WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a new congressional map in next year’s midterm elections that was drawn to maximize Republican power.
The conservative majority granted an emergency application from Gov. Greg Abbott, pausing a lower court ruling that had found the map unlawful because Republican lawmakers, at the direction of the Trump administration, explicitly considered race when drawing districts.
The map was designed to add up to five Republican House seats, with Republicans holding a narrow majority heading into the midterms. Democrats have already moved to draw a new congressional map in California to counter potential GOP gains; that litigation could also reach the Supreme Court.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who defended the map, called the decision a “massive win for Texas” and conservatives. The Trump administration, through the Justice Department, filed a brief urging the court to side with Texas. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said federal courts have no right to interfere with a state’s partisan redistricting.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the court had “shredded its credibility by rubber-stamping a racially gerrymandered map,” while noting Democrats’ map-drawing efforts in other states could blunt Republican gains.
The unsigned Supreme Court order said Texas is “likely to succeed on the merits,” faulting the lower court for failing to presume legislative good faith and for inserting itself into state election law too close to an election nearly a year away. The ruling appeared 6-3, with the three liberal justices dissenting.
Justice Elena Kagan, in dissent, said the decision “disrespects the work of a district court that did everything one could ask” and “disserves the millions of Texans whom the district court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race.” The lower court had found that while partisan goals were clear, the map was also drawn with the aim of moving certain minority voters into different districts.
In a separate concurrence, Justice Samuel Alito criticized the challengers for failing to show race was the driving motive, including by not producing an alternative map demonstrating the state could meet its partisan aims by other means. He said that failure gave rise to a strong inference the map was based on partisanship, not race.
Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, one of the challengers, warned the decision could encourage “guerrilla tactics” in redistricting, saying states that draw maps late in the cycle can effectively prevent courts from intervening even if the maps violate the law.
The Supreme Court had temporarily stayed the lower court ruling on Nov. 21 while considering next steps, in an order signed by Alito.
States traditionally redraw districts once a decade after the census. This year, however, former President Trump repeatedly urged Republican-led states to redraw maps outside the normal timeline. A Trump administration letter earlier in the year said Texas could face a federal lawsuit if it did not eliminate “coalition districts” where nonwhite voters of different races form a majority.
A 2019 Supreme Court ruling held states may redistrict to maximize the majority party’s power, but the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act still limit use of race in drawing lines.
In the Texas case, a three-judge lower court invalidated the new map on a 2-1 vote, with the majority opinion by Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee. Brown wrote there was substantial evidence the map amounted to a racial gerrymander in violation of the 14th Amendment.
Texas lawyers asking the Supreme Court to block the lower court said it was too late in the election cycle for federal judges to intervene, and they denied a racial motive, acknowledging the map was designed for partisan gain. “This summer, the Texas legislature did what legislatures do: politics,” they wrote.
The lawsuit was brought by six groups, including the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Texas NAACP, and Democratic Reps. Al Green and Jasmine Crockett. Challengers argued the governor’s stated rationale—removing coalition districts—meant race, not just partisanship, drove the redistricting.
CORRECTION (Dec. 4, 2025, 9:38 p.m. ET): Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article mischaracterized comments by Thomas Saenz as a direct quotation. “If states wait until late in the cycle to draw new maps they can effectively prevent courts from intervening even if the maps violate the law” is a paraphrase of his remarks.
Lawrence Hurley is a senior Supreme Court reporter for NBC News.