Supreme Court lets Texas use racially challenged redistricting map for 2026

Texas Republicans passed a new congressional map in August 2025 during a special legislative session — a mid-decade redraw outside the normal post-census cycle. The redraw came after the Trump DOJ sent an unusual letter demanding Texas eliminate its coalition districts, which the DOJ called racial gerrymanders that needed to be fixed.

Coalition districts are majority-minority districts where no single racial or ethnic group forms a majority, but Latino, Black, and other minority voters combine to elect their preferred candidates. The Trump DOJ argued these were unconstitutional racial classifications; civil rights groups counter that eliminating them disenfranchises minority voters who had previously held meaningful representation.

The new Texas map could shift five congressional seats from competitive or Democratic-leaning to safe Republican districts. Texas already sends 25 Republicans and 13 Democrats to Congress. The new map aims to push that to roughly 30 Republicans, which would meaningfully expand the House GOP majority in 2026.

A three-judge federal district court panel blocked the map in November 2025, finding substantial evidence Texas had racially gerrymandered the districts. The panel's majority wrote that although partisan motives played a role, racial sorting was the operative cause — which triggers and Fourteenth Amendment protections.

The Supreme Court's 6-3 decision on December 4, 2025 stayed the district court order, letting the map take effect for 2026 primaries and elections. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion arguing the district court had improperly injected itself into an active election campaign and that Texas's motives were partisan, not racial — and partisan gerrymandering is constitutionally permissible under the Court's 2019 Rucho v. Common Cause ruling.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. The liberal justices argued the majority was allowing a racially discriminatory map to harm minority voters for an entire election cycle before the underlying legal question is resolved. MALDEF, NAACP, and LULAC all condemned the order as enabling discriminatory elections.

The Supreme Court's December 2025 stay is not a final ruling on whether the map is legal — it only allows the map to be used while litigation continues. Lower courts will still adjudicate the merits. If the district court ultimately finds the map unlawful, Texas could be forced to redraw again for 2028, creating another cycle of disruption.

Supreme Court lets Texas use racially challenged redistricting map for 2026