Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens

_________________
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1 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 25A608
GREG ABBOTT, ET AL. v. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN
AMERICAN CITIZENS,
ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR STAY
[December 4, 2025]
With an eye on the upcoming 2026 midterm elections,
several States have in recent months redrawn their con-
gressional districts in ways that are predicted to favor the
State’s dominant political party. Texas adopted the first
new map, then California responded with its own map for
the stated purpose of counteracting what Texas had done.
North Carolina followed suit, and other States are also con-
sidering new maps.
Respondents in this case challenged the new Texas map,
contending that the legislature’s motive was predominantly
racial. A divided three-judge District Court agreed and en-
joined the use of the new map in the 2026 elections. With
the 2026 campaign underway, the State of Texas and sev-
eral of its officials applied to this Court for a stay.
Based on our preliminary evaluation of this case, Texas
satisfies the traditional criteria for interim relief. See Indi-
ana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler LLC, 556 U. S.
960 (2009) (per curiam). Texas is likely to succeed on the
merits of its claim that the District Court committed at
least two serious errors. First, the District Court failed to
honor the presumption of legislative good faith by constru-
ing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against
the legislature. Contra, Alexander v. South Carolina State
Conference of the NAACP, 602 U. S. 1, 10 (2024). Second,
the District Court failed to draw a dispositive or near-
dispositive adverse inference against respondents even

2 ABBOTT v. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN
AMERICAN CITIZENS
A
LITO, J., concurring
though they did not produce a viable alternative map that
met the State’s avowedly partisan goals. Contra, id., at 34–
35.
Texas has also made a strong showing of irreparable
harm and that the equities and public interest favor it.
“This Court has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal
courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the
eve of an election.” Republican National Committee v. Dem-
ocratic National Committee, 589 U. S. 423, 424 (2020)
(per curiam). The District Court violated that rule here.
The District Court improperly inserted itself into an active
primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting
the delicate federal-state balance in elections.
The application for stay presented to J
USTICE ALITO and
by him referred to the Court is granted. The November 18,
2025 order entered by the United States District Court for
the Western District of Texas, case No. 3:21–cv–259, is
stayed pending the timely filing of an appeal in this Court.
Should a notice of appeal and jurisdictional statement be
timely filed, this order shall remain in effect pending this
Court’s action on the appeal. If the appeal is dismissed, or
the judgment is affirmed, this order will terminate auto-
matically. In the event that jurisdiction is noted or post-
poned, this order will remain in effect pending the sending
down of the judgment of this Court.
J
USTICE ALITO, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS and
J
USTICE GORSUCH join, concurring in the grant of the ap-
plication for stay.
I join the order issued by the Court. Texas needs cer-
tainty on which map will govern the 2026 midterm elec-
tions, so I will not delay the Court’s order by writing a de-
tailed response to each of the dissent’s arguments. Instead,
I offer two short points which for me are decisive.
First, the dissent does not dispute—because it is indis-
putable—that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas

3 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
A
LITO, J., concurring
map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was
partisan advantage pure and simple.
Second, the clear-error standard of review does not apply
here because the “‘trial court base[d] its findings upon a
mistaken impression of applicable legal principles.’” Alex-
ander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP,
602 U. S. 1, 18 (2024). Because of the correlation between
race and partisan preference, litigants can easily use claims
of racial gerrymandering for partisan ends. Cooper v. Har-
ris, 581 U. S. 285, 335 (2017) (A
LITO, J., concurring in judg-
ment in part and dissenting in part). To prevent this, our
precedents place the burden on the challengers “to disen-
tangle race and politics.” Alexander, 602 U. S., at 6. Thus,
when the asserted reason for a map is political, it is critical
for challengers to produce an alternative map that serves
the State’s allegedly partisan aim just as well as the map
the State adopted. Id., at 34; Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U. S.
234, 258 (2001). Although respondents’ experts could have
easily produced such a map if that were possible, they did
not, giving rise to a strong inference that the State’s map
was indeed based on partisanship, not race. Neither the
duration of the District Court’s hearing nor the length of its
majority opinion provides an excuse for failing to apply the
correct legal standards as set out clearly in our case law.

