The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that permanently clears the use of Texas redrawn congressional maps, nullifying claims of racial gerrymandering.
The newest map, passed in 2025 to give Republicans additional U.S. House seats, faced earlier lower court challenges alleging it was racially discriminatory and unconstitutionally gerrymandered. Civil rights groups sued, citing evidence that the redrawn districts undermined the power of minority voters, particularly in multi-racial and heavily coalition-based districts.
A three-judge federal district court in El Paso initially blocked the use of the new map in November 2025, directing the state to revert to the 2021 maps. However, following emergency appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened.
The high court overturned the lower court's ruling, concluding the map was adopted for partisan advantage rather than unlawful racial discrimination, and officially validated the boundaries for the upcoming elections.
Redistricting is the process of enacting new district boundaries for elected offices, particularly for offices in the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures.
States must redraw district lines every 10 years following the completion of the U.S. census. The federal government requires the districts resulting from this process to have nearly equal populations and not cause racial or ethnic voting discrimination.[1] While every state redrew its district lines after the 2020 census, some states are revisiting redistricting ahead of the 2026 elections.
As of May 2026, 10 states Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah had new congressional maps. Before 2025, only two states conducted voluntary mid-decade redistricting since 1970.
Additionally, the Supreme Court on declined to review a pair of challenges to Texas’s ban on paid voter assistance, leaving in place an appeals court ruling that upheld the restrictions which is considered a setback for civil rights and voting rights groups, which argued the state law undermines a section of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that establishes protections for voters who may require assistance with casting a ballot.
Section 208 guarantees that any voters who need help due to blindness, disability or the inability to read or write may receive assistance by a “person of the voter’s choice,” excluding certain individuals such as employers, supervisors and union officers.
Texas in 2021 adopted Senate Bill 1, a measure that included a provision making it a felony crime to compensate someone or receive compensation for assisting a voter with a mailin ballot.
The plaintiffs contended that Texas’s ban makes it more difficult for voters of color, voters with disabilities and voters with limited English proficiency to cast ballots because many of them rely on trained, paid staff for assistance.
The state attorney general’s office, led by Ken Paxton, countered that Section 208 protects who may assist but not whether they may be paid, the latter of which falls under the state’s authority to regulate how elections are administered.