Wow.
Texas cannot use its new congressional map for the 2026 election and will instead need to stick with the lines passed in 2021, a three-judge panel ruled Tuesday.
The decision is a major blow for Republicans, in Texas and nationally, who pushed through this unusual mid-decade redistricting at the behest of President Donald Trump. They were hoping the new map would yield control of 30 of the state’s 38 congressional districts — up from the 25 they currently hold — and help protect the narrow GOP majority in the U.S. House.
The map cleared the GOP-controlled Legislature in August and was quickly signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott. Several advocacy groups sued over the new district lines, saying lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black and Hispanic Texans and drew racially gerrymandered maps. Over the course of a nine-day hearing in El Paso earlier this month, they aimed to convince the judges that it was in voters’ best interest to shelve the new map until a full trial could be held.
It was not immediately clear if the state still has a legal path to restoring the new map in time for 2026. Unlike most federal lawsuits, which are heard by a single district judge and then appealed to a circuit court, voting rights lawsuits are initially heard by two district judges and one circuit judge, and their ruling can only be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The decision comes 10 days into the monthlong period when candidates can sign up for the March primary. The filing deadline is Dec. 8.
This is just the opening gambit in what promises to be a yearslong legal battle over Texas’ congressional map. A lawsuit over the state’s 2021 redistricting — including its state legislative and education board seats — went to trial earlier this summer and remains pending before the same three-judge panel. The judges have indicated they may want to see how the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a major voting rights case before issuing their full ruling on Texas’ maps.
See here for the previous update. This is not the end of the story by any means. It would be entirely consistent with past behavior for SCOTUS to put a hold on that ruling pending the outcome of the litigation, which again going by past performance might well be after the 2031 decennial redistricting is done. SCOTUS absolutely cannot be trusted in these matters.
A copy of the ruling, which was 2-1 for the plaintiffs, is here. (One of those two, who wrote that opinion, was appointed by Donald J. Trump.) There are other moving parts to consider here, mostly having to do with timing as the filing period ends December 8 and people are going to have to know what district they’re running in by then. I expect this to be one of those situations where SCOTUS moves at lightning speed, since there’s a clear result they want to generate, but in the event that they’re not fast enough, don’t be surprised if Greg Abbott calls another special session for the express purpose of delaying the primaries as was done in 2012 to accommodate a less-timely ruling that allows for the new map. It’s a means to an end and it will be justified. Michael Li, KUT, the Chron, the NYT, Democracy Docket, the Lone Star Project, the Texas Signal, TPM, Mother Jones, Daily Kos, and Lone Star Left have more.
UPDATE: The DMN has some great details.
Congressional Democrats targeted by Republicans applauded the decision.
“I always believed that we would win this case, and even people that have been supportive of me thought that I was nuts for believing but it was such a blatant violation of the Constitution, the 14th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act,” said U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, who represents District 33. “The Republicans overstepped their bounds…everything about the process was discriminatory. It was done very sloppily and with a lot of deceit and subterfuge towards Texans.”
Veasey said he would file for reelection.
“I’m going to continue to serve the residents that make up the great District 33,” Veasey said. “I look forward to continuing to fight for the soul of America, because Donald Trump is trying to rip that spirit apart, and I want to keep fighting to make sure that it stays intact.”
U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch, said she was thrilled with the result.
“The courts got it right,” Johnson said. “It was always a clear example of racial gerrymandering at its worst.”
Johnson said she would file for reelection in District 32. During this year’s redistricting effort, Republicans extended the Dallas County-anchored district into far East Texas, making it favorable to a GOP candidate.
The court ruling could sway U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, to seek a third term in her Dallas-based congressional district rather than jump into the contest for the seat held by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Republicans redrew Crockett’s District 30 and packed it heavily with Black voters. Her home was placed in nearby District 33.
“Anybody that knows anything about me knows that I’m a praying woman and I tell people all the time that God has to yell at me. Now I feel like he may be screaming for me to stay in my seat, I don’t know,” Crockett told reporters Tuesday just after the court’s decision was released.
She said the decision “does weigh heavily on me remaining” in the House because one of the reasons she’s been seriously considering a Senate campaign is that she found the Republican redistricting effort to be so unfair.
“I thought it would only be karma if I snatched their Senate seat,” Crockett said.
Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston and chairman of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, called the ruling a “huge victory. House Democrats left the state for Illinois to stall the GOP-driven redistricting process.
“We applaud the court for defending our democracy and seeing through Abbott’s lies to stop one of the most brazen attempts to silence Texas voices that we have ever seen,” Wu said. “This is why we broke quorum. We have to stand up to these bullies and tell them enough is enough, and that we will not stand by quietly while they attempt to dismantle our democracy. Our fight is not over, but today marks a huge victory.”
[…]
During the nine-day hearing in El Paso on the latest redistricting plan, plaintiffs argued that Texas lawmakers intentionally targeted minority residents when drawing the maps.
Though Trump’s involvement suggests hardball politics, the rare mid-decade redistricting, lawyers argue, was prompted by U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon’s July 7 letter to Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton. The letter stated that four congressional districts — three in the Houston area and one in Dallas-Fort Worth — violated the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution because they were drawn as “coalition districts” composed of a majority of non-white residents. Three of those districts have long been held by Black representatives and one by a Latino member.
