The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow Texas’s new congressional map to move forward has raised significant concerns among civil-rights advocates, voting-rights experts, and many Texans who worry about the state’s long pattern of weakening the political influence of Black and Latino communities.
And the ruling has direct implications for the 2026 race for Texas’s District 18 seat.
The ruling
In an emergency ruling, the Court’s conservative majority sided with state officials who argued that the map — drawn in response to a push from President Donald Trump — reflected political strategy rather than racial discrimination.
The ruling temporarily overturns a lower court’s decision from Nov. 18, in which a divided three-judge panel out of El Paso concluded that the map was racially discriminatory. That panel held that although partisan motivations played a role in the mapmaking process, the evidence revealed something more: The intentional reshaping of districts in a manner that disproportionately moved voters of color into or out of key districts.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote that “substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map,” even while acknowledging the role of politics. His majority opinion would have required Texas to use the prior congressional map from 2021 during the 2026 election cycle.
Instead, Texas appealed to the Trump-appointed-dominated Supreme Court, where Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency requests from the region, issued a temporary hold on the lower-court ruling. At the same time, the full Court reviewed the matter.
In its final unsigned order, the Supreme Court reinstated the new map, arguing that the lower court had intervened too close to the primary election cycle and had disrupted what the Court called “the delicate federal-state balance in elections.”
Immediate Texas impact
One direct consequence of this decision is that U.S. Congressman Al Green, the longtime representative for U.S. District 9, will run for the District 18 seat in 2026. That seat was once held by former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, as well as Sheila Jackson Lee, Craig Washington, Mickey Leland, and Barbara Jordan – all of whom are deceased, except for Washington.
There is currently a run-off between former Houston City Councilmember Amanda Edwards and Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee to see who will finish out the remainder of Turner’s term. Turner died two months into his term.
Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch offered an opinion concurring with Alito’s, emphasizing that the state’s primary motive appeared to be partisan advantage, something the Court has previously ruled permissible, even if controversial.
Dissenting opinion
But the Court’s three Democratic-appointed justices issued a sharp dissent. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, warned that the ruling allows Texas to place voters into districts “because of their race,” calling that outcome a violation of long-standing constitutional principles.
Kagan argued that the lower court had done precisely what was required: carefully evaluate the record and identify where racial considerations had shaped the map beyond acceptable legal boundaries.
For many Texans, especially communities of color whose voting strength has repeatedly been diluted through GOP redistricting battles, the ruling raises familiar worries about representation.
While the state insists that the map reflects electoral strategy rather than racial bias, the practical effect will weaken the political voice of fast-growing Black and Latino populations that are grossly underrepresented in the redistricting maps. The 2020 U.S. Census showed that Texas’s tremendous population growth – and thus, right to additional seats in Congress – was due to a huge growth in Black and Latino Texans. Yet, all additional seats were allocated to white, GOP-leaning areas.
As the 2026 midterms approach, the decision underscores an ongoing tension in Texas politics: the struggle between rapidly shifting demographics and the legal and political systems tasked with ensuring fair representation. Whether the Supreme Court ultimately upholds the map after full review remains to be seen. For now, however, Texas voters will head into another election cycle under district lines that a lower federal court said were drawn with race in mind and the intent to dilute Black and Brown voting power.
