By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday revived a redrawn Texas electoral map designed to add more Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives, boosting President Donald Trump’s bid for his party to retain control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.
The justices granted a request by Texas officials to overturn a lower court’s ruling that had blocked the state from using the Trump-backed map that could return up to five seats currently held by U.S. Democrats to Republicans. The lower court concluded that the map likely was racially discriminatory, violating US constitutional protections.
Republicans currently hold slim majorities in both houses of Congress. Relinquishing control of the House or Senate to Democrats in the November 2026 elections would jeopardize Trump’s legislative agenda and open the door to Democratic-led congressional investigations targeting the president.
The Supreme Court’s ruling comes amid a national battle in Republican- and Democratic-led states to redraw electoral maps to change the makeup of congressional districts in favor of partisans.
On Nov. 21, Justice Samuel Alito temporarily stayed the lower court’s ruling while the Supreme Court assessed how to proceed with the case.
The redrawing of electoral district boundaries in a state is a process called reapportionment. There have been legal battles at the Supreme Court for decades over a practice called gerrymandering — drawing district boundaries to marginalize a certain set of voters and increase the influence of others.
The Supreme Court, in a 2019 ruling, said that manipulation for partisan reasons — to boost one’s own party’s electoral chances and weaken a political opponent — cannot be challenged in federal courts. But gerrymandering determined primarily by race remains illegal under the United States Constitution’s equal protection guarantee, the 14th Amendment, under the law and the 15th Amendment, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
Many Texas Republican lawmakers said the new map was designed in response to Trump’s request to redraw electoral maps for a partisan advantage in House races. But the El Paso court ruled 2-1 on Nov. 18 that the map likely amounted to an illegal racial gerrymander, on the part of the civil rights groups that sued to block it.
Each of the 50 US states is represented in Congress by two US senators, with representation in the 435-seat House based on population. California, the most populous state, has the most House members with 52, while Texas is second with 38. Republicans currently hold 25 of the 38 US House seats in Texas.
“RACIAL CONSIDERATIONS”
The Texas electoral map at the center of the dispute was passed by the Republican-led Texas Legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in August.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who authored the lower court’s ruling, wrote that “what “ultimately” prompted Texas to redraw its map was a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice urging state officials to “inject racial considerations into what Texas insists is a race-neutral process.”
Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote that the Justice Department’s analysis was based on the “legally incorrect claim” that the racial makeup of four Texas congressional districts in the state’s previous electoral map is unconstitutional and should be redrawn.
“If the Trump administration had sent Texas a letter urging the state to redraw its congressional map to improve the performance of Republican candidates, plaintiff groups would face a much higher burden to show that race — rather than partisanship — was the driving force behind the 2025 map,” Brown wrote.
“But nothing in the DOJ (Department of Justice) letter is couched in partisan political terms,” the judge wrote. “Instead, the letter asks Texas to change four districts for one reason: the racial demographics of the voters who live there.”
The civil rights group NAACP noted in a statement after the ruling that “the state of Texas is only 40 percent white, but white voters control more than 73 percent of the state’s seats in Congress.”
The court ordered that the state’s previous electoral map, approved by the Republican-led legislature in 2021, be used in the 2026 election.
US Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, broke with the majority of the court in a dissenting opinion.
“The main winners in Judge Brown’s opinion are George Soros and (California Gov.) Gavin Newsom,” Smith wrote. “The obvious losers are the people of Texas and the rule of law.”
Soros, a billionaire financier and major Democratic donor, has long been seen as a villain by Trump and his political base. Newsom is a prominent Democrat who has said he is considering a run for president in 2028.
The lower court’s ruling marked the latest setback in Trump’s efforts to tilt the political map. Indiana Republicans on November 14 abandoned a legislative session that had been called to enact a new congressional map in that state.
Democratic-controlled California reacted to Texas redistricting by launching its own effort targeting five Republican-held districts in the state. California voters in November overwhelmingly approved a new map beneficial to Democrats. The Trump administration sued California to try to stop its new congressional map from taking effect.
Redistricting generally occurs to reflect population changes as measured by the national census conducted each decade, though this year’s redistricting was motivated by securing a partisan advantage.
The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has already heard arguments in another major case involving race and redistricting during its current term. Conservative judges in a case involving a U.S. district map in Louisiana have signaled their willingness to undermine another key section of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 federal law passed by Congress to prevent racial discrimination in voting.
(Reporting by John Kruzel)