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1 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 25A608
GREG ABBOTT, ET AL. v. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN
AMERICAN CITIZENS,
ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR STAY
[December 4, 2025]
JUSTICE KAGAN, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR and
J
USTICE JACKSON join, dissenting from the grant of the ap-
plication for stay.
Over the course of three months, a three-judge District
Court in Texas undertook to resolve the factual dispute at
issue in this application: In enacting an electoral map
slanted toward Republicans, did Texas predominantly use
race to draw its new district lines? Or said otherwise, did
Texas accomplish its partisan objectives by means of a ra-
cial gerrymander? The District Court conducted a nine-day
hearing, involving the testimony of nearly two dozen wit-
nesses and the introduction of thousands of exhibits. It
sifted through the resulting factual record, spanning some
3,000 pages. It assessed the credibility of each of the wit-
nesses it had seen and heard in the courtroom. And after
considering all the evidence, it held that the answer was
clear. Texas largely divided its citizens along racial lines to
create its new pro-Republican House map, in violation of
the Constitution’s Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
The court issued a 160-page opinion recounting in detail its
factual findings.
Yet this Court reverses that judgment based on its pe-
rusal, over a holiday weekend, of a cold paper record. We
are a higher court than the District Court, but we are not a
better one when it comes to making such a fact-based deci-
sion. That is why we are supposed to use a clear-error

2 ABBOTT v. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN
AMERICAN CITIZENS
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
standard of review—why we are supposed to uphold the
District Court’s decision that race-based line-drawing oc-
curred (even if we would have ruled differently) so long as
it is plausible. Without so much as a word about that stand-
ard, this Court today announces that Texas may run next
year’s elections with a map the District Court found to have
violated all our oft-repeated strictures about the use of race
in districting. Today’s order disrespects the work of a Dis-
trict Court that did everything one could ask to carry out
its charge—that put aside every consideration except get-
ting the issue before it right. And today’s order disserves
the millions of Texans whom the District Court found were
assigned to their new districts based on their race. Because
this Court’s precedents and our Constitution demand bet-
ter, I respectfully dissent.
I
Recall the state of the world last spring, before mid-
decade, overtly partisan redistricting (in both red and blue
States) became de rigueur. In those months, President
Trump and his political team urged Texas officials to re-
draw their House map, with the goal of creating more Re-
publican seats and protecting that party’s vulnerable ma-
jority. The project was on no one’s legislative agenda.
Texas officials had created a new map, per usual, in re-
sponse to the population shifts revealed in the 2020 census.
And those officials expected that the State’s next map,
again per usual, would follow the 2030 count. A mid-decade
redistricting, absent some legal need, was then nearly un-
heard of. And although no one could challenge a partisan
gerrymander in court—our decision in Rucho v. Common
Cause, 588 U. S. 684 (2019), saw to that—voters could hold
those supporting it to political account. (Again, this was in
those innocent days—prior to Texas’s redistricting—when
partisan gerrymanders seemed undemocratic or at least
unsavory, rather than a mark of political conviction or

3 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
loyalty.) For those reasons (and perhaps for fear of dum-
mymandering too), the Trump Administration’s campaign
for a new, partisan redistricting got little traction. See App.
to Application for Stay 2, 15–17. On June 10, State Senator
Joan Huffman—the sponsor of the 2021 map—testified in a
judicial proceeding that the legislature was not considering
redrawing its map. See id., at 17. And on June 23, Gover-
nor Greg Abbott announced that he was calling a special
legislative session to address various matters—but redis-
tricting was conspicuously not among them. Id., at 16.
With so little to show for its efforts, the Trump Admin-
istration switched tacks—converting its political importun-
ing into a legal demand. On July 7, the Department of Jus-
tice’s Civil Rights Division sent the Texas Governor and
Attorney General a letter—to serve, it said, “as formal no-
tice”—describing the office’s “serious concerns regarding
the legality of four of Texas’s congressional districts.” Id.,
at 17. The letter focused on those districts’ racial composi-
tion. Each was described as a “coalition district”—meaning
a district in which two or more minority groups (say, Blacks
and Hispanics) can together form a majority and elect a can-
didate of their choice. (In racially diverse places like Texas,
such districts are not uncommon.) The letter stated—quite
incorrectly (no one now tries to defend the proposition)—
that the creation of those districts was unlawful: “It is well-
established that so-called ‘coalition districts’ run afoul [of]
the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Id., at 18. Accordingly, the letter maintained, they “must
now be corrected”—“rectified immediately by [the] state
legislature[].” Ibid. The letter concluded that Texas should
bring its current districting scheme “into compliance” with
the (supposed) law, or else risk the U. S. Attorney General
“seek[ing] legal action against the State.” Id., at 19.
With that letter, Texas’s attitude changed. Once the Ad-
ministration’s redistricting proposal came packaged as a le-
gal ultimatum to change various districts’ racial

