Supreme Court’s Texas map ruling could spark redistricting race

The Supreme Court decision Thursday allowing Texas to use its newest congressional map will intensify the ongoing redistricting arms race, multiple election law experts said.

Thursday’s order faulted a 2-1 panel of lower court judges for stepping in on the “eve” of next year’s election to order the Lone Star State to use its prior congressional map from 2021.

The lower court had ruled in August against Texas’ new map — finding the state legislature likely discriminated on the basis of race — more than 11 months ahead of next year’s electoral contest and weeks ahead of the state primary filing deadline.

Texas appealed to the Supreme Court, initially asking for a decision by Dec. 1 ahead of a Dec. 8 primary filing deadline.

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenting Democratic appointees to the court, said the majority “gives every State the opportunity to hold an unlawful election” by redistricting late in the process.

Kagan also pointed out that Texas lawmakers controlled both when the redistricting happens and the deadlines for the election, which they then complained to the Supreme Court about the lower court interfering with.

“It was of course the Texas legislature that decided to change its map six months before a March primary,” Kagan wrote.

Loyola University Law School professor Justin Levitt said he thinks the Supreme Court decision will likely encourage more mid-decade redistricting “by a significant margin.”

The timing of the Supreme Court decision could give legislators an incentive to start redistricting as late as possible and then cry foul to anyone challenging even the most blatantly illegal gerrymander, Levitt said.

“That seems to suggest that states can just redistrict in ways that potentially violate the law, as long as they’re efficient and savvy enough to do it on the eve of the election itself. That’s nuts,” Levitt said.

Steve Schwinn, a professor at University of Illinois Chicago Law School, said the decision is “going to invite further redistricting and in particular redistricting that is not particularly concerned with the court’s historical ban on racial discrimination in redistricting.”

Schwinn said it’s also “not entirely clear” whether the Supreme Court would allow a state to violate other redistricting rules, like the mandate for equal population in congressional districts, just because legislators passed a map right before an election.

“It’s difficult to know exactly how far this is going to reach, because the court really seems to not be tethered to its prior principles, and so we don’t really know what the court’s going to do going forward,” Schwinn said.

Rick Hasen, a law professor at UCLA, wrote on his blog that he fears “even more re-redistricting will be on the way, perhaps even later in the year if the Supreme Court waters down or kills Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act” in the Louisiana case.

Texas, which passed the map at the behest of the Trump administration, started a nationwide redistricting arms race as half a dozen other states started the process of redrawing congressional maps. That includes California, where voters passed a ballot measure redrawing the state’s map to target five seats held by Republicans.

The Indiana legislature also advanced its own redistricting plan on Friday, with a new plan targeting the state’s two Democrat-held House seats.

Court cases are pending against the California and other redistricting maps. Levitt said the ruling hinted that the court’s majority will not step in to block new maps in California and other states ahead of next year’s elections and creates a further incentive for states to redistrict as soon as possible.

The Justice Department, which is one of several challengers seeking to strike down the new California map, appears to have a different view. Attorney General Pamela Bondi praised the Supreme Court’s decision on the Texas map on social media.

“So you gonna drop your lawsuit against us right, Pam?” the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom posted in response.

A DOJ account replied: “Not a chance, Gavin — we will stop your DEI districts for 2026.”

Thursday’s order marks the third time since 2020 that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has allowed a Southern state to use a congressional map for an election after a lower court found it likely discriminated against voters on the basis of race.

Before the 2022 election the Supreme Court stepped in to allow Alabama and Louisiana to use maps that lower courts found to be likely discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act. Those states used court-ordered maps in the 2024 elections but the Supreme Court could toss the second Louisiana map as part of a court case argued this fall.

The case is Greg Abbott et al. v. League of United Latin American Citizens et al.