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Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday restored for now Texas’ newly redrawn congressional map that could give Republicans five additional House seats, after a lower court found that some of the new voting lines were racially discriminatory.
The decision from the high court is a boon to House Republicans and President Trump — who has pushed numerous GOP-led states to undertake a rare mid-decade redistricting in an effort to ensure his party holds onto its majority in the House.
That plan was temporarily derailed last month when a divided panel of three judges blocked Texas from using its re-crafted House map for the 2026 election cycle and found that certain districts were racially gerrymandered.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, swiftly asked the Supreme Court to intervene, and Justice Samuel Alito temporarily reinstated the map while the full court considered the request. The high court has now agreed to block the lower court’s decision, allowing Texas to use the new district lines for next year’s House elections.
Texas state House Democratic Leader Rep. Gene Wu said in a statement, “The Supreme Court failed Texas voters today, and they failed American democracy. This is what the end of the Voting Rights Act looks like: courts that won’t protect minority communities even when the evidence is staring them in the face.”
