A panel of three federal judges ruled on Tuesday that Texas cannot implement a new congressional map drawn by Republicans, which was aimed at securing the GOP five additional U.S. House seats. The preliminary injunction is a significant setback for the map, which was created in response to President Donald Trump’s push for GOP lawmakers in multiple states to redraw district lines to help preserve the party’s slim House majority ahead of the potentially difficult 2026 midterm elections.
The 2-1 decision followed a nearly two-week trial in El Paso. The judicial panel granted the critics’ request, signaling that it believes the plaintiffs have a strong chance of ultimately winning their case. This forces the state to use the map drawn by the GOP-controlled Legislature in 2021 for next year’s elections while the case proceeds.
A coalition of civil rights groups, representing Black and Hispanic voters, argued the map diluted the influence of minority voters, making it a racial gerrymander that violates the federal Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.
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The court’s ruling agreed, stating that while politics certainly played a role in drawing the map, “Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.” Republicans in Texas had repeatedly argued they were redrawing districts solely for partisan advantage, a practice the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 is a political issue beyond the reach of federal courts. However, the judges’ finding that the map constituted racial gerrymandering is a violation that federal courts can address.
The new map significantly impacted minority representation. It decreased the number of congressional districts where minorities comprise a majority of voting-age citizens from 16 to 14.
Crucially, it eliminated five of nine “coalition” districts, where minorities together outnumber non-Hispanic whites in the voting-age population. Republicans, who hold 25 of Texas’ 38 congressional seats, intended the map to increase their number of safe seats.
Had the new map been in place last year, Trump would have carried 30 congressional districts by 10 percentage points or more. While Republicans argued the map was better for minority voters because it created a new Hispanic-majority district and two new Black-majority districts, critics argued these new majorities were too slim and considered them a sham.
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