Supreme Court strikes down Texas redistricting lawsuit, upholds new maps

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(The Center Square) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down a challenge to Texas' new congressional maps. 

The court reversed Abbott v. LULAC, a case that sought to challenge years-long redistricting practices in state House and Senate races throughout Texas. 

In 2021, a group of Latino voting rights organizations filed a lawsuit against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott challenging district apportionment in the Texas House and Senate. The groups sought to challenge voting maps dating back to the 2010 census. 

"This is as stark a case of racial gerrymandering as one can imagine," lawyers for the Latino groups wrote in a brief to the court. 

However, maps came under new scrutiny in 2025 when the Texas legislature drew new U.S. Congressional maps in a rare mid-decade redistricting campaign aimed at yielding five new seats for the Republican party. After months of legal battling, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the new maps in December. 

The Texas campaign kicked off a nationwide mid-decade redistricting battle for greater representation of either party in Congress across the country. The U.S. Supreme Court went on to affirm California's congressional redistricting maps that favored Democrats. 

Lawyers for Abbott said race was not considered when any of the maps were drawn. The lawyers said Adam Kincaid, exeuctive director of the Republican Redistricting Trust, did not consider race when redrawing the maps. 

"Kincaid never considered racial data. He did not 'have racial data visible' on his computer while drawing the map," lawyers wrote. 

Justices on the court struck down the lawsuit along partisan lines. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the majority decision.