4 ABBOTT v. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN
AMERICAN CITIZENS
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
composition, Texas embraced it. Two days after receiving
DOJ’s letter, the until-then-reluctant Governor Abbott is-
sued a proclamation adding the following to the agenda for
the upcoming special legislative session: “Legislation that
provides a revised congressional redistricting plan in light
of constitutional concerns raised by the U. S. Department
of Justice.” Id., at 30–31. And in late August, the legisla-
ture enacted a new map—one that both secured five more
Republican-leaning seats and “achieved all but one of the
racial objectives that DOJ demanded.” Id., at 3. The map
“dismantled and left unrecognizable” the districts that
DOJ’s letter had identified, along with several similar coa-
lition districts. Ibid. And it made three of those districts
into majority-Black or majority-Hispanic districts by the
smallest amount possible, with the majority in each coming
in at between 50.2 and 50.5 percent. Id., at 97.
II
The plaintiffs here challenged Texas’s new map as a ra-
cial gerrymander, in violation of the Fourteenth and Fif-
teenth Amendments. They did not contest that politics mo-
tivated the Trump Administration’s redistricting scheme,
or that politics made Republican state legislators glad to
vote for the map eventually developed. But it was race, the
plaintiffs argued, that gave the redistricting plan life—by
enabling state officials to present it as a legal necessity ra-
ther than a partisan gambit. And most important, they con-
tended, it was race that mainly accounted for where the
new, Republican-friendly lines were drawn.
The law respecting a racial-gerrymander claim is well
settled. The Constitution forbids a State, absent a compel-
ling justification, from “separat[ing] its citizens into differ-
ent voting districts on the basis of race.” Bethune-Hill v.
Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 580 U. S. 178, 187 (2017).
To prove such racial sorting, the plaintiffs must show that
race was the “predominant factor motivating the

5 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
legislature’s decision to place a significant number of voters
within or without a particular district.” Alexander v. South
Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, 602 U. S. 1, 7
(2024). They can do so through “‘direct evidence’ of legisla-
tive intent, ‘circumstantial evidence of a district’s shape
and demographics,’ or a mix of both.” Cooper v. Harris, 581
U. S. 285, 291 (2017) (quoting Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S.
900, 916 (1995)). And notably here, nothing changes just
because the legislature has drawn race-based lines “in or-
der to advance [non-race-based] goals, including political
ones.” Cooper, 581 U. S., at 291, n. 1. So it is unconstitu-
tional (sans a compelling interest) for “legislators [to] use
race as their predominant districting criterion with the end
goal of advancing their partisan interests.” Id., at 308, n. 7.
Texas’s only defense to the racial-gerrymander claim
here is that no such gerrymander happened. In other
words, Texas does not assert a compelling interest in draw-
ing lines based on race. Texas has never argued in this lit-
igation that the DOJ letter was right—that it had to redis-
trict according to race in order to correct an existing legal
violation. And Texas of course does not contend that the
pursuit of partisan advancement is itself a compelling in-
terest. (It is not.) All Texas has ever said in response to the
plaintiffs’ suit is that race had nothing to do with its redis-
tricting process. According to the State, its officials acted
only to protect Republican incumbents in the House and to
pick up another five predictably Republican seats. In par-
ticular, Texas says, racial data never entered into the line-
drawing process, even though the mapmaker had that data
available at the press of a key on his redistricting software.
Any striking racial features of the new map were mere hap-
penstance, Texas contends—a coincidence born of the cor-
relation between race and partisan preference.
The District Court’s task, then, was a singularly factual
one: It had to choose between the plaintiffs’ “race predomi-
nated” account and the State’s “race never entered the

