreme Court over the practice of redrawing district boundaries — called gerrymandering — to marginalize some voters and increase the influence of others.

The Supreme Court declared in a 2019 decision that partisan reasons — to boost one’s own party’s electoral chances and undermine one’s political rival — cannot be challenged in federal court. But the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees equal protection under the laws and the 15th Amendment prohibits racial discrimination in voting, making it illegal to operate primarily on the basis of race.

Several Texas Republican lawmakers have said the new map was created in response to Trump’s request to redraw electoral maps for partisan advantage in House races. But an El Paso-based court ruled 2-1 on Nov. 18 that the map likely amounts to an illegal racial gerrymander, ruling in favor of civil rights groups that sued to block it.

Each of the 50 U.S. states is represented in Congress by two U.S. senators, based on population in the 435-seat House. California, the most populous state, has the most House members with 52, while Texas is second with 38. Republicans currently hold 25 of the 38 US House seats in Texas.

‘racist ideas’

The Texas electoral map at the center of the controversy was passed by the Republican-led Texas Legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in August.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who wrote the lower court’s decision, wrote that what “ultimately prompted” Texas to redraw its map was the U.S. Department of Justice asking state officials to “inject racial considerations into what is a race-blind process.”

Brown, a Trump judicial appointee, wrote that the Justice Department’s analysis was based on a “legally incorrect claim” that the racial makeup of four Texas congressional districts in the state’s previous electoral map was unconstitutional and should be redrawn.

“If the Trump administration were to send Texas a letter asking the state to redraw its congressional map to improve the performance of Republican candidates, plaintiff groups would face a much greater burden to show that race — rather than partisanship — was the driving force behind the 2025 map,” Brown wrote.

“But nothing in the DOJ (Department of Justice) letter mentions partisan politics,” the judge wrote. “The letter orders Texas to redraw four districts for one reason and one reason only: the racial demographics of the voters who live there.”

The NAACP civil rights group noted in a statement after the decision that “the state of Texas is only 40% white, but white voters control 73% of the state’s congressional seats.”

The court ordered the state’s previous electoral map, approved by the Republican-led legislature in 2021, to be used in the 2026 election.

US Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, broke with the majority of the court in a dissenting opinion.

“The main winners from Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and (California Governor) Gavin Newsom,” Smith wrote. “The clear losers are the people of Texas and the rule of law.”

Soros, a billionaire financier and major Democratic donor, has long been viewed as a villain by Trump and his political base. Newsom is a prominent Democrat who has said he is considering a 2028 presidential run.

The lower court ruling marked the latest blow to Trump’s push to tilt the political map. Indiana Republicans skipped a legislative session on November 14 that was called to implement a new congressional map in that state.

Democratic-governed California responded to Texas redistricting by launching its own effort targeting the state’s five Republican-held districts. California voters overwhelmingly approved a new map beneficial to Democrats in November. The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit against California to try to block its new congressional map from taking effect.

Redistricting usually occurs every decade to reflect population changes measured by the national census, although this year’s redistricting is motivated by securing a partisan advantage.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has already heard arguments in its current term in another major case involving caste and redistricting. In a case involving the map of US House districts in Louisiana, conservative justices signaled their willingness to weaken another key section of the landmark 1965 federal law, the Voting Rights Act, enacted by Congress to prevent racial discrimination in voting.

(Reporting by John Kruzel)