Despite claims that the latest Texas redistricting maps represent an illegal racial gerrymander, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the boundaries proposed by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will stay in place.
University of Houston law professor David Froomkin says that, based on the application of existing law, the high court got it wrong.
“I think this outcome was pretty clearly telegraphed by the Supreme Court’s December order,” Froomkin said in explaining why he was not surprised by Monday’s ruling. “That said, the manner in which the court proceeded here is troubling, issuing this order with no briefing or really any explanation. Under existing law and precedent, I think there’s little question these maps are racially gerrymandered.”
A district court issued a 160-page opinion in November saying the maps introduced by Texas Republicans were flawed and illegal. The Supreme Court responded the following month by issuing a temporary stay, ruling that the maps in question could be used for the 2026 midterms. Monday’s split 6-3 decision means that the maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature stay in place until new Census data is released or another call for redistricting is issued.
Abbott called for the mid-decade redistricting last summer after the U.S. Department of Justice questioned the boundaries and strongly suggested that Texas redraw its maps. President Donald Trump acknowledged that he called for the boundary redrawing to gain more GOP seats in Congress.
The Supreme Court decision was a blow to Texas Democrats, who said the maps dilute the voting power of minorities. The Republicans who led the effort didn’t deny that they were trying to pick up more red seats in the November midterms but maintained that a mid-decade redistricting for political reasons is perfectly legal.
Texas Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville, said during the public hearings last summer that the GOP redrew the boundaries “because we can.” The state rep told CNN, “It’s good for our party, it’s good for our state, and we need to ensure that Donald Trump’s agenda continues to be enacted throughout his second term.”
The justices who voted against upholding the GOP maps on Monday are considered the “liberals” on the court: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The Texas Tribune reported that some of the new GOP stronghold districts were redrawn based on Latino voters’ sharp swing to the right in 2024, but “polling suggests that fragile alliance may be fraying over immigration policy and the economy.”
Recent redistricting efforts in California and Virginia were aimed at creating blue districts and could neutralize Texas’ effort to flip five seats red, Froomkin said, but that remains to be seen.
“Anything is possible, depending on how much of a wave election we see in 2026,” Froomkin said. “I don’t think that the new map is what people sometimes call a dummymander, that is, an attempted gerrymander that backfires because it was executed poorly. I think this was a smart gerrymander from the perspective of increasing Republicans’ seat share. That said, if there’s a 10 or a 15-point swing away from Republicans in 2026, a lot of those seats could be vulnerable.”
Texas House of Representatives Minority Leader Rep. Gene Wu, who led an effort to flee the state last summer to avoid voting on the maps, said the Supreme Court did not protect the Constitution.
“It protected Greg Abbott’s racist map and gave Donald Trump exactly what he demanded from Texas Republicans: stolen seats, weaker Black and Latino voting power, and a rigged path to keep control of Congress,” Wu said in a statement. “As much as this decision stings, Greg Abbott should not confuse this ruling for a victory. “
“When we broke quorum last year, Texas House Democrats forced his power grab into the open,” Wu added. “Now, California and Virginia have answered and leveled the playing field, and Democrats across the country are still fighting back. Trump and Abbott may have found six justices willing to excuse this scheme — he has not found a way to make it right, nor a way to win.”
Gubernatorial candidate Gina Hiinojosa, a Democratic state representative from Austin, sent the news of SCOTUS’ decision in a campaign newsletter with a call to action: “That means Greg Abbott and Donald Trump’s mid-decade redistricting power grab, designed to rig in up to five new Republican seats, is now the official playfield,” she wrote.
“This is exactly how Republicans try to hold onto power when they know voters are turning on them. They redraw the lines, causing chaos in the midst of important elections,” she added. “No matter how hard he tries, Greg Abbott cannot gerrymander the governor’s election.”
Froomkin said that even if the Supreme Court was correctly applying existing law, “the thrust of recent Supreme Court decisions has been to open the floodgates of partisan gerrymander, which is doing a lot to degrade our democracy.”
