In a battle of Republicans versus Democrats with a looming question of whether Texas’ congressional maps were drawn with a racial bias or to reflect partisan preferences, the GOP emerged victorious in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling handed down on Thursday.
The Trump administration ordered Texas to redraw its maps over the summer in a rare mid-decade redistricting effort intended to flip five seats red and maintain a narrow Republican majority in Congress. Legal experts and thousands of Texas called the move an illegal racial gerrymander, and House Democrats temporarily fled the state to avoid voting on the proposal. Ultimately, the GOP map passed with a promise that it would be challenged in court.
Gov. Greg Abbott declared in a statement Thursday evening, “We won!”
“Texas is officially — and legally — more red,” Abbott said. “The U.S. Supreme Court restored the redistricting maps passed by Texas that were based on constitutional principles and Supreme Court precedent. The new congressional districts better align our representation in Washington, D.C., with the values of our state. This is a victory for Texas voters, for common sense and for the U.S. Constitution.”
The SCOTUS ruling is a reversal of a November 18 decision from a Trump-appointed federal judge who opened that Texas had racially discriminated in its 2025 redistricting effort. Galveston County District Judge Jeffrey Brown ordered the state to return to its 2021 boundaries, which are also being challenged in federal court.
A temporary injunction was granted in response to an appeal and now the full Supreme Court ruling allows the state to use the maps approved in August while the legal process plays out.
State Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, the House minority leader, said the Supreme Court failed Texas voters and American democracy.
“I’m angry about this ruling,” Wu said in a statement. “Every Texan who testified against these maps should be angry. Every community that fought for generations to build political power and watched Republicans gerrymander it away should be angry. But anger without action is just noise, and Democrats are taking action to fight back.”
Wu referenced California’s Proposition 50, a measure that passed last month to add five blue seats to Congress, countering Texas redistricting. Democrats are also “fighting back” in Illinois, New York and Virginia, Wu said.
“A nationwide movement is being built that says if Republicans want to play this game, Democrats will play it better,” he said.
In Thursday’s ruling, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said it was “indisputable” that Texas redrew the boundaries for partisan advantage, which is legal, and did not engage in racial gerrymandering.
The Supreme Court is also deliberating a redistricting case out of Louisiana that could result in weakening the Voting Rights Act of 1965, University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus said last month.
“If the Supreme Court says the Voting Rights Act doesn’t exist anymore, then this will go away,” he said, referring to the legal challenges over Texas’ redistricting maps. “It’s hard to know what they will do, but they’ve been hinting at that. The court has to make that determination.”
The filing deadline for candidates in March primaries is Monday, December 8. The latest ruling means that longtime U.S. Rep. Al Green was redistricted out of his District 9 seat and will be running in March for District 18.
The District 18 seat has been vacant since former U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner died in March. Former Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards and Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee are in a January runoff to fill Turner’s unexpired term, which extends through the end of 2026. The winner of the runoff will be up against Green if they want to keep the seat.
District 18 has historically been held by a Black Democrat, and while its boundaries were altered, it remains a blue seat.
Menefee said in a statement Thursday that the Supreme Court has “once again shown a willingness to turn its back on communities that have carried the weight of this democracy for generations.”
“This is not a random opinion,” he said. “It is part of a long and ugly pattern of political leaders rigging the system to silence Black and Brown voters instead of earning their support. If they have to manipulate district lines to hold onto power, it tells you everything you need to know about their agenda and about our strength.”
Harris County Commissioners Lesley Briones and Rodney Ellis also weighed in on the SCOTUS decision, with Ellis saying the Supreme Court has now “made itself complicit in illegally executing a coordinated, racially discriminatory attack on the voting rights of Black and brown voters — the very communities the Voting Rights Act was designed to protect.”
Briones said the high court has “cleared the way for a brazen political power grab at the expense of Black and Latino communities.”
Attorney General Ken Paxton joined Abbott in celebrating the ruling and congratulated himself for “successfully [protecting] the Big Beautiful Map against challenges by left-wing groups.”
“Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state,” said Paxton, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat. “This map reflects the political climate of our state and is a massive win for Texas and every conservative who is tired of watching the left try to upend the political system with bogus lawsuits.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.