A panel of federal judges from the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that newly enacted congressional maps drawn by Texas Republicans are a racial gerrymander, diluting the voting strength of Black and Latinx voters in the state.
The ruling is a huge blow to Republicans at both the state and federal levels, including President Donald Trump, who had hoped the new maps would help in a scheme to maintain control of the House of Representatives.
States redraw congressional maps every 10 years, following the federal census. But Trump’s political team had urged Texas Republican state lawmakers earlier this year to redraw maps this year instead, to produce a congressional map that would increase the party’s majority over Democrats by adding an additional five GOP-leaning districts.
Although the redistricting was a clear partisan action, the U.S. Supreme Court decided six years ago that it would not restrict such types of political map-making. However, racial advocacy groups sued the state, arguing that the maps were a racist gerrymander.
On Tuesday, a panel of appeals court judges agreed, finding that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) had “explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict on race” at the behest of the Trump White House.
Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed by Trump himself, wrote the majority opinion in the ruling. He was joined by Judge David Guaderrama, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, with Judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan appointee, dissenting.
“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.
Brown further recognized that:
Earlier this year, President Trump began urging Texas to redraw its U.S. House map to create five additional Republican seats. Lawmakers reportedly met that request to redistrict on purely partisan grounds with apprehension. … But when the Trump Administration reframed its request as a demand to redistrict congressional seats based on their racial makeup, Texas lawmakers immediately jumped on board.
The majority found that action to be illegal, as it diluted the voting power of nonwhite voters. “Reverting to the 2021 Map is the proper remedy here,” the court concluded.
The ruling will likely be appealed by Texas Republicans to the Supreme Court. But they have a very small window in which to do so — state law requires that candidates running for congressional seats submit their paperwork by early December, which means the districts themselves have to be figured out by then, too.
It’s possible the right-leaning Supreme Court could rule on the matter right away, or place an injunction on the appellate court’s ruling (through a shadow docket action) that would have the effect of ruling in favor of Republicans.
Still, Democrats celebrated the ruling, as it meant a major part of Trump’s nationwide gerrymandering scheme to upend the results of the midterms had been interrupted.
“This is a monumental victory in the fight against racist gerrymandering in Texas and the country overall,” said Rep. Jon Rosenthal (D), vice chair of the Texas House Committee on Redistricting.
Texas House Minority Leader Rep. Gene Wu (D) issued the following statement:
A federal court just stopped one of the most brazen attempts to steal our democracy that Texas has ever seen. Greg Abbott and his Republican cronies tried to silence Texans’ voices to placate Donald Trump, but now have delivered him absolutely nothing. The governor delayed relief for victims of the July 4th flooding in Kerr County, weaponized law enforcement against us, filed frivolous lawsuits to intimidate us, and still lost. Today, a federal court saw through Greg Abbott’s lies, and Texas families won.
At the national level, DNC Chair Ken Martin also lauded the ruling.
“These maps were only introduced in the first place because Donald Trump and his Texas Republican allies are afraid of facing voters after the passage of their Big Ugly Bill,” Martin said. “They expected Democrats to roll over, but instead, Democrats in Texas and across the country rose up and fought back. … Regardless of what Texas Republicans try next, Democrats are fighting for democracy and fair representation every step of the way.”
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