Texas asks Supreme Court to allow it to use redistricting map struck by lower court.

[Elderberry]

Texas Scorecard by Amy Howe 11/21/2025

Texas asks Supreme Court to allow it to use redistricting map struck by lower court as racially discriminatory

Texas came to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking the justices to clear the way for it to use a new congressional map intended to increase the chances that Republicans can retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. On Tuesday, by a vote of 2-1, a three-judge district court in Texas barred the state from using the map in the 2026 elections, concluding that the map unconstitutionally sorts voters based on race. Texas Solicitor General William Peterson urged the court to pause that ruling, telling it that “[t]he confusion sown by the district court’s eleventh-hour injunction poses a very real risk of preventing candidates from being placed on the ballot and may well call into question the integrity of the upcoming election.”

Peterson asked the justices to put the three-judge district court’s ruling on hold by Dec. 1; he also asked the court to issue an order, known as an administrative stay, that would temporarily pause the ruling to give the justices time to consider the state’s request. In an order distributed shortly after 7:30 p.m. EST on Friday night, Justice Samuel Alito – who fields emergency requests from the 5th Circuit, which includes Texas – granted the administrative stay and instructed the challengers to file their response by 5 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 24.

The dispute has its roots in a call from President Donald Trump earlier this year for Texas to redraw its congressional map to create five additional districts favorable to Republicans. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in the House: 219 to 214, with two vacant seats. As described by the Brookings Institution, in 20 of the past 22 midterm elections, the president’s party has lost seats in the House.

According to a story in The New York Times, lawmakers in Texas were wary of the president’s request to create new Republican districts. They feared that moving Republican voters from “safe” Republican districts to Democratic districts could jeopardize Republican incumbents in the districts from which those voters were transferred.

But on July 7, the head of the civil rights division at the Department of Justice, Harmeet Dhillon, sent the state a letter in which she asserted that four of the state’s districts were unconstitutional because they were “coalition districts” – majority-minority districts in which there was no one racial majority. Dhillon told the state that if it didn’t redraw these districts immediately, DOJ would take legal action.

More: https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/11/texas-asks-supreme-court-to-allow-it-to-use-redistricting-map-struck-by-lower-court-as-racially-discriminatory/

[Free Vulcan]

Supreme Court Pauses Lower Court Ruling Tossing Redrawn Texas Congressional Districts



The state of Texas made an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for relief from a lower court order that would have forced the state to use congressional district maps from 2021 instead of the new maps that the legislature approved in August. The new maps would probably give the GOP another four or five seats in Congress. They would also offset the move by California to redraw its maps, approved by referendum earlier this month, which would give Democrats another five seats in Congress.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito granted the state a temporary stay to give all nine justices time to review the case. Texas asked the Supreme Court to block the lower court ruling by Dec. 1, and to expedite its review.

Time is a critical factor. Candidates must file their intention to run for office by Dec. 8, with the state's primary scheduled for March.

https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2025/11/22/supreme-court-pauses-lower-court-ruling-tossing-redrawn-texas-congressional-districts-n4946285