TEXAS — The U.S. Supreme Court formally reinstated a redrawn Texas electoral map designed to add more Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives. The ruling reversed a lower court decision that had blocked Texas from using the map and ensured the new district lines would be used for the 2026 midterm elections and future contests until the next redistricting cycle.

The court's three liberal justices dissented. The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority and had issued an interim decision in December to revive the map, after allowing it to be used temporarily in November.

"The temporary ruling disrespects the work of a District Court that did everything one could ask to carry out its charge — that put aside every consideration except getting the issue before it right," Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said. A lower court had found that the map was likely racially discriminatory in violation of U.S. constitutional protections.

The Texas state legislature approved the map in August 2025, and Governor Greg Abbott signed it. The reinstated map could flip as many as five currently Democratic-held U.S. House seats to Republicans. Republicans hold slim majorities in both chambers of Congress.

Texas undertook the mid-decade redistricting effort after former President Donald Trump pushed the state to shore up the GOP's narrow majority in the midterm election. Trump prodded Republican lawmakers last year to redraw state congressional maps. Redistricting generally occurs once per decade to reflect population changes measured by the national census, though state legislatures led by both parties have undertaken redistricting outside that cycle.

State House Democrats left Texas to temporarily deprive the chamber of the headcount needed to pass the map. After the Democrats returned, the legislature passed the map and legal challenges followed. Several civil rights groups sued over the 2025 map, saying it was racially discriminatory.

In November, a three-judge panel issued a 160-page opinion finding substantial evidence the 2025 map was racially gerrymandered. Lawyers for the state then asked the Supreme Court to block the lower court's ruling and allow the map to be used for the 2026 primaries.

"The most blatant exercise of judicial activism that I have ever witnessed," 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Smith said.