The Supreme Court on Monday formally overturned a lower court ruling and cleared Texas’ newly redrawn congressional map for use in the 2026 midterms, ending for now a fight over the state’s effort to add as many as five more Republican seats to the U.S. House.
The ruling keeps in place a map the justices had already allowed Texas to use temporarily in November, but now gives the state a lasting green light for this election cycle. Texas pursued the map after President Donald Trump urged the state over the summer to help shore up the GOP’s narrow majority, and state House Democrats tried to stall the plan by leaving Texas long enough to deny the chamber the headcount it needed to pass the map.
Once the Democrats returned, the map passed, and civil rights groups sued again, arguing that the 2025 map was racially discriminatory. In November, Judge Jeff Brown said there was “substantial evidence” that the new lines were racially gerrymandered, and Judge David Guaderrama joined Brown’s 160-page opinion. The panel split sharply, with 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Smith calling it the “most blatant exercise of judicial activism that I have ever witnessed.”
Texas then went to the Supreme Court and asked the justices to block Brown’s ruling so the map could be used for the 2026 primaries. In early December, the court did exactly that, saying Texas was likely to succeed on the merits. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, saying the temporary ruling “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.”
Monday’s decision does not end the broader political fight over Texas redistricting, but it does decide the immediate one: the state will go into the midterms with the map in place. That leaves opponents with a narrower path and puts the burden back on the courts to decide whether the lines were drawn lawfully after the election cycle has already moved on.