6 ABBOTT v. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN
AMERICAN CITIZENS
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
picture” story. To do so, it held a nine-day hearing during
which it heard from 23 witnesses, received into evidence
thousands of exhibits, and watched many hours of video
footage of legislators and Governor Abbott discussing the
proposed map as it was under consideration. After as-
sessing the credibility of the witnesses and weighing all the
competing evidence, the District Court decided that the
merits were “clearcut” in favor of the plaintiffs. App. 152.
True, the ultimate goal of Texas’s redistricting was to pick
up Republican seats. But “[s]ubstantial evidence” revealed
that race predominated in the actual drawing of district
lines. Id., at 2. So, the District Court concluded, in acting
to advance partisan interests, “Texas racially gerryman-
dered the 2025 Map.” Ibid.
In support of that conclusion, the District Court described
three kinds of direct evidence, cumulatively “strong,” that
race had played a predominant role in redistricting. Id., at
59. First, “[w]hat triggered the redistricting process” was
the “Administration reframing the request” to do partisan
districting “in exclusively racial terms.” Id., at 62. Here,
the crucial fact was the DOJ letter. That letter, to be sure,
did not specify exactly how Texas should “rectify” and “cor-
rect[]” its supposedly illegal coalition districts. Id., at 59.
But (the court explained) “there’s only one way to remedy a
district whose only ‘objectionable’ characteristic is that no
single racial group constitutes a 50% majority”: to “redraw
[the district] so a single racial group constitutes a 50% ma-
jority.” Ibid. The DOJ letter thus “impos[ed] a 50% racial
target for Texas to meet when redrawing” certain districts.
Ibid. And it thereby “directed Texas to engage in racial ger-
rymandering.” Ibid.
Second, the District Court described how the Governor
promptly “ask[ed] the Legislature to give DOJ the racial re-
balancing it wanted—and for the reasons that DOJ cited.”
Id., at 31. Although he had resisted redistricting for
months, it took the Governor just two days from receipt of

7 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
the DOJ letter to add to the legislative agenda a proposal
for responding to the “constitutional concerns raised” about
certain districts’ racial composition. Ibid.; see supra, at 3–
4. And the court noted that, from that point on, the Gover-
nor consistently expressed support for the new map in those
same racial terms: as a means to convert coalition districts
into majority-Hispanic or majority-Black districts. See
App. 31–34. In one interview, for example, he stated that
“we wanted to remove those coalition districts and draw
them in ways that, in fact, turned out to provide more seats
for Hispanics.” Id., at 32; see also id., at 33, n. 115 (“[W]e
want to make sure that we have maps that don’t impose
coalition districts”; “we’re able to take the people who were
in those coalition districts and make sure they are going to
be in districts that really represent the[ir] voting prefer-
ences”). And conversely, the District Court related, Gover-
nor Abbott consistently “rejected the idea that Texas was
redistricting to fulfill President Trump’s demand for addi-
tional Republican districts.” Id., at 64. The Governor main-
tained, for example, that the map drew Hispanic seats, not
Republican ones: “It just coincides it’s going to be Hispanic
Republicans elected to those seats” given that more Hispan-
ics were “align[ing] with Republicans.” Id., at 32; see also
id., at 34, n. 117 (The “districts we are drawing, they would
be Hispanic districts” that just so “happen to be Hispanic
Republican districts”).
And third, the District Court found that legislators, in-
cluding the redistricting bill’s primary sponsors, repeatedly
spoke in the same way: They “suggest[ed] that they had in-
tentionally manipulated the districts’ lines to create more
majority-Hispanic and majority-Black districts.” Id., at 3.
The legislator who introduced the bill, for example, crowed:
“[W]e created four out of five new seats” to have a “Hispanic
majority. I would say that’s great. That doesn’t ensure that
a political party wins them, but the Hispanic—four out of
five Hispanic majority out of those new districts—that’s a

