The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that found Texas’ 2026 congressional redistricting plan pushed by President Donald Trump likely discriminates on the basis of race.
The order signed by Justice Samuel Alito will remain in place at least for the next few days while the court considers whether to allow the new map favorable to Republicans to be used in the midterm elections.
The court’s conservative majority has blocked similar lower court rulings because they have come too close to elections.
It’s really just Alito, not the full court.
Each circuit is assigned to a justice who initially handles emergency motions from that circuit. Alito is assigned to the 5th circuit, which contains Texas. Jackson handled the recent SNAP funding case because she is assigned to the 1st circuit which contains Massachusetts.
So Alito’s stay will be redecided by the full court. He set the response deadline on Monday, so it could be any time after that. It could be real fast or it could be a month.
Speaking on the merits of this application, it seems kind of rich to me to say that the court challenge is too close to the election, but it’s not too close for the legislature to change the map like a month earlier.