Texas Files Direct Appeal to US Supreme Court in Redistricting Case

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Texas Scorecard by Travis Morgan January 16, 2026

The Court previously issued a stay that allowed the new congressional map to be used in the 2026 elections, pending this direct appeal.

Texas has filed a direct appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in the federal redistricting case that attempted to undermine the state legislature’s newly-enacted congressional map that was passed as part of a partisan redistricting.

This comes after the Court already issued an emergency stay—pending appeal—that blocked the district court order that would have forced the state to revert to the  2021 congressional map. Thus, the 2026 midterm elections are proceeding under the new map that secured five new Republican-leaning seats.

Background

After the Texas Legislature successfully completed its 2025 partisan redistricting effort, the new congressional map was immediately subject to cries of racial discrimination by Democrat litigators—the same litigators who had been challenging the 2021 map on the same grounds.

The case was heard by a three-judge panel in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in El Paso. Democrat plaintiffs hoped to block Republicans’ new map from taking effect before the 2026 midterm elections, which in Texas begin with March primaries.

The trial lasted nine days.

In a 2-1 decision released more than a month later, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, issuing a preliminary injunction that blocked the new map from enforcement, reverting to the 2021 map that better favored Democrats.

The November 18 order, written by Trump-appointee Judge Jeffrey Brown, found that the map was drawn with race as the “predominant factor”—despite the mapdrawer Adam Kincaid having repeatedly testified otherwise.

Judge Jerry Smith—a Reagan-appointee—later released a scathing dissent, slamming Brown for judicial misconduct. He claims that Brown cut him out of the process and intentionally misrepresented or ignored the facts of the case to come to the conclusion he wanted, as a judicial activist.

More: https://texasscorecard.com/federal/texas-files-direct-appeal-to-us-supreme-court-in-redistricting-case/