8 ABBOTT v. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN
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K
AGAN, J., dissenting
pretty strong message, and it’s good.” Id., at 73, n. 258; see
also id., at 75, n. 265 (another legislator boasting that “pre-
viously, Black voters in that district did not hold a majority,
but under [the new plan], they actually do”); id., at 76, n.
267 (yet another legislator noting that one district was
“purposely altered to [be] a Black [Citizen Age Voting Pop-
ulation (CVAP)] majority district” and another was “pur-
posely changed to increase its Hispanic CVAP”). The Dis-
trict Court, in reviewing the legislative evidence, well
understood that partisan motivations underlay the new
plan. See, e.g., id., at 76. But the bill’s backers, the court
explained, “strategized that a map that eliminated coalition
districts and increased the number of majority-Hispanic
and majority-Black districts would be more ‘sellable’ than a
nakedly partisan map.” Ibid. Such a map would allow leg-
islators to “deny they were redistricting for purely partisan
reasons” and to gain more public support for the endeavor,
especially among Hispanic Texans. Ibid.
Circumstantial evidence, the court continued, confirmed
what the direct evidence showed: that race predominated in
the drawing of district lines. The new plan “fulfilled” al-
most all the racial goals “that DOJ and the Governor de-
sired”; indeed, the map dismantled even more coalition dis-
tricts than the DOJ letter had identified. Id., at 105; see
id., at 50. And most strikingly, the court noted, the map’s
conversion of three of those coalition districts into majority-
Black or majority-Hispanic districts was accomplished by
the barest of margins—half a percentage point or still less.
So, the District Court recounted, one district went from
25.6% to 50.3% Hispanic; another went from 38.8% to 50.5%
Black; and yet a third went from 46.0% to 50.2% Black. See
id., at 97. The court found it “very unlikely” that a map-
maker relying only on race-neutral criteria and using only
non-racial data would “have hit a barely 50% CVAP three
times by pure chance.” Id., at 98. It was uncontested that
racial data came preloaded into the mapmaker’s

9 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
redistricting software, so he could look at it anytime he
wanted. The mapmaker testified to the court that he had
not done so. See id., at 91. But the court, noting that the
mapmaker was “well aware” of the DOJ letter—indeed,
that he had been shown a draft by White House officials
before it was sent—“question[ed] [his] veracity” and “dis-
credit[ed]” his testimony. Id., at 96, 98, 99. It was, the court
concluded, “far more plausible that [the mapmaker] had
both racial and partisan data turned on while drawing the
2025 Map and that he used the former to achieve the racial
targets that DOJ and the Governor had explicitly an-
nounced as he simultaneously used the latter to achieve his
partisan goals.” Id., at 99.
And that conclusion was confirmed by expert testimony.
One of the expert witnesses testified that she had “gener-
ated tens of thousands of congressional maps that follow
traditional districting criteria and favor Republicans by
various metrics”—in other words, that eschewed racial
goals and racial data. Id., at 127. The result? “[N]ot one of
them had racial demographics that looked anything like
those in the 2025 Map.” Ibid. The expert’s analysis thus
supported what the raw numbers (e.g., those three 50% dis-
tricts) showed: It was—once again—“highly unlikely” that
a legislature drawing a map based on “partisan and other
race-neutral considerations” would have arrived at the one
Texas enacted. Id., at 121.
Put all of that together—the direct and circumstantial ev-
idence alike—and the District Court’s conclusion followed:
The plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their racial-gerry-
mandering claim. The desire for more Republican seats no
doubt motivated the redistricting project: It was, as this
Court has said, the officials’ “end goal.” Cooper, 581 U. S.,
at 308, n. 7. But the district lines drawn resulted predomi-
nantly “from the intentional manipulation of the districts’
racial makeup.” App. 127. Race provided the excuse for the
partisan effort. And yet more critically, race provided the

