DOJ backs Texas in Supreme Court fight over Republican-drawn map

Solicitor General John Sauer, who represents the Trump administration, wrote in an amicus brief that a lower court's decision to block the map through the 2026 midterms was wrong and that the Supreme Court should intervene and reverse the decision.

"This is not a close case," Sauer wrote.

Sauer said the lower court misunderstood what drove the Texas legislature to shift five districts in favor of Republicans. He said the move was not based on race, which could violate federal voting laws and the Constitution.

"There is overwhelming evidence - both direct and circumstantial - of partisan objectives, and any inference that the State inexplicably chose to use racial means is implausible," Sauer wrote.

Sauer also defended a letter Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon wrote to Texas this year demanding that it address "coalition districts" that favor Democrats, which the challengers to the map have seized on as evidence of race-based motives. Days after the letter, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, added redistricting to the legislature's agenda, leading to a stunning boycott in which state Democrats temporarily fled the state.

The lower court "misinterpreted the letter's meaning; and more importantly, the court misunderstood the letter's significance to the legislature's adoption of the 2025 map," Sauer said.

The plaintiffs in the case, who include numerous voting and immigrant rights groups, argued that Dhillon's letter demanded dismantling the coalition districts and packing Black and Latino voters into other districts.

"The DOJ letter, riddled with legal and factual errors, incorrectly asserted that these districts were 'unconstitutional coalition districts' that Texas was required to 'rectify' by changing their racial makeup," the plaintiffs' attorneys wrote.

Texas has asked the Supreme Court to pause the three-judge panel's ruling in the Western District of Texas that found 2-1 last week that race was too much of a factor in its redraw. 

"This summer, the Texas Legislature did what legislatures do: politics," Texas' attorneys argued in their request, disputing all notions that the redistricting process used race as a factor.

Justice Samuel Alito has administratively paused the panel's ruling, but the Supreme Court could now make a more lasting decision on the map at any time. Texas lawyers have also argued the high court should block the panel's decision because it interfered with the 2026 midterms, for which candidates were already filing to run based on the new map.