Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has taken the dispute over the state’s congressional map to the U.S. Supreme Court after a federal three-judge panel ruled the plan amounted to racial gerrymandering. The panel temporarily blocked the new map and ordered Texas to use the district lines that were in place for the last two elections while the legal battle proceeds.
The contested map, drawn in August by the Republican-led legislature with encouragement from former President Donald Trump, was intended to boost Republican prospects and could have flipped as many as five Democratic-held U.S. House seats in the 2026 elections. Abbott called the panel’s finding “absurd” and said the decision wrongly overrides the constitutional role of the Texas Legislature. Attorney General Ken Paxton—who is running for the U.S. Senate—also said he would appeal and defended the so-called “Big Beautiful Map” as legal.
In a 160-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote that although partisan motives were present, the record showed the map was racially discriminatory. The trial, held in October, was brought by plaintiffs that included civil rights organizations and individual voters. The judges pointed to a Justice Department letter—submitted by Harmeet Dhillon in the matter—that criticized districts with majority nonwhite voting populations as racial gerrymanders and urged changes to correct what it described as a racial advantage in some districts. The panel said Republicans later shifted to arguing the map was intended to secure partisan advantage rather than to remedy racial imbalances.
Judge Brown also faulted the DOJ letter itself, saying it contained numerous errors and that the way it was written complicated defenses of the map. University of Texas political scientist Josh Blank said the letter put lawmakers in a difficult position and contributed to inconsistent explanations from map supporters.
Texas Democrats hailed the ruling. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher said race was a central factor in drawing the map and that it was designed to reduce the influence of minority voters. Rep. Gene Wu, the Democratic leader in the Texas House, said the decision reaffirms the court’s role in protecting equal representation. Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston, described the opinion as a rebuke to Trump and criticized the mapmaking process and the legal arguments offered in its defense.
The redistricting fight in Texas drew national attention last year when Democratic lawmakers fled the state for more than two weeks to delay the vote; Republican leaders threatened arrest to compel them to return. Democrats argued the new map diluted Latino and Black voting power.
The case is part of a larger, nationwide struggle over congressional maps. Trump has urged Republican state legislators across the country to redraw districts to preserve the GOP’s narrow House majority and advance his agenda. Because Republicans control more state legislatures, they have greater opportunities to shape congressional maps. At the same time, map changes in other states have cut both ways: Missouri and North Carolina enacted new maps that could help Republicans pick up seats, Ohio adopted a map seen as slightly favoring Republicans, while California voters approved an initiative projected to help Democrats, a court-ordered redistricting in Utah could aid Democratic chances there, and Virginia Democrats are pursuing a process that might yield additional seats.
The three-judge panel issued its ruling 2-1 and ordered the state to return to the prior district maps while appeals continue. Reporters Blaise Gainey and Andrew Schneider of The Texas Newsroom and Houston Public Media and Larry Kaplow of NPR contributed reporting to the original story.