SCOTUS Hands Republicans A Major Redistricting Win

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of the Republican Party by overturning a lower court’s decision that had stopped Texas from redrawing its congressional districts.

The court’s decision was based on reasoning from an earlier case, Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens, but it didn’t say what that reasoning was. Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the three liberal justices, disagreed with the decision.

The Supreme Court gave the state’s map a temporary thumbs up in December and California’s map a temporary thumbs up in February. Both states led the way in the mid-cycle redistricting fights that are now happening all over the country. The Supreme Court’s approval of both states’ maps, which gave Republicans and Democrats five more seats, canceled out each other’s work before the 2026 midterm elections.