{"id":76889,"date":"2025-12-05T05:03:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/76889\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T05:03:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:03:21","slug":"supreme-court-allows-texas-to-use-a-congressional-map-favorable-to-republicans-in-2026-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/76889\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court allows Texas to use a congressional map favorable to Republicans in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A divided Supreme Court on Thursday came to the rescue of Texas Republicans, allowing next year\u2019s elections to be held under the state\u2019s congressional redistricting plan favorable to the GOP and pushed by President Donald Trump despite a lower-court ruling that the map likely discriminates on the basis of race.<\/p>\n

With conservative justices in the majority, the court acted on an emergency request from Texas for quick action because qualifying in the new districts already has begun, with primary elections in March. <\/p>\n

The Supreme Court\u2019s order puts the 2-1 ruling blocking the map on hold at least until after the high court issues a final decision in the case. Justice Samuel Alito had previously temporarily blocked the order while the full court considered the Texas appeal.<\/p>\n

The justices cast doubt on the lower-court finding that race played a role in the new map, saying in an unsigned statement that Texas lawmakers had \u201cavowedly partisan goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the three liberal justices that her colleagues should not have intervened at this point. Doing so, she wrote, \u201censures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this Court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The high court\u2019s vote \u201cis a green light for there to be even more re-redistricting, and a strong message to lower courts to butt out,\u201d Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California at Los Angeles law school, wrote on the Election Law Blog.<\/p>\n

The justices have blocked past lower-court rulings in congressional redistricting cases, most recently in Alabama and Louisiana, that came several months before elections.<\/p>\n

The Texas congressional map enacted last summer at Trump\u2019s urging was engineered to give Republicans five additional House seats.<\/p>\n

The effort to preserve a slim Republican majority in the House in next year\u2019s elections touched off a nationwide redistricting battle. <\/p>\n

Texas was the first state to meet Trump\u2019s demands in what has become an expanding national battle over redistricting. Republicans drew the state\u2019s new map to give the GOP five additional seats, and Missouri and North Carolina followed with new maps adding an additional Republican seat each. To counter those moves, California voters approved a ballot initiative to give Democrats an additional five seats there. <\/p>\n

The redrawn maps are facing court challenges in California and Missouri. A three-judge panel allowed the new North Carolina map to be used in the 2026 elections. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration is suing to block the new California maps, but it called for the Supreme Court to keep the redrawn Texas districts in place. <\/p>\n

The justices are separately considering a case from Louisiana that could further limit race-based districts under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. It\u2019s unclear how the current round of redistricting would be affected by the outcome in the Louisiana case.<\/p>\n

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the Supreme Court\u2019s order \u201cdefended Texas\u2019s fundamental right to draw a map that ensures we are represented by Republicans.\u201d He called the redistricting law \u201cthe Big Beautiful Map.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTexas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state,\u201d Paxton said in a statement. \u201cThis map reflects the political climate of our state and is a massive win for Texas and every conservative who is tired of watching the left try to upend the political system with bogus lawsuits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement saying: \u201cWe won! Texas is officially \u2014 and legally \u2014 more red.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin said in a statement that the court\u2019s decision \u201cto allow Texas Republicans\u2019 rigged, racially gerrymandered maps to go into effect is wrong \u2014 both morally and legally. Once again, the Supreme Court gave Trump exactly what he wanted: a rigged map to help Republicans avoid accountability in the midterms for turning their backs on the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Texas case, U.S. District Judges Jeffrey V. Brown and David Guaderrama concluded that the redistricting plan likely dilutes the political power of Black and Latino voters in violation of the Constitution. Trump appointed Brown in his first term while President Barack Obama, a Democrat, appointed Guaderrama.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map,\u201d Brown wrote. \u201cBut it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.\u201d<\/p>\n

The majority opinion provoked a vituperative dissent from Judge Jerry Smith, an appeals court judge on the panel.<\/p>\n

Smith accused Brown of \u201cpernicious judicial misbehavior\u201d for not giving Smith sufficient time before issuing the majority opinion. Smith, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, also disagreed strenuously with the substance of the opinion, saying it would be a candidate for the \u201cNobel Prize for Fiction,\u201d if there were such an award.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main winners from Judge Brown\u2019s opinion are George Soros and Gavin Newsom,\u201d Smith wrote, referring to the liberal megadonor and California\u2019s Democratic governor. \u201cThe obvious losers are the People of Texas and the Rule of Law.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed Thursday\u2019s Supreme Court stay, posting on X, \u201cFederal courts have no right to interfere with a State\u2019s decision to redraw legislative maps for partisan reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new map eliminated five of the state\u2019s nine \u201ccoalition\u201d districts, where no minority group has a majority but together they outnumber non-Hispanic white voters. The total number of congressional districts in which minorities make up a majority of voting-age citizens dropped from 16 to 14.<\/p>\n

Yet Republicans argued the map is better for minority voters. There\u2019s a new, eighth Hispanic-majority district, and two Black-majority districts instead of none.<\/p>\n

But critics consider that the Hispanic or Black majority in each district is so slim that white voters, who tend to turn out in larger percentages, will control election results.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer John Hanna contributed to this report from Topeka, Kansas.<\/p>\n

\t
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