SCOTUS Greenlights Texas’ New Congressional Map (For Now)

In a major defeat for Democrats, the U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily paused a lower court injunction that attempted to prevent Texas from enacting its new congressional map. The ruling guarantees that the map will be used for the 2026 midterm elections.

In its Thursday order, the high court granted Texas’ request to temporarily stay an injunction issued by a three-judge district court last month. As The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman reported, in its order, the lower court’s majority (2-1) argued that the Lone Star State’s new congressional map — which could help Republicans net five additional seats — “appears to be a race-based gerrymander (which is illegal).”

The panel’s ruling drew a sharp dissent from Judge Jerry Smith, who characterized the majority’s decision as the “most blatant exercise of judicial activism” that he had “ever witnessed” after nearly four decades of serving as a federal judge. The Reagan appointee further admonished plaintiffs’ arguments against the map as “both perverse and bizarre.”

The Supreme Court’s newest order comes more than a week after Associate Justice Samuel Alito entered an administrative stay on the lower court injunction to allow the full court to consider Texas’ application for relief. Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the administration’s request.

In its Thursday decision, the majority found that Texas “satisfies the traditional criteria for interim relief.” More specifically, the justices declared that the Lone Star State had shown a likelihood of success on the “merits of its claim that the District Court committed at least two serious errors,” and that it “made a strong showing of irreparable harm and that the equities and public interest favor it.”

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

In addition to joining the majority decision, Alito authored a short concurring opinion highlighting two key points he found to be “decisive.”

“First, the dissent does not dispute — because it is indisputable — that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple. Second, the clear-error standard of review does not apply here because the ‘trial court base[d] its findings upon a mistaken impression of applicable legal principles,’” Alito wrote. “[W]hen the asserted reason for a map is political, it is critical for challengers to produce an alternative map that serves the State’s allegedly partisan aim just as well as the map the State adopted. … Although respondents’ experts could have easily produced such a map if that were possible, they did not, giving rise to a strong inference that the State’s map was indeed based on partisanship, not race.”

“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,” he added.

Alito was joined in his concurrence by Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

Writing for the dissent, Kagan criticized the majority for what she claimed to be its abdication of the court’s “clear-error standard of review” when considering such cases. She further claimed that the court’s temporary order “disrespects the work of a District Court that did everything one could ask to carry out its charge — that put aside every consideration except getting the issue before it right.”

“[T]oday’s order disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race. Because this Court’s precedents and our Constitution demand better, I respectfully dissent,” Kagan wrote.

Texas is hardly the only state whose redistricting battle has made its way to the Supreme Court this term.

Last month, the high court held oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, which centers around Louisiana’s creation of a second black-majority district in its most recent congressional map. The case could potentially lead to a significant limitation or outright prohibition on the use of race in the redistricting process.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood