Texas redistricting: Supreme Court puts pause on ruling about new congressional map

AUSTIN, Texas – The Supreme Court has decided to put a lower court ruling concerning the 2025 Texas congressional map on pause, per the Associated Press.

The order comes after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stated Friday that he had filed an emergency application for an administrative stay pending appeal with the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court temporarily blocks lower court ruling

What we know:

The Associated Press’s Mark Sherman says that the order, which was signed by Justice Samuel Alito, will remain in place for at least the next few days while the court considers if the new map can be used in the midterm elections in 2026.

The court’s conservative majority has blocked similar lower court rulings because they have come too close to elections, says Sherman, but if the Supreme Court upholds the lower court ruling, Texas could have to use the map drawn in 2021 based on the 2020 census.

Lower court rules against new map, issues preliminary injunction

Dig deeper:

The three-judge panel for the Western District of Texas court issued a preliminary injunction, saying that the 2026 midterm elections “shall proceed” using the map that the Texas Legislature enacted in 2021.

“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote in the 160-page ruling. “To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”

Brown, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said that plaintiffs are likely to prove at trial that Texas racially gerrymandered the map passed this year.

How this all began

The backstory:

Texas redrew its congressional map during a special legislative session after Trump called for the map to be redrawn to provide Republicans five seats in the House of Representatives.

The proposed changes mostly impacted Democrat-held districts in the state’s major metropolitan areas.

The Justice Department accused Texas of illegally gerrymandering four of the targeted Democratic districts along racial lines. In response, Abbott made redistricting a special session priority, even though he and the Republican majority approved the maps that were already being used in 2021.

The special session prompted dozens of Texas House Democrats to flee the state over the summer in order to break quorum and prevent the passage of the new map.