Washington (EFE).- The United States Supreme Court on Friday temporarily blocked a lower-court ruling that found Texas’ new congressional map for 2026 — advanced by President Donald Trump — likely discriminates on the basis of race.
The lower court in El Paso had concluded that the map deliberately favored white voters and diluted the political power of Black and Hispanic communities. The 2–1 decision came in response to lawsuits filed by civil rights groups on behalf of minority voters, according to U.S. media reports.
Texas drew the contested map in summer 2025 in an effort to give Republicans five additional seats in the U.S. House and safeguard their narrow congressional majority. If left in place, the El Paso judges’ ruling would have forced the state to use the map approved by the Legislature in 2021, which was based on the 2020 census.
The Supreme Court — whose conservative majority has previously frozen similar lower-court orders in Alabama and Louisiana when they came close to an election — has argued that such late changes could create confusion for voters and election officials.
In this case, the justices granted Texas’ request only hours after the state urged the court to intervene, citing the fast-approaching March 2026 congressional primaries.
Texas is not the only state facing challenges to its redistricting plans. Newly drawn maps in California, Missouri and North Carolina are also tied up in litigation, while the Supreme Court separately considers a Louisiana case that could limit the use of race as a factor in drawing districts under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. EFE
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