By MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court docket on Friday briefly blocked a decrease courtroom ruling that discovered Texas’ 2026 congressional redistricting plan pushed by President Donald Trump probably discriminates on the premise of race.
The order signed by Justice Samuel Alito will stay in place no less than for the subsequent few days whereas the courtroom considers whether or not to permit the brand new map favorable to Republicans for use within the midterm elections.
The courtroom’s conservative majority has blocked related decrease courtroom rulings as a result of they’ve come too near elections.
The order happened an hour after the state referred to as on the excessive courtroom to intervene to keep away from confusion as congressional major elections strategy in March. The justices have blocked previous lower-court rulings in congressional redistricting instances, most just lately in Alabama and Louisiana, that got here a number of months earlier than elections.
The order was signed by Alito as a result of he’s the justice who handles emergency appeals from Texas.
Texas redrew its congressional map in the summertime as a part of Trump’s efforts to protect a slim Republican majority within the Home in subsequent 12 months’s elections, touching off a nationwide redistricting battle. The brand new redistricting map was engineered to present Republicans 5 extra Home seats, however a panel of federal judges in El Paso dominated 2-1 Tuesday that the civil rights teams that challenged the map on behalf of Black and Hispanic voters had been prone to win their case.
If that ruling ultimately holds, Texas might be compelled to carry elections subsequent 12 months utilizing the map drawn by the GOP-controlled Legislature in 2021 primarily based on the 2020 census.
Texas was the primary state to fulfill Trump’s calls for in what has grow to be an increasing nationwide battle over redistricting. Republicans drew the state’s new map to present the GOP 5 extra seats, and Missouri and North Carolina adopted with new maps including an extra Republican seat every. To counter these strikes, California voters accredited a poll initiative to present Democrats an extra 5 seats there.
The redrawn maps are going through courtroom challenges in California, Missouri and North Carolina.
The Supreme Court docket is individually contemplating a case from Louisiana which may additional restrict race-based districts below Part 2 of the Voting Rights Act. It’s not fully clear how the present spherical of redistricting could be affected by the result within the Louisiana case.
