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What's next in the Texas redistricting battle
The full Supreme Court could decide the fate of Texas's new congressional districts that were redrawn by Republicans.
DALLAS - The fate of Texas’s congressional district map drawn by Republicans is now in the hands of the United States Supreme Court.
But the clock is still ticking for the candidates as they wait to find out which district they’ll be running in ahead of the Dec. 8 filing deadline.
Texas Congressional Map
What's new:
An emergency order from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito restored the use of Texas’s new Republican-drawn congressional map – for now.
Both sides were also ordered to send briefs to the court by Monday.
A response from the full court will be urgent because the deadline for candidates to file for the 2026 election is just two weeks away.
Texas redistricting: Supreme Court puts pause on ruling about new congressional map
The Supreme Court has decided to put a lower court ruling concerning the 2025 Texas congressional map on pause pending the state's appeal, per the Associated Press.
What they're saying:
Josh Blackman, a constitutional lawyer at the South Texas College of Law, believes the high court will have to decide the case in a week or two.
"It could happen before Dec. 1. I think the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Texas wins. In other words, if the court wanted to stop what Texas did, they’d have to move very quickly. And I’m not sure there’s enough time," he said.
Blackman said the court could still schedule a hearing on the merits later, meaning the political back-and-forth over redistricting is far from over.
"Keep in mind that the litigation that began started in 2021 after the 2020 maps were drawn. So now we’re in year four with a clear resolution. And now there are these new maps drawn mid-decade in 2025. And I think in the three, four years, and before you know it’s 2030 of new maps to draw. So, the short answer is this stuff takes forever. There’s never a clear answer," he said.
Texas Redistricting
The backstory:
The redistricting fight started after President Donald Trump told Texas lawmakers that he wanted to gain five GOP seats in the House.
Congressional districts are typically redrawn at the beginning of each decade to compensate for new census data. However, mid-census redistricting is not illegal.
And even though Texas House Democrats stalled the vote by breaking quorum and leaving the state in protest, Texas Republicans succeeded in redrawing a map to give the GOP a better chance of winning in five districts.
Gov. Greg Abbott signs redistricting bill: 'Texas will be more RED in Congress'
Governor Greg Abbott has signed House Bill 4 into law, creating a new congressional map for Texas to give Republicans more seats in Congress.
In North Texas, the new map turns Democratic Rep. Julie Johnson’s District 32 seat from a Dallas County-based district to one that stretches past Tyler in East Texas. The District 33 seat held by Democratic Rep. Marc Veasey moves out of Tarrant County exclusively into Dallas County.
Last week, the map was thrown out by a federal judge panel, which called it racial gerrymandering.
Texas Republicans argue it was drawn simply to maximize political performance.
The Source: The information in this story comes from the Associated Press, an interview with Constitutional Lawyer Josh Blackman, and past news coverage.