Election Law

The U.S. Supreme Court shut down a bid by New York courts to redistrict a Republican-controlled congressional seat ahead of the 2026 midterms on Monday.

In its 6-3 ruling, the high court granted an emergency application to temporarily stay (“pause”) a state judge’s efforts to redraw Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ congressional district. Malliotakis has represented New York’s 11th Congressional District since 2021 and won reelection by 28 points during the 2024 election.

As described by The Hill, “A state judge had ordered the boundaries be redrawn after ruling the district dilutes black and Latino voting strength in violation of the state constitution.” The Supreme Court’s Monday order “granted Malliotakis’s emergency application to block that ruling as the litigation proceeds, effectively restoring her existing district lines for the midterms.”

The high court noted that the New York court’s ruling “is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the New York state courts” and the filing of a petition at SCOTUS asking the justices to take up the case. The Supreme Court’s stay will terminate if it declines to hear the case or if it agrees to take up the case and renders a verdict on the matter.

Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied Malliotakis’ request for relief.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito authored a concurring opinion in which he expressed agreement with the court’s decision and blasted the New York judge’s directive “that blatantly discriminates on the basis of race.” He noted how the “New York Supreme Court (that State’s trial-level court) ordered the New York Independent Redistricting Commission to draw a new congressional district for the express purpose of ensuring that ‘minority voters’ are able to elect the candidate of their choice.”

“That is unadorned racial discrimination, an inherently ‘odious’ activity that violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause except in the ‘most extraordinary case,’” Alito wrote. “Extraordinary circumstances exist only when the challenged state conduct is narrowly tailored to achieve a ‘compelling’ interest, and our precedents have identified only two compelling interests that can justify race-based government action: (1) mitigating prison-specific risks and (2) ‘remediating specific, identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute.’ … Neither of those interests is present here.”

In her dissent, Sotomayor (joined by Kagan and Jackson) accused the majority of “[i]gnoring every limit on federal courts’ authority” by “tak[ing] the unprecedented step of staying a state trial court’s decision in a redistricting dispute on matters of state law without giving the State’s highest court a chance to act.” Such an action, she claimed, “violates basic principles of jurisdiction, federalism, and equity.”

“By granting these applications, the Court thrusts itself into the middle of every election-law dispute around the country, even as many States redraw their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 election,” Sotomayor wrote. “It also invites parties searching for a sympathetic ear to file emergency applications directly with this Court, without even bothering to ask the state courts first. There is much reason to question whether the majority will exercise its newfound authority wisely, but there is no reason to question this: If you build it, they will come.”

Monday’s ruling is the latest in a series of redistricting-related cases to come before the high court ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Within the past several months, the justices have effectively greenlit maps passed by Texas and California that bolster their respective ruling party’s chances of winning more seats this fall.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood