In the space of about ten weeks, the Supreme Court let stand two of the most consequential partisan gerrymanders of the decade — one from each party. In December 2025, the justices declined to block Texas's new congressional map, redrawn by the GOP-controlled legislature specifically to help Republicans gain what NPR's reporting put at an edge in five U.S. House seats. In February 2026, the Court declined to hear an emergency appeal from California Republicans and the Justice Department seeking to block a counter-map — approved by California voters via Proposition 50 — that shifts five seats in Democrats' favor. Both orders came with no dissents noted and no explanation from the Court.
The two maps didn't happen in isolation. Per NPR's November 2025 accounting of the national fight, Republicans had also picked up redistricting gains in Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio, with Indiana, Kansas, Florida, and Louisiana as possible additional targets — a potential nationwide gain of roughly nine House seats if every GOP-eyed state redistricts. Democrats, meanwhile, had California's five seats locked in, a likely sixth in Utah, and possible additional seats in Virginia, Maryland, and Illinois that remained undecided as of that count. NPR's own assessment: "Democrats have fewer options than Republicans," largely because the GOP controls more state legislatures — where redistricting power resides — while Democratic-leaning states more often use independent commissions or face longer legal timelines.
How Fox News Is Telling It
Fox News's coverage of the California ruling frames it primarily as a procedural defeat for state Republicans, not a call to arms. The piece notes plainly that the ruling "comes after voters in California approved Proposition 50, shifting five seats toward Democrats," and that the justices' decision to decline the emergency appeal "included no dissents or explanation" — leaving California Republicans' and the Justice Department's underlying legal argument, that the map amounts to a racial gerrymander, to play out in a lower court instead. The piece treats the Supreme Court setback as one stage in an ongoing legal fight rather than a final word, without editorializing about the map's fairness either way.
Source: Fox News, "Supreme Court shuts down California GOP bid to block Newsom's new map," Feb. 4, 2026
How NPR Is Telling It
NPR's broader accounting of the national fight frames Texas, not California, as the fight's opening move: "Trump has set off a redistricting race across the country," driven by a desire to protect "the Republican advantage in the U.S. House, now just a few seats" — an advantage NPR notes would "also... continue to protect him from investigations by a Democratic-led House" should Democrats retake the chamber. California's map, per NPR, was explicitly a response in kind: its "ballot language itself referred to Texas," and NPR calls it "the biggest Democratic move yet against President Trump's effort." The outlet's reporting also gives space to the Republican counterargument — that Massachusetts, with nine Democrats in its nine congressional seats, is itself evidence of a longstanding Democratic gerrymander predating this fight entirely.
Source: NPR, "After California's vote to counter Trump, here's where redistricting stands," Nov. 6, 2025
Deskside's Read
This is one of the rare stories where "both sides do it" isn't a false-balance dodge — it's the documented sequence of events. Texas redrew its map first, explicitly to help one party. California redrew its map second, explicitly and by its own ballot language, to counter Texas. The Supreme Court, faced with challenges to both, let both stand without explaining why in either case. If you were hoping the Court would tell you whose map is more legitimate, it has now twice declined to be the one to do that before the 2026 elections — leaving California Republicans' racial-gerrymander claim to a lower court, on a timeline that will not resolve before ballots are printed.
What neither piece fully captures on its own is the structural asymmetry NPR documented directly: Republicans simply have more usable levers right now, because more state legislatures are in GOP hands and fewer of those states have independent commissions standing in the way. That's a fact about where each party currently holds state power, not a partisan complaint — and it's a different question from whether either map is fair, which the courts have so far declined to answer before voters go to the polls.
What We Don't Yet Know
- We could not obtain a single, up-to-date, consolidated tally of every state's redistricting status as of Sept. 21, 2026. NPR's seat count is dated Nov. 6, 2025, and several states it listed as undecided — Illinois, Maryland, Louisiana, Florida — may have moved since; we're not printing a current national total as fact.
- The portion of Fox News's report on the California ruling we could verify word-for-word did not include direct quotes from Gov. Newsom or from California Republicans' lawyers; we are not attributing specific quotes to them in this piece that we could not confirm firsthand.
- The underlying "racial gerrymander" lawsuit against California's map, which the Justice Department joined, remains unresolved in the lower courts as far as we could determine. Its outcome could still affect future elections even though the 2026 map stands for now.
- We have not independently re-verified the exact date and vote breakdown of the Supreme Court's separate order allowing Texas's map to proceed beyond secondary reporting; if you're relying on the precise procedural history, we'd recommend checking the Court's own docket.
Deskside's Bottom Line
Two parties, two maps, one Supreme Court that declined to pick a side either time. If you're a voter in a state whose lines just moved to help the party you didn't vote for, the fact that the other side did it too somewhere else this year is unlikely to feel like an answer. It isn't one — it's just the state of play heading into November.