Supreme Courtroom Justice Samuel Alito on Friday quickly permitted Texas to make use of Republicans’ redrawn congressional map {that a} federal court docket blocked earlier this week.
Alito’s order comes after Texas requested the excessive court docket to intervene following a ruling from a panel of federal judges on Tuesday that barred the state from utilizing new district traces designed to assist Republicans decide up a further 5 Home seats in subsequent yr’s midterm elections.
The decrease court docket’s ruling, signed by Choose Jeffrey Brown — a nominee of President Donald Trump — had ordered Texas to make use of a earlier map that was drawn in 2021 as an alternative, after discovering that “substantial proof exhibits that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”
The executive keep is a short lived ruling that permits Texas to proceed to make use of its new map for now, because the Supreme Courtroom opinions the case.
The Supreme Courtroom ordered the civil rights advocacy teams that challenged the map to file a response by 5 p.m. on Monday. The submitting deadline for candidates in Texas forward of the March main is Dec. 8.
The district court docket’s determination dealt a big setback for Trump, who has urged Republicans in Texas and across the nation to enact new maps to assist shore up the social gathering’s slim Home majority.
Whereas congressional maps are usually reassessed in the beginning of every decade, when new census information is out there, Texas’ redrawn map triggered a nationwide mid-cycle redistricting battle between each events. Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina additionally handed new maps this yr to spice up their social gathering, whereas Trump is continuous to strain GOP lawmakers in Indiana to do the identical.
The Justice Division joined a Republican-led lawsuit difficult a Democratic-drawn map in California that voters authorized earlier this month.
