‘Texas racially gerrymandered’ map, US court rules
A US federal court has blocked Texas from using a new congressional map aimed at flipping Democrat-held US House seats to Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.
The court faulted Gov. Greg Abbott for instructing the legislature to make decisions based on race.
The three-judge panel’s 2-1 decision dealt a major blow to Texas Republicans, who President Donald Trump has encouraged to redraw the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts to maximize the number of Republicans who can be elected to preserve his party’s narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The El Paso-based panel ruled in favor of civil rights groups that objected to the map, finding that “substantial evidence demonstrates that Texas was racially rigged.”
The map was passed by the Republican-led state legislature in August and signed by Republican Abbott.
The resolution criticized Abbott’s actions to meet the Trump administration’s demands and said, “The Governor has clearly instructed the Legislature to redistrict on the basis of race.”
Democrats and civil rights groups in Texas argued that the new map violated federal law, further weakening the voting power of racial minorities.
The court ruled that the 2026 congressional elections will be held based on a previous map approved in 2021. Republicans control 25 of the 38 U.S. House seats in Texas, according to the 2021 map.
Abbott said the state will appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Gerrymandering involves redrawing electoral district boundaries to marginalize a particular group of voters and increase the influence of others.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 barred federal courts from intervening in cases involving gerrymandering for partisan gain. Gerrymandering based predominantly on race remains illegal.
The NAACP civil rights group said in a statement that “the state of Texas is only 40 percent white, yet white voters control 73 percent of the state’s congressional seats.”
Trump has demanded that Republican-led states redraw their congressional maps to help his party maintain control of the House. Texas has been at the forefront of this push, with Abbott signing into law the new Republican-backed map on Aug. 29 in an effort to flip five Democratic-held seats.
“The claim that these maps are discriminatory is absurd and unsupported by the testimony presented during the ten-day hearings,” Abbott said.
“This decision is clearly erroneous and undermines the authority granted to the Texas Legislature by the U.S. Constitution by imposing a different map by judicial fiat.”
“It is quite clear that Texas’ mid-decade redistricting effort ahead of next year’s midterm elections is racially motivated,” the NAACP said.
“The state’s goal here is to reduce the number of members of Congress representing Black communities, and that in itself is unconstitutional.”
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