10 ABBOTT v. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN
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K
AGAN, J., dissenting
key means of implementing it. And that, the District Court
held, is a violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend-
ments.
III
A
This Court owes, though today has not given, “significant
deference” to the District Court’s marshaling and weighing
of so much evidence. Cooper, 581 U. S., at 293. You would
never guess it from the majority’s order, but under this
Court’s precedents, a district court’s factfinding about elec-
toral districting—“most notably, as to whether racial con-
siderations predominated in drawing district lines”—is re-
versible “only for clear error.” Ibid.; see Alexander, 602
U. S., at 18 (describing that test as “demanding”). Under
that standard, “we may not reverse just because we would
have decided the matter differently.” Cooper, 581 U. S., at
293. If a district court’s factual determination is “‘plausible’
in light of the full record—even if another is equally or more
so”—that determination “must govern.” Ibid. (quoting An-
derson v. Bessemer City, 470 U. S. 564, 574 (1985)). And in
deciding what is thus “plausible,” we must “give singular
deference to a trial court’s judgment about the credibility of
witnesses.” Cooper, 581 U. S., at 309. The district court
has conducted the hearing and knows the whole record. It
is better positioned than this Court to decide what evidence
to credit about the drawing of district lines.
Taking that standard seriously calls for denying Texas’s
stay application. In its 160-page opinion, the District Court
marched methodically through the entirety of the trial rec-
ord. The court considered with care the evidence support-
ing Texas, as well as that supporting the plaintiffs. See,
e.g., App. 79–104, 128–134. The court explained each of the
credibility judgments it rendered—noting, to take just one
example, how one witness’s testimony conflicted with other
evidence, including another witness’s testimony. See, e.g.,

11 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
id., at 96–99 (discussing the mapmaker’s testimony). Ulti-
mately, the court weighed all the evidence and made find-
ings, summarized above, about how Texas’s map was con-
structed. I do not say that those findings were inescapable;
a court coming out the opposite way could well have de-
served this Court’s deference too. What they were—and
this is the thing that matters on clear-error review—is
plausible. It was “plausible”—perfectly plausible “in light
of the full record”—that Texas drew its new map mainly on
racial lines. Cooper, 581 U. S., at 293. (Indeed, I think—
though this is not necessary—that the court’s conclusion
was right.)
In asserting instead that the court’s conclusion was “im-
plausible,” Texas argues that because it was trying to “max-
imize[] partisan advantage,” it would have relegated all ra-
cial considerations to the sidelines. Application 11. But
that claim is too simple by half, as this Court has previously
recognized. Because of the “strong correlation[s] between
race and voting behavior,” we have explained, States may
well avail themselves of “race-based districting for ulti-
mately political reasons”—that is, “to advance their parti-
san interests.” Cooper, 581 U. S., at 319, n. 15; see id., at
291, n. 1. So, for example, legislators may “think[] that a
proposed district is more ‘sellable’ as a race-based VRA com-
pliance measure than as a political gerrymander and will
accomplish much the same thing.” Id., at 308, n. 7. That is
just what the District Court found that key Texas lawmak-
ers thought in creating and supporting the redistricting
plan. See App. 3, 76; see supra, at 8. The District Court
knew—explained repeatedly—that partisan motives lay be-
neath the new map. See, e.g., App. 2–3, 76–77. But so too
the court found that race was all over it. The lawmakers
created new Republican seats while—indeed, by means of—
converting coalition districts into single-race majority-
minority districts. And once again, because that conclusion

12 ABBOTT v. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN
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K
AGAN, J., dissenting
is “plausible in light of the full record,” it “must govern.”
Cooper, 581 U. S., at 293.
For its part, the majority complains—just as wrongly—
that the District Court made a “serious error[]” in “fail[ing]
to honor the presumption of legislative good faith.” Ante, at
1. That presumption is, to be sure, a well-settled part of our
districting law. Because of the complexity of electoral dis-
tricting, we have explained, the State’s good faith must be
presumed “until a claimant makes a showing” of “race-
based decisionmaking.” Miller, 515 U. S., at 915. But con-
tra the majority, the District Court properly extended
Texas that presumption. It explained that federal courts
“must exercise extraordinary caution in adjudicating”
racial-gerrymandering claims. App. 57 (quoting Alexander,
602 U. S., at 7). And it then stated what that caution en-
tails in much the same terms as today’s majority uses:
When considering evidence that could support either a ra-
cial or a non-racial account of a districting action, the court
had to “draw the inference that cuts in the legislature’s fa-
vor.” App. 58 (quoting Alexander, 602 U. S., at 10); compare
ante, at 1 (calling for “ambiguous” evidence to be “con-
stru[ed]” in the legislature’s favor). In line with that under-
standing, the District Court found that certain legislators’
statements were too ambiguous to “clear the presumption
of legislative good faith.” App. 71–72, and n. 251 (again
quoting Alexander, 602 U. S., at 10). But other evidence,
direct and circumstantial alike, was not; and as all the rec-
ord evidence piled up, the court concluded that state offi-
cials “purposefully manipulated the districts’ racial num-
bers.” App. 77. Presumptions, after all, can be
simultaneously “honor[ed]” and overcome. Ante, at 1. And
so it was here, as the District Court assessed credibility and
found facts—as, in the end, district courts must.
The majority likewise is wrong to say that the District
Court erred in “fail[ing] to draw a dispositive or near-
dispositive adverse inference” against the plaintiffs for

