Washington — A federal court docket on Tuesday blocked Texas from utilizing its newly redrawn congressional map within the upcoming 2026 midterm elections, a setback for Republicans as they work to keep up their slim majority within the Home.
In a call authored by U.S. District Decide Jeffrey Brown, the court docket ordered the state to as an alternative use Home district traces adopted by the Texas legislature in 2021 for subsequent yr’s congressional elections. The dispute was heard by a three-judge panel, which divided 2-1 find that voting rights teams that challenged the map had been prone to show that the 2025 map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
The court docket discovered that plaintiffs will doubtless achieve displaying that race predominated over partisanship within the map-making course of, and stated the state legislature seems to have set and adopted a racial goal.
“The general public notion of this case is that it is about politics. To make sure, politics performed a task in drawing the 2025 Map,” Brown wrote. “However it was rather more than simply politics. Substantial proof reveals that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, stated the choice can be appealed on to the Supreme Courtroom.
“Legislature redrew our congressional maps to higher replicate Texans’ conservative voting preferences – and for no different cause. Any declare that these maps are discriminatory is absurd and unsupported by the testimony supplied throughout ten days of hearings,” he stated in an announcement. “This ruling is clearly misguided and undermines the authority the U.S. Structure assigns to the Texas Legislature by imposing a unique map by judicial edict.”
Nonetheless, the ruling marks an early blow for Republicans and President Trump, who had urged Texas state lawmakers to have interaction in a mid-decade redrawing of their Home map with a purpose to bolster the GOP’s probabilities of holding onto its majority within the decrease chamber.
“A federal court docket simply stopped one of the vital brazen makes an attempt to steal our democracy that Texas has ever seen,” Texas Home of Representatives Minority Chief Gene Wu stated in an announcement. “Greg Abbott and his Republican cronies tried to silence Texans’ voices to placate Donald Trump, however now have delivered him completely nothing.”
The map permitted by the Texas legislature, which was signed by Abbott in August, redraws the state’s congressional districts to create 5 GOP-friendly seats. The trouble in Texas kicked off a redistricting battle that has expanded to different states. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, pushed to recraft his state’s voting boundaries, and voters there permitted a poll measure earlier this month to attract new congressional districts. The map unveiled by California Democrats shifts 5 of the state’s Home seats to be extra favorable to Democrats in subsequent yr’s midterm elections.
In each Missouri and North Carolina, state GOP lawmakers have permitted new maps that concentrate on a single Democratic-held district in every state. However the battles over Home district traces have additionally sparked court docket fights that search to dam the up to date maps from taking impact.
Below the unique traces adopted by Texas’ GOP-led legislature within the wake of the 2020 Census, Republicans maintain 25 of the state’s 38 congressional seats, whereas Democrats management 12. The dying of Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Democrat, has left one seat open. These voting traces enacted in 2021 had been used within the 2022 and 2024 Home elections.
However with the GOP holding a razor-thin majority within the Home, and Republicans liable to dropping their maintain on the decrease chamber, Mr. Trump’s political workforce started pushing Texas GOP leaders earlier this yr to discover redrawing the state’s congressional map. That effort picked up steam after the Justice Division despatched Abbott a letter in July alleging that a number of the districts within the 2021 map had been racial gerrymanders that violate the Structure’s 14th Modification.
The letter from Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Justice Division’s Civil Rights Division, threatened authorized motion if Texas did not dismantle and re-configure 4 Democratic-held congressional districts, which she stated had been unconstitutional.
Abbott then added redistricting to the agenda for a particular session of the state legislature and directed state lawmakers to attract a brand new congressional map to deal with the Justice Division’s issues. The brand new redistricting plan, signed by Abbott in August, creates 5 new districts which can be favorable to Republicans.
Quickly after the map obtained the green-light from state Republicans, a coalition of advocacy teams moved to dam the state from utilizing it within the upcoming Home elections. The plaintiffs argued that Texas lawmakers engaged in an unconstitutional racial gerrymander when redrawing the traces, whereas the state stated it relied completely on politics, not race, through the newest redistricting course of.
The federal court docket in El Paso held a nine-day trial final month to deal with the claims and located that the nonprofit organizations had been prone to prevail on their racial-gerrymandering claims.
Brown wrote in his determination that the Justice Division, in its July letter, directed Texas to have interaction in racial gerrymandering when it ordered the state to rectify districts that it deemed problematic. The court docket stated the Justice Division’s letter successfully imposed a 50% racial goal for Texas to satisfy when drawing congressional district traces.
Brown additionally pointed to Abbott’s actions in response to the letter, together with his determination so as to add redistricting to the legislative agenda for the particular session and his public statements.
“The Governor explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict primarily based on race. In press appearances, the Governor plainly and expressly disavowed any partisan goal and as an alternative repeatedly acknowledged that his purpose was to get rid of coalition districts and create new majority-Hispanic districts,” Brown wrote in his 160-page determination evaluating the redrawn map. “The legislature adopted these racial goals.”
The court docket stated that supporters of the brand new redistricting plan additionally made quite a few statements that steered they retooled the district traces to create extra majority-Hispanic and majority-Black districts.
The judges additionally rejected any issues that it’s blocking the brand new map too near the election. Courts usually keep away from ordering late modifications election guidelines to guard towards voter confusion and disruption. However Brown wrote that if the brand new Home districts can stay in place, voters can be compelled to vote below a map that doubtless types them on the premise of race, depriving them of their proper to take part in a “free and honest election.”
Moreover, as a result of the candidate-filing deadline is Dec. 8, the court docket stated that the 2026 congressional election just isn’t but underway.
“To permit legislatures to redistrict as near elections as potential whereas limiting the courts’ means to evaluate the constitutionality of that motion — even in extraordinary instances like this one— would unduly tip the stability of the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches and impair the effectiveness of the Structure’s protections of voting rights,” Brown wrote for the court docket.
