A panel of federal judges has barred Texas from using its redrawn congressional map, which Republicans enacted earlier this year in an effort to shore up the party’s narrow House majority in next year’s midterm elections.
The court ordered Texas to use its previous map that was drawn in 2021 instead. The ruling, signed by Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, is likely to be appealed.
An appeal would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to the ruling, teeing up a legal fight that could decide control of of the House.
The decision is a major blow for Trump, who called on Texas Republicans over the summer to draw a new map that could result in the party gaining up to five seats, triggering a nationwide redistricting battle across the country.
“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics. To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map,” Brown wrote in the ruling.
The ruling particularly focuses on the arguments made in an early summer letter from the Department of Justice, which urged the state to redraw maps and threatened legal action if they did not dismantle so-called “coalition districts,” which are majority nonwhite Congressional districts made up of voters of different races and drawn in order to adhere to the Voting Rights Act.
In the opinion, Brown rules that the Justice Department made an “legally incorrect assertion” that these districts were unconstitutional. So the decision by Texas to redraw its map in response to the letter means “the Governor explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict based on race,” making it “likely” the plaintiffs could prove that Texas racially gerrymandered the latest map.
Texas’ Republican-controlled legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott enacted the new district lines in August, overcoming protests from Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to temporarily block the legislation.
California Democrats responded to Texas with a redrawn map of their own. Earlier this month, California voters approved new congressional lines that could net up to five seats for Democrats.
