Texas redistricting showdown heads to Supreme Court as deadline pressures mount

The Supreme Court is bracing for another major election-law clash as Texas races to revive its GOP-friendly congressional map ahead of key 2026 election deadlines. A ruling on the state’s emergency appeal could arrive as soon as this week, adding new urgency to a redistricting cycle already burdened with lawsuits from across the country.

Texas’s appeal joins a backlog of high-stakes cases involving maps in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and North Dakota. While those disputes are moving more slowly, together they raise consequential questions about the role of race in redistricting and the long-term durability of the Voting Rights Act.

A Race Against Time in Texas

At the center of the Texas fight is timing. Gov. Greg Abbott argues that a lower court intervened too late when it blocked the state’s new congressional districts as a likely racial gerrymander. The governor points to the Purcell principle, which warns federal courts against making significant election changes close to voting.

In its emergency filing, the state argued there was no justification for throwing “the State’s congressional elections into disarray,” noting that candidates and voters alike are approaching the Dec. 8 filing deadline uncertain about which districts they’ll be competing in. The new map paired two Democratic incumbents; Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who had said he would not run under the new configuration, has suggested he may run after all if the older lines are reinstated. Other candidates have said they don’t know where to campaign this week.

A group of Republican candidates supporting Texas told the court that the 2026 cycle is already underway, emphasizing that campaigns have been contacting voters in the 2025 map districts for months and that substantial money and infrastructure have been put in place based on those boundaries.

Challengers push back, saying no deadlines need to shift and that reverting to the previous map—already used in prior elections—would not cause chaos. The Texas NAACP wrote in its filing that, contrary to the state’s warnings, “the sky is not about to fall in Texas.”

Justice Samuel Alito has temporarily allowed the state’s map to remain while the justices prepare their decision.

Purcell Principle Again at Center Stage

The Purcell principle has shaped several recent election disputes. In 2022, the Supreme Court allowed contested Republican-drawn maps in Alabama and Louisiana to remain in place for the midterms, despite lower courts finding both plans diluted Black voting power by including only one majority-Black district each. After the election, the high court agreed Alabama’s map violated the Voting Rights Act and required both states to draft new designs.

Ahead of the 2024 cycle, Louisiana returned to the court when a new group of plaintiffs alleged the Legislature’s revised map—this time adding a second majority-Black district—was itself an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The justices again stepped in, citing Purcell and letting the map go forward.

Texas’s challengers say those emergency orders came during active election years, which is not the case now. But the state argues it faces accelerating deadlines: overseas primary ballots must be mailed by Jan. 17, and early voting begins Feb. 17 for the March 3 primary. Texas says its scale and complicated election machinery place it under greater strain than the previous Purcell cases and that the court should act consistently.

Louisiana and Alabama Fights Continue

The Supreme Court is also still wrestling with the redistricting battles in Louisiana and Alabama. The emergency order keeping Louisiana’s current map in place remains until the court issues a final ruling. In a rare move, the justices reheard arguments in October and are expected to deliver a decision by early summer.

Legal experts say the court could use the Louisiana case to sharply restrict or even eliminate the use of race in redistricting—a ruling that would significantly limit Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which has long required states to create majority-minority districts when minority voters would otherwise be denied fair representation.

Meanwhile, Alabama has asked the Supreme Court to take up its latest map dispute. After the first ruling against its 2022 map, the state adopted a new plan that still lacked a second majority-Black district. A lower court blocked that effort and imposed its own map. Alabama Republicans have petitioned the justices again, but the court has not yet taken action.

Private Enforcement of the Voting Rights Act in Jeopardy

Another major question looming over the court involves who can bring Section 2 lawsuits. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that two Native American tribes could not challenge North Dakota’s state legislative districts, concluding that private plaintiffs lack the right to sue under Section 2. The ruling conflicts with decades of litigation brought by groups including the ACLU and NAACP.

The tribes have asked the Supreme Court to take up the issue. Mississippi officials have made a similar request after a court allowed the NAACP’s lawsuit over the state Legislature’s map to proceed.

The justices discussed both cases—alongside Alabama’s petition—during a recent closed-door conference but have yet to announce whether they will hear any of them.