13 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
their failure to “produce a viable alternative map” that met
the State’s partisan goals without the enacted map’s racial
features. Ante, at 1–2 (citing Alexander, 602 U. S., at 34–
35). In fact, the District Court’s treatment of the “alterna-
tive map” issue fully accords with our instructions in Alex-
ander—a case which, like this one, involved the “disen-
tangl[ing]” of race and politics in redistricting. 602 U. S., at
6. We first stated in Alexander that the absence of a sub-
stitute map merits an adverse inference in a racial gerry-
mander case. See id., at 34–35. And in line with that edict,
the District Court drew one. See App. 132. We next said in
Alexander that the inference thus drawn would be “dispos-
itive” (i.e., fatal) only some of the time. Alexander, 602
U. S., at 35. When would it be so? Alexander answered:
“The adverse inference may be dispositive in many, if not
most, cases where the plaintiff lacks direct evidence.” Ibid.
The District Court quoted that language, and explained
why it did not force a dispositive inference here. In short,
because there was lots of direct evidence. See App. 132. Or
as the District Court stated more fully: “Unlike the chal-
lengers in Alexander, who ‘provided no direct evidence of a
racial gerrymander,’ the Plaintiff Groups here have pro-
duced substantial direct evidence indicating that race was
the predominant driver in the 2025 redistricting process.”
Ibid. (quoting Alexander, 602 U. S., at 18). So a racial ger-
rymander could be found, under Alexander’s own terms, de-
spite the lack of a map. That is because the map’s absence
does not make the direct evidence of race-based decision-
making go away.*
——————
*After explaining why the adverse inference was not dispositive in this
case, the District Court also speculated that it might not have had to
draw the inference at all because the case was at such an early stage.
App. 132. (Here, the court noted that the expert testimony suggested
that the plaintiffs would have had no trouble coming up with a map, so
that their failure to do so likely reflected a lack of time. See id., at 134.)
This Court has not specifically opined on that matter one way or another.

14 ABBOTT v. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN
AMERICAN CITIZENS
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
What, then, does the majority think is wrong? One pos-
sibility lies in the word “near-dispositive” in today’s order.
Ante, at 1. Perhaps the majority has a theory about why,
despite all the direct evidence, a “near-dispositive” infer-
ence was still appropriate? If so, that is made up for the
occasion. The word “near-dispositive” does not appear in
Alexander, which everyone agrees is the critical decision ad-
dressing alternative maps. Nor does that term appear in
any other of this Court’s decisions respecting adverse infer-
ences (of any type). (Actually, the word appears only three
times in the whole U. S. Reports. See, e.g., Rogers v. Ten-
nessee, 532 U. S. 451, 473, n. 2 (2001) (Scalia, J., dissenting)
(referring to “[t]he near-dispositive strength Blackstone ac-
corded stare decisis”).) So it is hardly surprising that the
District Court did not address whether a “near-dispositive”
inference was called for; and the court’s “fail[ure]” to do so
can play no proper role in today’s order. Ante, at 1–2. The
remaining possibility—no more excusable for an appellate
court—is that the majority is simply second-guessing the
District Court’s factfinding. That court, to repeat, rejected
treating the adverse interest as dispositive (as Alexander
permits) because of the “substantial direct evidence” of
race-based districting. So maybe the majority is just saying
that it sees no such evidence—that it interprets all the facts
differently, as reflective of only partisan districting, with no
racial component. But on clear-error review, what basis
does the majority have to thus substitute its understanding
of the direct evidence for the District Court’s? The short
answer is: It has none.
——————
But even assuming the adverse inference is appropriate at every stage of
the litigation, the primary rationale of the District Court stands: The ad-
verse inference was not dispositive because of all the direct evidence in
the case.

