Supreme court allows Texas to use new congressional map favoring Republicans in 2026 elections – US politics live
NEWS | 05 December 2025
From 2h ago 18.09 EST Supreme court rules Texas redistricting may proceed The supreme court will allow Texas to use a congressional map redrawn to favor Republicans in 2026. The ruling will impact elections as soon as the March primaries. Texas redrew its congressional map this summer as part of an effort Donald Trump initiated to protect Republicans’ slim majority in the House ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The effort kicked off a nationwide redistricting battle that saw California voters respond by voting to redraw their state’s congressional map as well. Today’s supreme court ruling responds to an emergency request for a decision from Texas because candidates have until 8 December to file to run ahead of the March primaries. US supreme court approves redrawn Texas congressional maps Read more Share Updated at 19.37 EST 4m ago 19.55 EST California senator Adam Schiff also criticized the supreme court ruling and accused the court of abandoning its “commitment to justice”. He said: “The Roberts Court will go down in history as having upheld the desires of Donald Trump and the GOP, rather than its commitment to justice, precedent or the rule of law. Today’s ruling — which substitutes its own fact finding for that of the lower court — is yet another example.” Share 12m ago 19.47 EST Elena Kagan sharply dissents, calling ruling disrespectful of lower court Lauren Gambino In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the decision by the supreme court’s majority, arguing that it disrespected the work of the lower court, whose ruling actually was authored by a judge appointed by Trump. “We are a higher court than the district court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision,” Kagan wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “This court’s stay guarantees that Texas’s new map, with all its enhanced partisan advantage, will govern next year’s elections for the House of Representatives. And this court’s stay ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the constitution,” she continued. Share 26m ago 19.33 EST Hakeem Jeffries condemns supreme court's decision on Texas congressional map Meanwhile, Democrats have criticized the supreme court’s decision to allow Texas to use its new congressional map in 2026. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, said the court had “once again shredded its credibility by rubber-stamping a racially gerrymandered map in Texas”. In an X post, he added: “Republicans know the extremists can only win by cheating. The people of California and beyond will prevent that from happening.” In a statement Jeffries added: “Tonight’s ruling by far-right justices on the supreme court is further proof that the extremists will do anything to rig the midterm elections. The gerrymandered Texas congressional map is a partisan and racially discriminatory power grab designed to subvert the will of the voters — particularly in Black and Latino communities.” He added: “California voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 50 and other states will soon follow suit. We will not let Republicans cheat their way to holding the majority in the House of Representatives. Donald Trump and Republican extremists started this fight. Democrats will finish it.” Share Updated at 19.40 EST 37m ago 19.22 EST The latest strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat comes on the same day as senior military officials appeared in Congress over an attack on a boat on 2 September that has left the defense secretary under immense pressure. US navy Adm Frank Bradley, who commanded the attack, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Dan Caine, appeared before the House and Senate’s armed services and intelligence committees for a closed briefing in which they showed video and discussed the attack with lawmakers. Top Democratic and Republican lawmakers said after the meeting that Hegseth had not ordered the military to kill surviving members of a deadly attack on a boat alleged to be carrying drugs in the Caribbean, but differed over whether the double strike was appropriate. A leading Democratic lawmaker told reporters after the meeting he was disturbed by what he’d seen. “What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House armed services committee, said. However, he said Bradley “confirmed that there had not been a ‘kill them all’ order, and there was not an order to grant no quarter”. Experts urge release of boat strike video as US admiral denies ‘kill them all’ order Read more Share Updated at 19.31 EST 41m ago 19.18 EST US Southern Command released unclassified footage of the boat strike, showing a vessel speeding through the waters before going up in flames. View image in fullscreen Screengrab of footage released by the US military shows the moment before boat is hit by a lethal kinetic strike. Photograph: US Southern Command/X Share Updated at 19.29 EST 49m ago 19.10 EST US forces strike another alleged drug trafficking boat, killing four people US forces have struck another alleged drug trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific, killing four men. The US Southern Command released a statement on X saying the strike came at the direction of defense secretary Pete Hegseth. The statement says: On Dec. 4, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization. Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics and transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed. Share 55m ago 19.04 EST Pam Bondi celebrates justices' ruling in favor of Texas Republicans Trump’s attorney general Pam Bondi also celebrated the decision. Bondi said federal court had “no right to interfere with a state’s decision to redraw legislative maps for partisan reasons”. Writing on X, she added: “A federal district court ignored that principle two weeks ago, and the Supreme Court correctly stayed that overreaching decision tonight. Congratulations to Texas for advancing the rule of law, my Solicitor General John Sauer, and our team of lawyers for their excellent brief supporting Texas in this important case.” As Rachel Leingang reported, courts now cannot stop maps drawn for partisan reasons, but they can intervene if maps are racially gerrymandered. And that was the basis of the lower court’s decision as referenced in my earlier post. Catch up on that full report here: Judge rejects ‘racially gerrymandered’ maps in Texas that gave Republicans extra districts Read more Share 1h ago 18.58 EST Texas attorney general hails supreme court decision Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has welcomed the supreme court decision in favor of the state’s Republican party. In a statement carried by the Associated Press, Paxton said the order “defended Texas’s fundamental right to draw a map that ensures we are represented by Republicans”. “Texas is paving the way as we take our country back, district by district, state by state,” he added. “This map reflects the political climate of our state and is a massive win for Texas and every conservative who is tired of watching the left try to upend the political system with bogus lawsuits.” Share Updated at 19.33 EST 1h ago 18.50 EST Today’s supreme court decision overrules an order by a panel of three federal judges in November, who had said the state could not use the 2025 maps because they are probably “racially gerrymandered”. At the time, Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote: “The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics. To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map.” The Guardian’s Rachel Leingang reported in November: Typically, redistricting happens after a new decade’s census results. Maps are often fought over, inviting lawsuits that can take years to resolve. In some states, the process is done by lawmakers, while in others, by independent bodies. Courts now cannot stop maps drawn for partisan reasons, but they can intervene if maps are racially gerrymandered. Brown pointed to Texas lawmakers’ responses to the justice department. Lawmakers initially resisted the idea of redrawing maps for purely partisan reasons, but moved forward after the Trump administration “reframed” the idea of redistricting around racial makeup. A July letter from the head of the department’s civil rights division, Harmeet Dhillon, made the “legally incorrect assertion” that four of Texas’s congressional districts were unconstitutional. She threatened legal action if the state did not redraw these “coalition districts”, where no single racial group made up a majority of voters – “a threat based entirely on their racial makeup”, Brown wrote. “Notably, the [justice department] letter targeted only majority-non-white districts,” the decision says. “Any mention of majority-white Democrat districts – which [the justice department] presumably would have also targeted if its aims were partisan rather than racial – was conspicuously absent.” The legislature and governor’s office then followed suit on these demands from the justice department, Brown said, noting statements made by local officials on their reasoning. “The governor explicitly directed the legislature to redistrict based on race,” Brown wrote. “In press appearances, the governor plainly and expressly disavowed any partisan objective and instead repeatedly stated that his goal was to eliminate coalition districts and create new majority-Hispanic districts.” Share 1h ago 18.43 EST The supreme court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, issued its ruling in an unsigned order. Its three liberal justices dissented, Reuters reports. In a brief opinion explaining the decision, the court writes: “The district court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections.” While acknowledging the political aims of Texas to benefit the Republican party, the opinion also said the lower court mistakenly did not fault the new map’s challengers for not themselves producing “a viable alternative map that met the state’s avowedly partisan goals”. The ruling comes amid a nationwide battle about the redrawing of electoral maps. Republicans and Democrats have been engaged in a war in legislatures and courts to narrow the political battlefield of 2026 before a single vote is cast. Here’s more on this battle from the Guardian’s George Chidi and Andrew Witherspoon: Rigging the map? How power in US Congress could shift if both parties win their redistricting fights Read more Share 2h ago 18.09 EST Supreme court rules Texas redistricting may proceed The supreme court will allow Texas to use a congressional map redrawn to favor Republicans in 2026. The ruling will impact elections as soon as the March primaries. Texas redrew its congressional map this summer as part of an effort Donald Trump initiated to protect Republicans’ slim majority in the House ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The effort kicked off a nationwide redistricting battle that saw California voters respond by voting to redraw their state’s congressional map as well. Today’s supreme court ruling responds to an emergency request for a decision from Texas because candidates have until 8 December to file to run ahead of the March primaries. US supreme court approves redrawn Texas congressional maps Read more Share Updated at 19.37 EST
Author: Vivian Ho. Cecilia Nowell. Fran Lawther. Shrai Popat. Maya Yang. Lucy Campbell.
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