... After a panel of three federal judges ruled 2-1 on Tuesday that Texas cannot use its new congressional map for next year's election, all eyes turned to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will decide whether to allow the ruling to stand.
The judges ordered Texas to instead use the map it drew in 2021, which favors Republicans but not as aggressively as the 2025 map.
What happens next will likely unroll in two key steps. First, the state is expected to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to temporarily pause the ruling, which would allow Texas to use the more recent map while the appeal plays out.
Then, they will ask the high court to rule on the merits of the case -- did Texas disenfranchise voters of color when redrawing its maps this year?
With the Dec. 8 filing deadline approaching quickly, an initial short-term pause could still have significant implications for which map Texas holds its 2026 elections under.
The request will go first to Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative member of the court who handles emergency petitions from Texas, but it would likely take a majority of the court to decide to pause the court's ruling.
Whatever happens, it will need to happen quickly. Texas' 30-day candidate filing period began on Nov. 8, meaning candidates have less than three weeks to decide what seats they are running for. To do so, they need to know whether the state will be using the map drawn over the summer, or the map drawn in 2021. ...
