Trump Rebuked by Federal Ruling Against Unlawful Racial Gerrymandering in Texas

In a direct rebuke to President Donald Trump's hopes that mid-decade redistricting in key states could help Republicans retain control of Congress in next year's midterm elections, a federal court Tuesday ordered Texas to halt the use of its new congressional maps, redrawn earlier this year as part of a GOP effort to maximize its advantage in the Lone Star State.

The unprecedented mid-decade power grab was expected to net Republicans an extra five seats in the House, which, in tandem with other redistricting efforts in Missouri and North Carolina, may have proven critical in their efforts to blunt a blue wave by Democrats in next year's midterms.

But those efforts ran into an unexpected obstacle when Tuesday's 2-1 ruling by a panel of three federal judges in Texas determined the maps were "racially gerrymandered," disempowering nonwhite voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). With a preliminary injunction, the court ordered the state to instead rely on the boundaries it drew in 2021.

In the majority opinion, District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote that while "politics played a role" in Trump's request for Texas to redraw its maps, the White House explicitly "reframed its request as a demand to redistrict congressional seats based on their racial makeup."

Specifically, Brown's decision cited a claim made in a letter to Texas officials from Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, that the existence of four "coalition districts," where no racial group had a 50% majority, in the 2021 map, was "unconstitutional." The DOJ threatened legal action against Texas if it did not immediately move to redraw these districts, which it promptly did at the direction of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

This is despite the fact that, as Brown points out, "attorneys employed by the Texas Attorney General—who professes to be a political ally of the Trump Administration—describe the DOJ letter as 'legally unsound,' 'baseless,' 'erroneous,' 'ham-fisted,' and 'a mess.'"

"The governor explicitly directed the legislature to draw a new US House map to resolve DOJ’s concerns," Brown wrote. "In other words, the governor explicitly directed the legislature to redistrict based on race. In press appearances, the governor plainly and expressly disavowed any partisan objective and instead repeatedly stated that his goal was to eliminate coalition districts and create new majority-Hispanic districts."

"The legislature adopted those racial objectives," he continued. "The redistricting bill’s sponsors made numerous statements suggesting that they had intentionally manipulated the districts’ lines to create more majority-Hispanic and majority-Black districts. The bill’s sponsors’ statements suggest they adopted those changes because such a map would be an easier sell than a purely partisan one."

Republicans will almost certainly appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court. But as the Texas Tribune points out, "time is short," as "candidates only have until December 8 to file for the upcoming election," which means that the district lines must be determined before then.

Chad Dunn, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said: "It seems they’d have a limited chance of success at the Supreme Court because the evidence is so overwhelming. Everyone involved said they were drawing the lines on the basis of race. I don’t see how the Supreme Court sets that aside.”

The Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority has signaled that it intends to strike down Section 2 of the VRA entirely. But that case is currently scheduled for early next year and could not be brought onto the shadow docket in time to override the ruling blocking the Texas map for 2026.

While it could have major implications for future elections, likely allowing the GOP to net over a dozen additional seats, in the near term, Trump's gambit for aggressive racial gerrymandering may blow up in his and his party's face---at least temporarily.

Texas' maps kicked off a retaliatory gerrymandering push by Democrats to redraw maps to their advantage in blue states. That effort culminated in California voters' overwhelming passage earlier this month of Proposition 50, which overrode the state's independent redistricting commission and allowed the state legislature to draw maps that handed Democrats an additional five seats. Similar efforts may soon be underway in New York and Virginia.

With the cushion provided by Texas suddenly yanked away, Democrats now appear to be the clear winners of the gerrymandering war if things stand as they are. Instead of gaining the GOP five extra seats, Trump's gambit could end up costing it five.

"Today’s ruling is a rebuke of Texas Republicans who caved to Donald Trump and trampled the voting rights of their constituents," said Adrian Shelley, the Texas director of Public Citizen. "Gov. Abbott and his allies in the Legislature have forgotten their independent streak as Texans. Perhaps they can find the courage that Republicans in a few other states have to tell the president no.”

Meanwhile, Texas Democrats previously at risk of being gerrymandered out of their seats, rejoiced in the wake of Tuesday's ruling.

This includes Austin Reps. Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett, who, in anticipation of seeing their districts smushed into one, have spent the past several months engaged in a sort of shadow primary, which resulted in Doggett saying he'd retire if the maps were upheld. If Tuesday's ruling holds, both of their districts would remain intact.

"The Trump Abbott maps are clearly illegal, and I’m glad these judges have blocked them," Casar said after Tuesday's ruling. "If this decision stands, I look forward to running for reelection in my current district."

While he celebrated the ruling, he said, "no matter what, we must fight to pass a federal ban on gerrymandering once and for all."