Abbott used the Justice Department’s warning as a reason to add redistricting to a special legislative session. In his proclamation for the first special session, the governor said he was reacting “in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice.” Abbott didn’t add the constitutional concerns reference when he added redistricting to a second special session.
The governor also gave several media interviews, saying the Department of Justice letter prompted him to call the special session. During the hearing, plaintiffs’ lawyers replayed Abbott’s and Dhillon’s interviews discussing the need to end coalition districts.
Witnesses for the plaintiffs testified that Abbott and the Justice Department used race as a catalyst for developing the new map.
In ordering the injunction, Brown wrote that the Justice Department’s theory that coalition districts were illegal and needed to be addressed by Texas lawmakers was flawed.
The case the Justice Department used to try to dismantle coalition districts “nowhere implies that legislatures must deliberately avoid drawing coalition districts—or that a legislatively drawn map that happens to contain one or more coalition districts is somehow unlawful.“ Brown wrote. ”This point is critical to this case.”
During the trial, it was revealed that the political operative who drew the map, Adam Kincaid of Virginia, saw a draft of the Justice Department letter before it was sent to Abbott and Paxton.
Kincaid, the executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust and creator of the 2021 Texas congressional and legislative maps, said under cross-examination that White House Chief of Staff James Blair showed him the letter during a West Wing meeting. Kincaid said he was on the phone with Abbott as he skimmed the letter.
The actions of Abbott and the Legislature were critical to the case.
“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,“ Brown wrote. ”The Legislature dismantled and left unrecognizable not only all of the districts DOJ identified in the letter, but also several other “coalition districts” around the State. For these and other reasons, the Plaintiff Groups are likely to prove at trial that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map. So, we preliminarily enjoin Texas’s 2025 Map.”
A lawyer for Abbott convinced the three-judge panel that the governor’s conversations with Kincaid were privileged and could not be presented in court, so what he said to Abbott was not revealed.
Kincaid testified he told Justice Department officials the letter was “dumb” and “unnecessary.
The panel’s ruling seemed to hinge on Kincaid’s testimony.
There’s more, and that story came up non-paywalled for me, so read the rest. Again, all of this may get undone by SCOTUS, so assume everything is written in sand for now.
And one more thing, regarding California:
Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democratic leaders earlier this year announced Proposition 50 as a way to offset Texas’ plans to try to send five more Republicans to Congress. The voter-approved measure redrew California’s district maps to try to send five more Democrats to the Lower House.
When Prop 50 was initially introduced, there was language in the measure that stated California would only move forward with its redistricting — also known as gerrymandering — efforts if Texas proceeded with its plans. That language was removed from the measure before it reached Newsom’s desk for him to sign into law.
When asked to clarify if California would move forward with Prop 50 even if the courts strike down Texas’ gerrymandering efforts, Newsom provided the following response during an Aug. 21 news conference:
“We’re moving forward. Texas moved forward. Texas acted. Texas is moving forward. You’re suggesting — people are suggesting — Texas is not going to move forward because of what we just did? Come on,” Newsom said.
It’s unlikely, but it would be beyond hilarious if the net effect of all this were five more Dem seats in California and zero new GOP seats in Texas. Oh my God, would that be funny.
UPDATE: A couple of juicy quotes from Democracy Docket to add to your joy:
In his opinion, Brown cast doubt on the Republican narrative about the motivation for the gerrymander.
In particular, he slammed several Republicans who testified during the nine-day hearing, finding that mapmaker Adam Kincaid and State Sen. Phil King, who led the Senate’s redistricting committee, were not credible witnesses.
Brown discredited Kinkaid’s testimony that he had drawn the 2025 map “blind to race,” writing that he found it “extremely unlikely” that the mapmaker could have created congressional districts with that specific racial makeup “by pure chance.”
The judge also pointed to troubling discrepancies in Kincaid and King’s testimony, particularly how the two men recalled their conversations differently.
“The number of inconsistencies regarding potentially critical exchanges between the Chair of the Senate Redistricting Committee and the person who drew the 2025 Map makes us doubt the veracity of Chairman King’s testimony,” Brown wrote. “For the foregoing reasons, we do not credit Chairman King’s testimony about the Legislature’s motives.”
[…]
In his ruling, Brown concluded it was “challenging to unpack the DOJ Letter because it contains so many factual, legal, and typographical errors.”
However, the letter clearly pointed to a racial motive for gerrymandering the map, the judge concluded.
“The DOJ Letter is equally notable for what it doesn’t include: any mention of partisanship,” Brown wrote. “Had the Trump Administration sent Texas a letter urging the State to redraw its congressional map to improve the performance of Republican candidates, the Plaintiff Groups would then face a much greater burden to show that race—rather than partisanship—was the driving force behind the 2025 Map. But nothing in the DOJ Letter is couched in terms of partisan politics.”
Remember, Judge Brown was appointed by President Donald J. Trump. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need a cigarette.
UPDATE: For analysis of the ruling, see Chris Geidner and Mark Joseph Stern. For analysis of the California case and why it’s likely to be upheld as permissible, see Matthew Cooke and Rick Hasen.