Overview
- By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court stayed a three-judge panel’s injunction, saying the lower court failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith and intervened too close to primary contests.
- The district court had found challengers were likely to prove Texas used race as a predominant factor after a DOJ letter and public statements, and it had ordered a return to the 2021 lines for 2026.
- The new map was drawn at President Trump’s urging and is designed to add up to five Republican House seats, with candidate filing due Dec. 8 and primaries scheduled for March.
- Justice Elena Kagan dissented that the ruling disregarded extensive trial evidence of racial sorting, while Justice Samuel Alito concurred that plaintiffs did not show race, rather than partisanship, drove the plan or provide a viable alternative map.
- The decision lands in the midst of a broader mid-decade remapping fight, as North Carolina and Missouri advanced GOP-favoring maps, California moved to counter with a Democratic-leaning plan under litigation, and a pending Louisiana case could reshape voting-rights standards.