"But the biggest blow to Trump came from a federal district court panel in Texas that on November 19 struck down that state's new pro-GOP map - the first in the whole series - as an impermissible race-based gerrymander. Five new Republican House seats hung in the balance, but relief for Trump came from a familiar source: the U.S. Supreme Court."
"In concurring remarks, Justice Samuel Alito (joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch) made a point of comparing what Texas Republicans did to what California Democrats did in their Prop 50. In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan (joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson) complained that the conservatives disregarded the lower-court finding that Trump's own Justice Department practically drew the Texas map along race-conscious lines, and issued a "legal ultimatum" to Texas without which the gerrymander would have never taken place."
Multiple states resisted or invalidated Republican gerrymanders, with mixed judicial and political outcomes. A federal district court in Texas ruled the state's new pro-GOP map an impermissible race-based gerrymander, jeopardizing five Republican House seats. The U.S. Supreme Court issued an unsigned shadow-docket stay that effectively let the Texas map stand in the near term. Three conservative justices explicitly backed the stay while three liberal justices dissented. Justice Alito compared Texas Republicans' map to California's Prop 50, while Justice Kagan criticized conservatives for disregarding lower-court findings about race-conscious mapmaking by the Justice Department.
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