The U.S. Supreme Court could soon extend its administrative stay in the Texas redistricting case that has generated nationwide controversy and headlines for months. If so, a legal analyst told CBS News Texas that it will become a clear signal that the Justices will keep the 2025 Congressional maps in place for next year’s all-important midterm elections.  

On November 21, Justice Samuel Alito gave Texas Republicans a partial victory when he granted an administrative stay in the case. That set aside a ruling by two federal judges in El Paso, Texas who blocked the 2025 maps after concluding Republicans illegally racially gerrymandered the districts so they could potentially win up to five extra seats in Congress. The lower court judges ruled candidates would instead have to run under the existing Congressional maps drawn in 2021. 

Republicans have insisted they were motivated by partisan gains, not race, when they redrew the districts over the summer. Alito’s stay reinstated the 2025 maps approved by the legislature in August. 

The Court’s action comes as the Congressional and other candidates face a December 8 deadline to file their campaign paperwork for the races they will run in the March 3 primary. Dr. Bill Chriss, a legal and political historian in Texas, said Justice Alito’s administrative stay should erase any uncertainty the Congressional candidates may have. 

“At this point, it doesn’t really matter because it’s as if the order of the federal court in El Paso doesn’t exist,” said Chriss. “Unless and until the Supreme Court does something different, either by way of confirming Justice Alito’s stay or by way of deciding the case, the stay is in effect. And so, as things sit right now, the districts that were carved up by the legislature in special session this summer are the districts that people will run in. The ball is now squarely in the Supreme Court’s corner for them to decide what to do.”

Chriss said in the next week or two, the Supreme Court could extend Alito’s administrative stay and set an expedited briefing schedule. “If that were to come out, I think legal commentators would agree it would be very unusual under those circumstances to expect the final decision of the court after extensive briefing to be significantly different. So that would be a clear signal that people would be pretty well advised to just rely on the 2025 maps.” 

He said the Justices could rule on the merits of the case as soon as January or early February. 

Abraham George, Chairman of the Texas Republican Party and Kendall Scudder, Chairman of the Texas Democratic party, told CBS News Texas they consider the 2025 Congressional maps to be in place for next year’s elections.