{"id":268384,"date":"2026-04-27T16:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/268384\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T16:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:37:08","slug":"texas-cleared-by-u-s-supreme-court-to-use-congressional-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/268384\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas cleared by U.S. Supreme Court to use congressional map"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Gov. Greg Abbott approved the state\u2019s new congressional map last August, the idea was that it would help Republicans pick up five additional seats in Congress. In November, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kut.org\/politics\/2025-11-18\/new-texas-congressional-map-favoring-republicans-blocked-by-federal-court\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">district court threw out the map<\/a> over allegations of racial gerrymandering.<\/p>\n<p>The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and on Monday the justices issued their decision, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/orders\/courtorders\/042726zor_08l1.pdf\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">reversing the district court&#8217;s ruling<\/a> and allowing the maps to be used until at least 2030. (Congressional maps are typically redrawn with new census data, and the next batch will drop in 2030.)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Supreme Court did not protect the Constitution today,&#8221; Rep. Gene Wu, the state House Minority Leader, said in a statement Monday. &#8220;It protected Greg Abbott&#8217;s racist map and gave Donald Trump exactly what he demanded from Texas Republicans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Abbott responded to Wu\u2019s statement on X: \u201cCry harder.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The backstory<\/p>\n<p>Last year the state legislature opted to redistrict outside of a census year, an unusual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonpublicmedia.org\/articles\/news\/politics\/2025\/08\/21\/529188\/texas-and-california-near-new-partisan-voting-maps-in-a-battle-prompted-by-trump\/\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">idea that came from President Donald Trump<\/a> over fears that Republicans would lose the U.S. House in 2026<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kut.org\/politics\/2025-08-16\/texas-austin-redistricting-rally-protest-capitol-congressional-maps\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Thousands of people protested<\/a> on the Texas State Capitol lawn, even joining legislative hearings to let the state know they did not want the maps redrawn. State Republicans moved forward with the redraw, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonpublicmedia.org\/articles\/news\/politics\/2025\/08\/02\/527799\/congressional-redistricting-map-passes-house-committee-pushing-dems-towards-quorum-break\/\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Democrats responded by breaking quorum<\/a> in an attempt to delay the map&#8217;s passage.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/02\/04\/nx-s1-5691890\/supreme-court-california-redistricting-map\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">In the meantime, several states,<\/a> including California, began their own redistricting process to try and give Democrats or Republicans an advantage in the upcoming midterm elections.<\/p>\n<p>Abbott did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Gov. Greg Abbott approved the state\u2019s new congressional map last August, the idea was that it would&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28195,3480,2830,5759,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-268384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-congressional-map","tag-gerrymandering","tag-redistricting","tag-supreme-court","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}