A panel of federal judges blocked Texas from using its new congressional map, which Republicans drew earlier this year in an effort to shore up the party’s narrow House majority in next year’s midterm elections.
The ruling, signed by Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, ordered Texas to use its previous map that was drawn in 2021 instead.
“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.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who signed the map into law this summer, said in a statement the state will “swiftly appeal to the United States Supreme Court,” teeing up a legal fight that could decide control of the House.
The court’s decision is a major blow for Trump, who called on Texas Republicans 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 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 a “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.
“It absolutely dismembers the DOJ letter,” said Justin Levitt, a former Justice Department attorney in the voting rights division who later served in the Biden White House advising on redistricting issues. “The court reproduces the letter in full and then spends several pages explaining how gobsmackingly wrong it is.”
The opinion also lays out the reasons on why the court believes it’s in keeping with past Supreme Court precedent, like Purcell v. Gonzalez, which says that election rules shouldn’t be overturned too close to an election. The court wrote that the injunction wouldn’t cause significant disruption, though any that does occur should be blamed on the legislature.
“The Legislature — not the Court — set the timetable for this injunction. The Legislature — not the Court —redrew Texas’s congressional map weeks before precinct-chair and candidate-filing periods opened. The State chose to ‘toy with its election laws close to’ the 2026 congressional election, though that is certainly its prerogative,” Brown wrote, quoting an opinion by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Judge David Guaderrama, an appointee of President Barack Obama, joined Brown in the opinion, while Judge Jerry E. Smith, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, will file a dissenting opinion.
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, which filed the suit, celebrated the decision.
“The state of Texas is only 40 percent white, but white voters control over 73 percent of the state’s congressional seats,” Johnson said in a statement. “This is a victory for the voters of Texas and for the fight to preserve democracy nationwide.”
Abbott decried the ruling in a statement, arguing the lines were drawn “for no other reason” than to “better reflect Texans’ conservative voting preferences.”
“Any claim that these maps are discriminatory is absurd and unsupported by the testimony offered during ten days of hearings. This ruling is clearly erroneous and undermines the authority the U.S. Constitution assigns to the Texas Legislature by imposing a different map by judicial edict,” he added.
Texas’ Republican-controlled Legislature and Abbott enacted the new district lines in August, overcoming protests from Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to temporarily block the legislation.
From there, the floodgates opened on both sides of the aisle. California Democrats responded to Texas with a redrawn map of their own that could net as many as five seats. Voters approved the measure earlier this month.
North Carolina and Missouri drew new maps that included one additional Republican-leaning district, while Democrats in Virginia have taken the first step in a complicated legislative maneuver to put a new map before voters. A court case in Utah resulted in a map with a solidly Democratic district, while Republicans in Ohio, fearing a possible ballot measure campaign from Democrats, struck a bipartisan deal on a new map that shifts two districts to the right.
The new maps in California, Missouri and North Carolina are also facing legal challenges. The Texas ruling all but ensures that the fight for control of Congress next year will run, at least in part, through the courts.
“If the higher courts don’t reverse the ruling, this could go down as the biggest self-own in modern politics,” said one Republican strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
The ruling comes in the middle of the filing period for candidates to declare for the March 3 primary. So the prospect that the 2026 election could move forward under the old lines would once again dramatically shift the political calculus in the state.
For example, the Republicans’ map redrew two districts in the Austin area currently represented by Democratic Reps. Greg Casar, a young progressive, and Lloyd Doggett, a more moderate lawmaker who’s served in public office for about a half-century.
While Doggett announced he would retire instead of run in a primary against Casar for the one Democratic seat left in Austin under the new lines, he noted in the statement his decision would hinge on how the court ruled.
“If this racially gerrymandered Trump map is rejected, as it should be, I will continue seeking reelection in Congressional District 37 to represent my neighbors in the only town I have ever called home,” Doggett said at the time.
The court’s decision Tuesday would also be a boon for the winner of the Houston-area special election to replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, which will be decided during a January runoff. The winner would likely have had to face longtime Democratic Rep. Al Green if the new lines are in effect, but they’d have a smoother path to re-election if not.
And it could ease the minds of Democrats in the Dallas area, where Reps. Julie Johnson, Marc Veasey and Jasmine Crockett have been weighing how to deal with a significant redraw in North Texas.
