“When the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Louisiana v. Callais case that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional, Texas will take up redistricting again (Congressional, Texas Senate and Texas House),” Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, posted on social media. “Get ready. It’s coming.”
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued the ruling Spiller had been waiting for. The court did not entirely eliminate Section 2, the law’s key holding that prohibits vote dilution based on race, but it did make it much harder to win a case on those grounds. The court’s conservative majority declared that plaintiffs must now prove that mapmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of a racial group. This higher bar, Justice Elena Kagan said in her dissent, would eliminate the “lion’s share” of challenges under Section 2.
Some states are immediately rushing to redraw their maps under this new standard, hoping to split majority non-white areas that favor Democrats in order to create new Republican districts and strengthen existing ones before the midterms.
Texas is not yet following suit, in large part because the first round of the 2026 primary is already in the rearview mirror. But Spiller and others say they expect redrawing the state’s congressional, state House and Senate and State Board of Education districts to be on the table when lawmakers return in 2027.
“I think that we will have that opportunity and I look forward to that, if that’s what leadership decides that they’d like to do,” Spiller said, noting that the decision to redistrict will be made “above my pay grade.”
Rep. Mitch Little, a Lewisville Republican, said he anticipated the state would audit its maps and see if there was a need to redraw them in light of the Callais ruling.
“Someone is going to have to look at this and say, did we use race to draw majority-minority districts? And if so, that will encourage some soul-searching and review of where the lines lie,” he said, alluding to the court’s argument that sorting voters by race — even for the purpose of adhering to Section 2 — runs afoul of the Constitution. “I think there will be an appetite to get it right, whatever that means under the Callais opinion.”
On Wednesday, Gov. Greg Abbott called the ruling a “victory for state sovereignty and a recognition of the inherent equality of all Texans.” He did not say whether he thought the state should take another look at its voting maps; Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows did not comment on the ruling or respond to a request for comment.
The Legislature’s two redistricting committee chairs, Rep. Cody Vasut, R-Angleton, and Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, also did not respond to requests for comment. Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, who carried the House’s redistricting plan last summer, did not respond; earlier this year, he said the Callais decision could “spark the discussion” to redraw more maps.
The silence from the state’s top GOP leaders is not surprising, considering Texas’ 2021 and 2025 maps are still under litigation. Last summer, after four years of legal action and a monthlong trial over the 2021 maps, the judges decided to delay their decision until after the Callais ruling. In the subsequent legal battle over the 2025 congressional map, plaintiffs focused heavily on comments made by Abbott, Hunter and other elected officials to prove racial intent. And when the map was initially struck down by a federal panel, the judge who penned the decision cited those comments as the basis for the ruling, saying Abbott “explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict based on race.”
The Callais decision is likely to reopen the record for both of these lawsuits. Chad Dunn, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Wednesday’s decision was disappointing but insisted it wouldn’t stop their litigation against the existing maps.
“The Texas redistricting was handled so poorly that it fails even this new, more stringent test by the Supreme Court,” Dunn said.
See here for the background. The main reason why I say it’s too soon to tell is simply that the 2026 election hasn’t happened yet. We already have plenty of polling evidence to suggest that the statewide races will be competitive, at least. Doing another round of redistricting would require another legislative triumvirate, which is still likely but perhaps not overwhelmingly so. Even if that does happen again, if Dems have a strong enough showing, say picking up ten or so seats in the House and losing with Beto-in-2018 margins statewide, House members might be a little spooked about messing with their own boundaries, at least for the purposes of squeezing out more seats.
Or not. If there really are no rules anymore, then who knows what might happen. My point here is that we do have one legitimate shot at throwing up a significant roadblock. That’s pretty much the whole enchilada.