15 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
B
Nor does the majority have any warrant to stay the Dis-
trict Court’s order for “alter[ing] the election rules on the
eve of an election.” Ante, at 2. Here, the majority invokes
(though without naming) the so-called Purcell principle.
See Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U. S. 1, 4–5 (2006) (per cu-
riam). Under that decision, courts deciding whether to en-
join an election rule or map in the lead-up to an election
must consider, among other relevant equitable factors, the
order’s potential for causing “voter confusion.” Ibid. It is
an important caution. And it is one the District Court took
seriously, considering how everything this Court has said
on the subject applied to the facts at hand. See App. 140–
156. In then going ahead, the court was right.
Texas is not on “the eve of an election,” as was true in the
case the majority cites. Republican National Committee v.
Democratic National Committee, 589 U. S. 423, 424 (2020)
(per curiam); see ante, at 2. The election there was five days
after the injunction. Similarly, the election in Purcell was
“just weeks” away. 549 U. S., at 4. Here, Election Day is
eleven months from now. Even the primary election (which
Texas could change) is in March. The District Court care-
fully listed the various “election preparations” underway to
switch to the 2025 map. App. 144. On the other hand, the
court noted how the 2021 map—which the injunction rein-
stated—was, in a real sense, the status quo. See id., at 145.
Officials, candidates, and voters are all familiar with it from
the last two election cycles. Until late last summer, every-
one expected that map to govern 2026 too. And indeed, it
will be used in a special runoff election in the State’s largest
county on January 31, 2026. So, the District Court properly
concluded, “[a]n injunction in this case would not cause sig-
nificant disruption.” Id., at 144. Except to the extent all of
us live in election season all the time, the 2026 congres-
sional election is not well underway.

16 ABBOTT v. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN
AMERICAN CITIZENS
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
And even supposing it is now the ninth or tenth hour,
whose choice was that? It was of course the Texas legisla-
ture that decided to change its map six months before a
March primary. The plaintiffs could not have moved any
faster: They requested an injunction before the new law was
even signed. And to try to speed the litigation, they de-
clined discovery. (That decision, by the way, probably ac-
counted for their failure to submit an alternative map,
which to be probative must be based on the State’s particu-
lar districting criteria. See supra, at 13 n.) The District
Court moved expeditiously too, issuing its 160-page opinion
(on November 18) just a month after post-hearing briefing
concluded. No one dilly-dallied in this case. The District
Court ruled as “late” as it did because the legislature en-
acted a new map less than three months before.
If Purcell prevents such a ruling, it gives every State the
opportunity to hold an unlawful election. The District
Court, once again aptly, made the point: Were judicial re-
view so broadly foreclosed, then to implement even a “bla-
tantly unconstitutional map,” the “Legislature would need
only to pass” it on a schedule like this one. App. 154–155.
That cannot be the law—except of course that today it is.
According to the majority, Texas had a free pass to redis-
trict in August 2025 for the 2026 House elections. See ante,
at 2. All that the plaintiffs can hope for is better luck in
2028.
IV
The majority today loses sight of its proper role. It is sup-
posed to review the District Court’s factfinding only for
clear error. But under that deferential standard, the Dis-
trict Court’s “plausible” (actually, quite careful) factfinding
must survive. The majority can reach the result it does—
overturning the District Court’s finding of racial line-
drawing, even if to achieve partisan goals—only by

17 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2025)
K
AGAN, J., dissenting
arrogating to itself that court’s rightful function. We know
better, the majority declares today. I cannot think of a rea-
son why.
And this Court’s eagerness to playact a district court here
has serious consequence. The majority calls its “evalua-
tion” of this case “preliminary.” Ante, at 1. The results,
though, will be anything but. This Court’s stay guarantees
that Texas’s new map, with all its enhanced partisan ad-
vantage, will govern next year’s elections for the House of
Representatives. And this Court’s stay ensures that many
Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral
districts because of their race. And that result, as this
Court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of
the Constitution.