Texas Tribune by Eleanor Klibanoff 4/30/2026
Texas lawmakers will be able to draw more aggressively partisan maps for the state House, Senate and education board when they return in 2027. Last summer, Texas lawmakers redrew the state’s congressional map to add more GOP seats. The unusual mid-decade redistricting effort prompted some Republican lawmakers to dream even bigger.
“When the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Louisiana v. Callais case that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional, Texas will take up redistricting again (Congressional, Texas Senate and Texas House),” Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, posted on social media. “Get ready. It’s coming.”
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued the ruling Spiller had been waiting for. The court did not entirely eliminate Section 2, the law’s key holding that prohibits vote dilution based on race, but it did make it much harder to win a case on those grounds. The court’s conservative majority declared that plaintiffs must now prove that mapmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of a racial group. This higher bar, Justice Elena Kagan said in her dissent, would eliminate the “lion’s share” of challenges under Section 2.
Some states are immediately rushing to redraw their maps under this new standard, hoping to split majority non-white areas that favor Democrats in order to create new Republican districts and strengthen existing ones before the midterms.
Texas is not yet following suit, in large part because the first round of the 2026 primary is already in the rearview mirror. But Spiller and others say they expect redrawing the state’s congressional, state House and Senate and State Board of Education districts to be on the table when lawmakers return in 2027.
“I think that we will have that opportunity and I look forward to that, if that’s what leadership decides that they’d like to do,” Spiller said, noting that the decision to redistrict will be made “above my pay grade.”
Rep. Mitch Little, a Lewisville Republican, said he anticipated the state would audit its maps and see if there was a need to redraw them in light of the Callais ruling.
“Someone is going to have to look at this and say, did we use race to draw majority-minority districts? And if so, that will encourage some soul-searching and review of where the lines lie,” he said, alluding to the court’s argument that sorting voters by race — even for the purpose of adhering to Section 2 — runs afoul of the Constitution. “I think there will be an appetite to get it right, whatever that means under the Callais opinion.”
On Wednesday, Gov. Greg Abbott called the ruling a “victory for state sovereignty and a recognition of the inherent equality of all Texans.” He did not say whether he thought the state should take another look at its voting maps; Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows did not comment on the ruling or respond to a request for comment.
More:
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/30/texas-redistricting-supreme-court-voting-rights-act-louisiana-callais-section-2/
