Supreme Court Permits Texas GOP to Keep Redistricted Congressional Map for 2026
The Supreme Court has revived the redistricted Texas congressional map that could potentially add up to five Republican U.S. House seats, allowing its’ use for the 2026 midterm elections.
The court’s conservative majority – Justices Thomas, Alito, Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett – agreed that a lower court did not have the authority to invalidate the map as a racial gerrymander. The court’s liberals – Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jacks0n – voted against the revival.
“The District Court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections,” the unsigned ruling reads.
The majority opinion in the three-judge panel that temporarily blocked the redistricting plan was written by District Court Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown. Fellow Judge Jerry Edwin Smith blasted Brown’s ruling, saying it deserved the “Nobel Prize for Fiction,” Breitbart Texas legal analyst Lana Shadwick reported. Smith called Brown’s ruling the “most outrageous conduct” he has seen in nearly four decades of service on the court.
Smith continued, writing, “What’s the difference between God and a federal district judge? Answer: God doesn’t think he’s a federal judge. … Only this time, it isn’t funny.”
Shadwick reported:
The senior judge accused Brown of “the most outrageous conduct” he’s seen in nearly four decades on the bench. Judge Smith lambasted Brown for rushing to publish a 160-page injunction without allowing time to deliberate with the senior judge and diminishing the impact of any dissent by publishing only the majority opinion on the docket.
“In summary, Judge Brown has issued a 160‑page opinion without giving me any reasonable opportunity to respond,” Smith explained. “Judge Brown was announcing that he would issue an opinion three days later—an opinion that I hadn’t even seen and might not be furnished before its issuance. That is unthinkable, but it occurred—and not accidentally.”
“Judges in the majority don’t get to tell a dissenting judge or judges that they can’t participate,” the dissenting judge continued.
The four-decade jurist warned that the ruling “sets a horrendous precedent that ‘might makes right’ and the end justifies the means.”
As noted by The Hill, the court has yet to make a final ruling on the matter, but Thursday’s decision will enable “Texas to move ahead to its March primary under the new map as the state continues its appeal.”
Justice Elena Kagan argued in her dissent that her colleagues intervened “based on its perusal, over a holiday weekend, of a cold paper record.”
“Today’s order disrespects the work of a District Court that did everything one could ask to carry out its charge—that put aside every consideration except getting the issue before it right,” Kagan wrote in her dissent. “And today’s order disserves the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were assigned to their new districts based on their race.”
Justice Samuel Alito issued a response, which was joined by Thomas and Gorsuch.
“First, the dissent does not dispute—because it is indisputable—that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” Alito wrote.
Texas House Democrats decried the ruling.
“The Supreme Court failed Texas voters today, and they failed American democracy. Every Texan who testified against these maps should be angry. Every community that fought for generations to build political power and watched Republicans gerrymander it away should be angry,” it said.
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