Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has temporarily halted a lower court ruling that would have prevented Texas from implementing its new congressional map.

Alito offered no explanation for issuing the administrative stay — a procedural pause that preserves the current situation while the justices review the dispute. The move does not reflect any judgment on the merits of the case.

His order was issued Friday evening, less than an hour after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and state attorneys submitted an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to protect the state’s controversial mid-decade redistricting plan, designed to secure five additional Republican seats in the U.S. House.

Earlier this week, the lower court’s majority concluded that “substantial evidence” suggested the map amounted to an unlawful racial gerrymander, citing a Justice Department memo pointing to a race-driven redistricting rationale.

In its Supreme Court filing, Texas sharply criticized the majority opinion written by Trump-appointed Judge Jeffrey Brown, arguing it failed to give proper deference to the legislature’s good faith and did not adequately separate racial considerations from political motivations.

The state also insisted that Judge Brown should not have ruled at all because the case arose too close to the 2026 election, just weeks before the Dec. 8 candidate filing deadline.

“The chaos caused by such an injunction is obvious,” Texas argued, noting that campaigning was already underway, candidates had begun collecting signatures, and early voting for the March 3, 2026 primary was only 91 days away.

The state is asking the justices to issue a stay by Dec. 1, which would allow the 2025 redistricting map to remain in place for the midterms.

The Supreme Court has ordered plaintiffs in the case to file their response by Monday at 5 p.m.

Texas’ emergency appeal comes shortly after a lower court released a sweeping 160-page decision striking down the state’s mid-decade redistricting plan as an overt racial gerrymander.

Judge Brown’s ruling barred Texas from using the new map in the 2026 elections, finding that “substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the map.”

The decision reverberated nationwide, intensifying an already heated redistricting battle driven by President Donald Trump’s push to maintain GOP control of the narrowly divided House.

Brown concluded that the unusual mid-cycle redrawing — normally done only once per decade — was undertaken largely in response to an explicit request from Trump’s Justice Department based “entirely on the racial makeup” of four Democratic-held districts.

Federal law and Supreme Court precedent forbid the use of race as the predominant factor in drawing districts if it disenfranchises or weakens the influence of minority voters.

In a blistering dissent issued the following day, Judge Jerry E. Smith accused Brown of echoing the interests of liberal activist George Soros and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Smith defended the Texas map as a lawful exercise rooted in partisan strategy, not racial intent.

“The most obvious reason for mid-cycle redistricting is partisan gain,” Smith wrote, arguing that the Supreme Court has long warned judges to avoid intervening in inherently political map-drawing decisions.