Texas case restarts redistricting arms race
6 states have new maps; 8 others considering it
By: Bart Jansen
USA today
WASHINGTON - By allowing Texas Republicans to redraw the state's congressional map, the Supreme Court has kick-started a nationwide partisan arms race over who holds a critical level of power in Washington during the final two years of President Donald Trump's second term.
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But political and legal experts say it's still not clear whether the Supreme Court's decision means Democrats or Republicans stand to benefit the most for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond.
..... To date, six states have redrawn their maps that determine congressional district boundaries, the shifting lines bunching votes together in different ways that are meant to favor one or the other party. at least eight other states are considering it in what the National Conference of State Legislatures calls the biggest flurry of such activity since the 1800s.
..... Rick Hasen, an election-law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, called the Supreme Court's decision "a green light for their to be even more redistricting, and a strong message to lower courts to but out."
..... The decision in the Texas case was unsigned but allowed the state's redrawn congressional map to stand for 2026 because that election, for which the candidate filing period is underway, was so close. It relied on a separate 2019 hight court ruling that found partisan maps cannot be challenged, even if racially discriminatory maps could be.
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Justice Samuel Alito wrote for Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch that the impetus for the new Texas map, like a map subsequently adopted in California, "Was partisan advantage pure and simple" rather than the racial makeup of the districts.
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But Justice Elena Kagan wrote for Justices Sonia Sotmayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson that a nine-day hearing in the lower court with nearly tow dozen witnesses and thousands of exhibits found :Texas largely divided its citizens along racial lines to cerate its new Pro-Repubican House map."
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The liberal justices said the high court's decision "gives every State the opportunity to hold an unlawful election."
Other states redrawing maps
..... Under the Constitution, the census of the U.S. population undertaken every decade determines how many House seats each state has. congressional maps are traditionally redrawn then to adjust for shifts in population. The push to redraw maps in the middle of the decade is unusual.
..... Trump urged GOP-led states to redistrict to protect the narrow House majority with 220 seats held by Republicans and 213 by Democrats. Two seats previously held by Democrats are currently vacant in New Jersey and Texas.
..... Six states - Texas, California, Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri and Utah - have already drawn new maps. Texas and Californian each expect to tip five seats to Republicans and Democrats, Respectively. Ohio could flip two Democratic-held seats to the GOP. North Carolina's map was designed to flip one seat to Republicans. Missouri dismantled a Democratic seat based in Kansas City. Utah's map remains disputed in court but could cerate one Democratic seat among the state's four.
..... Damon Hewitt, president of the Lawyers; Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said states should think twice about adapting racily gerrymandered maps because they will face serious scrutiny.
..... "Voters don't want to see democracy turned on this head," Hewett said. "People want to have the power to pick their elected officials, not watch politicians cherry-pick who gets to vote in their district based on racially tainted maps."
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At least eight other states are debating whether to redraw their congressional maps, according to the National conference of State Legislatures.
..... Virginia is debating a constitutional amendment for a new map that could allow Democrats to pike up a couple of seats. Florida kicked off its redistricting push December 4 [2025] aiming to hurt the chances of two or three Democratic incumbents, but nobody has proposed any maps yet. Maryland is also considering a new map to potentially hurt Republican chances in one district.
..... Four mor4e states - Alabama, Louisianan, New York and North Dakota - weighed whether to draw new maps while awaiting the Supreme Court's decision for Texas.
..... Indiana is tin the thick of the debate, with a proposed map that aims to wipe out two Democratic seats, resulting in an entirely Republican nine-member delegation. The state House approved the plan December 5, [2025] but state Senate Republicans are divided and expected to kill the proposal.
..... Trump has called Indiana lawmakers, and Vice President JD Vance visited the state. Lawmakers who oppose redistricting have faced at least a dozen death threats, bomb threats and fake emergency calls.
..... Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, which is lobbying aghast redistricting said the debate was the most intense political battle he's seen in 40 years working in the statehouse.
..... "That kind of hardball stuff just doesn't work there in Indiana," Vaughn said. "I'm not saying people aren't scared. You can kind of read the fear on people's faces. The threats are real, they're having an impact, but I think they're backfiring."
..... Other potential changes are afoot for how elections are handled.
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The Supreme Court heard arguments in October [2025] about a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which aims to prevent congressional maps from diluting the votes of minorities by packing them into one district or spreading them out among too many districts.
..... A decision is expected by June 2026.
..... Hasen, the election-law professor, said more redistricting could be approved even closer to the election if the high court "waters down or kills" that section of the law.
..... The justices have also agreed to hear two other election cases dealing with deadlines for counting ballots and limits on campaign contributions.
..... The Republican Party opposes counting mailed ballots after Election Day, even if they are postmarked by then. The party challenged Mississippi's law allowing postmarked ballots to arrive within five business days after Election Day and still be counted. A federal appellate court ruled that all ballots must be cast and received by Election Day, and the state appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.
..... sixteen states allow such grace periods for all voters, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which the high court's eventual ruling could upend.