A federal court in El Paso has blocked Texas from using the new congressional district map passed by the Legislature at President Trump's urging this summer.
The map was made to give Republicans an advantage in flipping as many as five seats now held by Democrats. Judges determined the map intentionally targets Black and Latino voters in a way that would dilute their voting power, violating the federal Voting Rights Act.
"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," wrote the majority in a three-judge panel.
The panel heard a trial on the case in October.
The ruling is a blow to Trump and the Republicans in a nationwide redistricting race. He is pressing state Republican lawmakers around the country to reshape congressional election voting maps to hold the U.S. House and support his agenda.
Using their heavy Republican majority, Texas lawmakers passed a map in August that would help their party win five seats in the 2026 elections for the House.
The process gained national attention when Democrats in the Legislature fled the state for over two weeks to delay a vote and Republican leaders threatened to arrest them.
The redistricting in Texas also prompted California Democrats to act. In November California voters passed an initiative allowing redistricting that could help Democrats win five seats in that state.
Opponents said the new map is racial gerrymandering
Republicans in the Texas Legislature passed the map saying it was designed to improve their party's chances of winning five congressional seats. They noted that, unlike in some states, the law in Texas does not prohibit redistricting for partisan advantage and that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts could not intervene when it's done.
But partisan gerrymandering can often overlap with racial gerrymandering, which is illegal. Opponents of the new map argued in court that it intentionally diminished the voting power of minority communities.
They noted that when Republican Gov. Greg Abbott originally called lawmakers into session to draw the map, he cited a letter from Justice Department officials in the Trump administration criticizing districts that had majority non-white voting populations as "racial gerrymanders."
Eventually, Texas Republicans said the map was not intended to correct for a racial tilt but for partisan gain, not about race.
"What it essentially says is that America, as we know it, is done," said Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic leader, when recently asked about the prospect of the court upholding the new map. "One of the core principles of this country is that everyone has the equal amount of voice, or you're at least supposed to, and this allows some people to be more equal than others."
Around the country, Republicans have options for redistricting more seats their way than Democrats do, in part because the GOP controls more state legislatures. Usually, states redistrict at the start of the decade after the national census.
At the behest of Trump, lawmakers in Missouri and North Carolina passed new maps that could help the GOP win a seat in each state. Ohio drew a map that analysts say gives Republicans a slight advantage in a few seats.
A court-ordered redistricting in Utah could help Democrats win a seat there, and Virginia Democrats have started a process that could yield two seats in that state.
The Texas Newsroom is a public radio journalism collaboration that includes NPR, KERA in North Texas, Houston Public Media, KUT in Austin, Texas Public Radio in San Antonio and other stations across the state.