The Texas federal district court heard arguments in this case, but held off ruling until the preclearance was completed.

In a 5–4 decision split between the conservative and liberal justices, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed in September 2017 to freeze the redistricting order,[13] and hear the case in January 2018.

Oral arguments were heard on April 24, 2018, with observers stating that the judges appeared to be split along conservative and liberal lines.

"[22] Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Neil Gorsuch, filed a concurrence asserting that redistricting is not covered by the Voting Rights Act.

"It means that after years of litigation and undeniable proof of intentional discrimination, minority voters in Texas ... will continue to be underrepresented in the political process.

"[17] Justice Sotomayor also accused the court of running interference for racists by "blind[ing] itself to the overwhelming factual record" to let Texas use maps that, "in design and effect, burden the rights of minority voters."

[23] The Supreme Court's holding in City of Mobile v. Bolden (1980) made it nearly impossible to win Section 2 suits, because plaintiffs must prove that the lawmakers who passed voting-related laws acted with "racially discriminatory motivation.

"[25] He compared an argument made by Justice Alito in the Abbott decision with resistance by Southern States to the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education: "Alito's argument, in other words, is that the 2013 maps weren't enacted to preserve a racial gerrymander; they were enacted to shut down litigation challenging a racial gerrymander.

Journalist Vann R. Newkirk II asserted in July 2018 that the Roberts Court with its Shelby County v. Holder decision along with the 2018 Supreme Court decisions in Husted v. Randolph Institute[32][33] and Abbott v. Perez[17] has "set the stage for a new era of white hegemony", because these cases "furthered Roberts's mandate to distance the federal judiciary from Thurgood Marshall's vision of those bodies as active watchdogs for the Fourteenth and arbiters for America's racial injustices.

Furthermore, with Alito's gerrymandering decision, the Court holds that past discrimination by states—even at its boldest and most naked—is not really a consideration in assessments of current policies.

This part is crucial, because in an era where crafty state politicians have moved toward race-neutral language that clearly still seeks to disenfranchise people of color, a certain default suspicion by federal courts and the Department of Justice based on those state politicians' histories has been the main protective force for the minorities' voting rights.