In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas lawmakers can use a new congressional map in 2026 that was drawn to benefit Republicans.
The ruling gives the GOP an advantage in a redistricting war playing out ahead of the 2026 midterms. It began in Texas earlier this year when President Donald Trump pressured lawmakers there to redraw the state’s congressional districts in order to pick up five new Republican seats in the US House of Representatives.
California Democrats, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, countered with a map that could help Democrats flip five of their own seats, which the state’s voters approved in November.
Other states have approved or are considering their own gerrymanders before the midterms, including North Carolina, Missouri and Utah.
The high court’s decision will allow Texas’ map to stay in place for the 2026 midterms, though the voting rights groups that challenged the map as racially gerrymandered can continue to fight it. Texas’ filing deadline for candidates running 2026 races is next Monday and state officials asked the Supreme Court to pause a lower court ruling that blocked the map while the challenge continues.
California’s map is facing its own legal challenge by Republicans and Trump’s Department of Justice, who allege the new boundaries also amount to a racial gerrymander, which is illegal under the Voting Rights Act.
Though the Supreme Court’s ruling dealt with Texas’ congressional map, conservative Justice Samuel Alito in his concurring opinion for the majority sent a strong signal that California’s map may also stand.
It’s “indisputable,” Alito wrote, that “the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple.”
A federal court will hear oral arguments over California’s new congressional map on Dec. 15.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi celebrated the ruling on X, writing that “federal courts have no right to interfere with a State’s decision to redraw legislative maps for partisan reasons.”
“So you gonna drop your lawsuit against us right, Pam?” Newsom’s office wrote in response to Bondi.
Redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, who drew California’s new congressional map for Democratic lawmakers, declined to comment, citing his participation as a likely witness in the upcoming federal court hearing.
This story was originally published December 4, 2025 at 4:50 PM.
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Nicole Nixon
The Sacramento Bee
Nicole Nixon covers California politics for The Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Bureau. Previously, she spent nearly a decade reporting for public radio stations in Sacramento and her hometown of Salt Lake City.
