A Federal Court Puts the Brakes on Texas’ Gerrymandering Efforts
A panel of federal judges has effectively slammed the door on Texas’ recently revised congressional map, which was designed to tilt five districts more favorably towards Republicans. The court deemed the redistricting plan an illegal race-based gerrymander.
In a 2-1 ruling, the judges instructed Texas to revert to the congressional boundaries established in 2021. The majority opinion raised substantial concerns about the constitutionality of the new map, which was reportedly shaped at the behest of the Trump administration.
“The map ultimately passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor — the 2025 Map — achieved all but one of the racial objectives that DOJ demanded,” noted U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee from Galveston, who authored the majority opinion.
This decision represents a significant setback for the White House’s ambitions to reshape congressional districts nationwide. Texas’ five-seat reconfiguration was considered the most substantial Republican gain from redistricting efforts. Republican leaders are expected to swiftly appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Judge Brown was joined by U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama, an Obama appointee from El Paso, while Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan appointee from Houston, dissented but has yet to publish an opinion outlining his rationale.
The majority criticized the Justice Department’s attempts to persuade Texas lawmakers to focus on four districts with non-white majorities—referred to as “coalition districts.” Judge Brown pointed out that this effort commenced on July 7, prompted by a letter from DOJ’s Civil Rights Division that was “challenging to unpack … because it contains so many factual, legal, and typographical errors.”
The court asserted that the DOJ’s letter selected the four districts based solely on their racial composition, a critical factor that incited Texas Republicans to pursue the controversial redistricting. Brown’s extensive 160-page opinion delves into the motivations of the state lawmakers and advisors who crafted the new maps, suggesting that their rationale, which framed the maps as being based solely on race-neutral partisanship, lacked credibility.
Neither the White House, the Justice Department, nor Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office responded promptly to requests for commentary on the ruling.
Meanwhile, two other states—Missouri and North Carolina—have also enacted maps that afford Republicans one additional red-leaning seat each. In Ohio, which was legally mandated to redraw its maps this year, an agreement between Republicans and Democrats resulted in two Democratic-held seats becoming more Republican-leaning, although Democrats maintain that both will remain competitive in the upcoming 2026 elections.
Democrats have initiated legal challenges in North Carolina and Missouri as part of their longstanding strategy to combat Republican gerrymandering via the courts.
With Texas’ map no longer in effect, Democrats’ five-seat gain in California through Proposition 50 effectively neutralizes the GOP’s progress thus far, while other Republican-led states are still under pressure from the White House to address redistricting issues ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
This ruling is likely to intensify the pressure on Indiana Republicans, who are being urged to draft a new map that would yield two additional red-leaning districts for the party. Indiana GOP Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray has thus far resisted calls for alterations to the state maps, complicating the redistricting process.
Lawmakers in Indiana are already facing threats of primary challenges from the White House after Bray indicated that his caucus lacked the votes to pass a new map. President Donald Trump even remarked that Republican Governor Mike Braun “must produce on this” in a social media post Tuesday.
The Texas ruling is the latest chapter in a saga that began to unfold over the summer when Texas Democrats fled the state in a bid to block the new map from being enacted.
On Tuesday, the Democrats who spearheaded that effort celebrated the court’s decision.
“Greg Abbott and his Republican cronies tried to silence Texans’ voices to placate Donald Trump, but now have delivered him absolutely nothing,” remarked Texas Minority Leader Gene Wu in a statement.
