A three-judge federal panel ruled that the redrawn Texas congressional redistricting map was “racial gerrymandering” and ordered the state to use 2021 maps for the midterm elections.
Since it’s a federal voting rights case, the only appeal is to the Supreme Court. It’s unclear whether the high court will have time to rule before the 2026 primary filing deadline next month.
“Any claim that these maps are discriminatory is absurd and unsupported by the testimony offered during ten days of hearings,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement. “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.”
Texas state law allows for partisan gerrymandering. Republicans claimed that the map was being redrawn to give them a partisan advantage and to “better reflect Texans’ conservative voting preferences – and for no other reason,” said the governor. The Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the courts could not intervene if a map was drawn to give one side a partisan advantage.
“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics,” U.S. Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote in the ruling. “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.”
Indeed, it’s a lot easier to prove “racial gerrymandering” based on the number of voters of color in a new district compared to the last one. It doesn’t matter if many of those black and Hispanic voters would vote Republican. The Voting Rights Act only recognized the color of the voter’s skin.
“Race was always a driving factor and a driving factor to make it harder for minority Texans,” said Texas Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher in an interview. “This map was drawn to make it harder for them to have an impact in elections.”
The Constitution does not guarantee that voters must have an “impact on elections.” That’s an absurd argument and only serves to highlight the partisan nature of this decision.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom was openly gloating about the decision. He had just rammed through his own Democratic redistricting map that would reduce the nine Republicans currently serving in the 52-member California congressional delegation to four.
“Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned — and democracy won,” Newsom said in a statement Tuesday. “This ruling is a win for Texas and for every American who fights for free and fair elections.”
Stand back. I am going to be sick.
Republicans in the Texas Legislature passed the map saying it was designed to improve their party’s chances of winning five congressional seats. They noted that, unlike in some states, the law in Texas does not prohibit redistricting for partisan advantage and that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts could not intervene when it’s done.
But partisan gerrymandering can often overlap with racial gerrymandering, which is illegal. Opponents of the map argued in court that it intentionally diminished the voting power of minority communities.
The 160-page opinion was written by District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, who was appointed by Trump during his first term as president. His ruling drew upon statements and contradictions in what Republican lawmakers said as the maps were passed.
Indeed, Republicans did not help themselves in the lead-up to the effort to redraw the maps. In recalling the legislature to redraw the maps, Abbott cited a Justice Department letter “criticizing districts that had majority non-white voting populations as ‘racial gerrymanders,'” reported NPR. The letter was trying to turn the tables on Democratic-drawn districts that were majority black or Hispanic.
Unfortunately, the practice is legal under the antiquated Voting Rights Act, which allows for the drawing of maps that bunched minority voters into a few districts, ensuring the election (hypothetically) of a Democratic minority U.S. Representative.
When the case went to court, Republicans changed their tune and tried to make the argument that the effort to redraw districts was for partisan, not racial reasons. Judge Brown wasn’t buying it.
“The Governor explicitly directed the Legislature to draw a new U.S. House map to resolve DOJ’s concerns. In other words, the Governor explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict based on race,” Brown wrote on behalf of the two judges who voted to scrub the new map. “In press appearances, the Governor plainly and expressly disavowed any partisan objective and instead repeatedly stated that his goal was to eliminate coalition districts and create new majority-Hispanic districts.”
What now? Texas will appeal to the Supreme Court, but it’s not clear whether the court would consider it worthy of “emergency” review. If not, the case will go on the regular docket, and Texans will vote using the 2021 maps.
With those five seats the GOP was hoping to pick up in Texas probably gone, the Democrats have a much better shot of taking the House, given the new California map and the five seats that Newsom engineered for the Democrats.
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