A U.S. Supreme Court decision on Thursday allows Texas' mid-decade congressional redistricting map, which was adopted this summer, to be used for the 2026 midterm elections. But it does not necessarily ensure the controversial Republican-backed map will remain in effect beyond that point.
Charles "Rocky" Rhodes, a constitutional law professor at the University of Missouri, described the ruling as "a preliminary determination that would allow the maps to go into effect for 2026, but it would not be a situation in which that necessarily blesses the maps for future use in future elections in 2028 and beyond. ... After 2030, we would need to do a redistricting after the next census anyway."
In setting aside a federal district court's ruling that blocked Texas' new map from taking effect, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the district court "improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections." The candidate filing deadline for the March primaries is Monday.
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A key issue as the case plays out is whether Texas' new congressional lines were drawn based on race, which is illegal, or solely for partisan gain, which is legal.
Travis Crum, a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, pointed out that a similar development took place earlier in the decade. In Allen v. Milligan, a federal court initially ruled that the state of Alabama had violated the Voting Rights Act with its post-2020 census congressional map and enjoined the map. The Supreme Court blocked the lower court's ruling, allowing the map to take effect in time for the 2022 congressional election.
Similarly, the Supreme Court on Thursday set aside a lower court's ruling that Texas' new congressional map was gerrymandered based on race. The state of Texas appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, arguing this year's redraw was for partisan purposes.
"Now that (Alabama) case eventually went up to the Supreme Court in 2023, and the Supreme Court ended up agreeing with the lower court," Crum said. "And so, in 2024, that map was no longer used. But what that meant was that the state of Alabama got one free bite of the apple with a discriminatory map."
The dichotomy that sits at the heart of the Texas case is the difference between gerrymandering for purely partisan reasons, with which the Supreme Court has previously said federal courts cannot interfere, and gerrymandering for racial reasons, which remains illegal under the Voting Rights Act.
"What Texas did would clearly be OK under anybody’s definition, under the current Supreme Court doctrine, if they had just said, ‘Yes, we are doing this to appease President Trump and to create, for political reasons, more districts that are going to vote Republican,'" Rhodes said.
That's the argument that Texas Republican state lawmakers used when they adopted the 2025 map during a second special legislative session, with the goal of giving the GOP at least five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 midterms. But as the majority in the lower court's decision noted, it wasn't the argument President Donald Trump's Justice Department, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott or state GOP lawmakers used as they pushed for redistricting before and during the first special session.
While listing congressional redistricting as part of his special legislative agenda in July, Abbott cited a letter from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division identifying four Texas congressional districts as “unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.” All four districts currently contain non-white majorities, and three of them are in Houston.
U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Houston, the longtime representative for the 9th Congressional District, a vocal Trump critic and a plaintiff in the redistricting case, was drawn out of that district and into the 18th Congressional District, which also has long been represented by Black Democrats.
He said Texas' redistricting, combined with similar redistricting efforts in other U.S. states, could result in the loss of a "minimum of 20 African Americans from the Congress, probably about 10 Latinos from the Congress."
"With this ruling from the Supreme Court, we are in a position now where you will almost have to have a confession," Green added. "You will almost have to have a confession from the people who are drawing the lines indicating that they have a racial design. You would almost have to have them literally say we did this based on race."
Alito, on behalf of the court's 6-3 majority, wrote in Thursday's order that it was "indisputable" that Texas' new map was adopted for "partisan advantage pure and simple."
Justice Elena Kagan, writing the dissenting opinion for the court's minority, described the order as rushed and said it "disrespects the work" of the federal district court in El Paso, which undertook a lengthier review of the case. Kagan also wrote that the Supreme Court's order "disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on race."
Rhodes, the constitutional law professor, said the ultimate outcome of the case figures to be precedent-setting.
"This case could have real long lasting implications on this dichotomy between what is a partisan reason for drawing a district versus what is a racial reason for drawing a district, and is it ever going to be possible to be able to show the type of discrimination needed for a racial classification," Rhodes said.