U.S. Supreme Court upholds Texas' new congressional maps

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday handed Texas a win in a challenge to its new congressional redistricting maps, granting a stay of a lower court ruling blocking them from going into effect. The ruling allows Texas’ new congressional maps to remain in effect for the 2026 midterm election. The new maps could flip up to five seats currently held by Democrats to Republican, analysts say.

In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court said Texas was likely to succeed on the merits of the case and the district court “committed at least two serious [legal] errors.” It also ignored Supreme Court warnings about redistricting lawsuits filed months before an election, the court said.

“This Court has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election.

“The District Court violated that rule here. The District Court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections,” the high court said.

The justices also chastised the two lower court judges who issued the opinion for “failing to apply correct legal standards set out in case law.”

The high court’s ruling was expected after the lone dissenting Circuit Judge Jerry Smith expressed outrage over the process, alleging the chief judge engaged in “judicial misbehavior” and “outrageous conduct,” The Center Square reported. The ruling was issued in the U.S. District Court Western District of Texas El Paso Division, whose two majority judges have issued other decisions the U.S. Supreme Court later vacated, Smith said, adding that their ruling this time was no different.

In this case, two El Paso judges ruled that a new redistricting law that had already been on the books for more than 75 days couldn’t be used and Texas had to use a 2021 law, which the 2025 law repealed.

Smith argued the ruling was flawed and a “federal court cannot reinstate a statute that the legislature has explicitly repealed and voided.” He also said the majority judges engaged in judicial activism and ignored extensive case law.

Gov. Greg Abbott made a similar argument and the Attorney General’s Office filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court requesting a stay of the lower court ruling. Last month, the Supreme Court granted the request.

After hearing arguments on the case, the Supreme Court sided with Texas and chastised the lower court. The two majority district court judges “failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature” and “failed to draw a dispositive or near-dispositive adverse inference against respondents even though they did not produce a viable alternative map that met the State’s avowedly partisan goals,” the justices said.

The Supreme Court upheld the Nov. 18 stay Justice Samuel Alito issued, effectively killing any chance of an appeal.

Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch issued a statement noting that the lower court based its findings on “a mistaken impression of applicable legal principles. … Neither the duration of the District Court’s hearing nor the length of its majority opinion provides an excuse for failing to apply the correct legal standards as set out clearly in our case law.”

Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a brief dissent, saying the ruling “disrespects the work of the District Court” and “disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race.”

The district lines were redrawn according to demographic shifts and voting patterns where Hispanic-majority districts increasingly voted Republican, state lawmakers argued.

Abbott praised the ruling in a statement, saying, “"We won! Texas is officially – and legally – more red. The U.S. Supreme Court restored the redistricting maps passed by Texas that were based on constitutional principles and Supreme Court precedent. The new congressional districts better align our representation in Washington D.C. with the values of our state. This is a victory for Texas voters, for common sense, and for the U.S. Constitution."

The new maps will go into effect, changing nearly every congressional district in Texas. Many incumbents are moved to new districts, opening up at least seven new seats in which at least five are expected to flip Republican, The Center Square reported.