US EditionFederal court bars Texas from using new Republican-friendly US House map in midterms
A federal court found the 2025 Texas map racially gerrymandered, blocking its use and ordering a return to 2021 lines for the 2026 midterms, impacting up to five GOP seats.
- On Tuesday, a three-judge federal panel ruled Texas cannot use its new congressional map for the 2026 election and must instead use the lines passed in 2021 after a nearly two-week trial in El Paso, Texas.
- Republican lawmakers enacted the 2025 map earlier this year to bolster their narrow House majority, and the GOP-controlled Legislature approved it in August before Gov. Greg Abbott signed it, prompting lawsuits from civil-rights and advocacy groups representing Black and Hispanic voters.
- Court filings showed the 2025 map reduced majority‑minority congressional districts from 16 to 14 and eliminated five coalition districts, with five of six Democratic incumbents drawn into paired districts being Black or Hispanic during a nine‑day El Paso hearing earlier this month.
- The block came during the monthlong filing window for the March primary and before the Dec. 8 filing deadline, while judges signaled they may await U.S. Supreme Court rulings and expect a yearslong legal battle.
- Republicans hold 25 of Texas's 38 congressional seats and drew the map to gain five more, as Texas led a national redistricting push following President Donald Trump's call.
336 Articles
336 Articles
How the Supreme Court Warps the Purcell Principle to Help Republicans Win
After a disastrous showing in the November 2025 elections and under pressure from President Donald Trump, many Republican-controlled legislatures are looking to (further) gerrymander their states prior to the 2026 midterms. The Court’s recent shadow docket decision permitting Texas Republicans to use their new map in 2026 is just the latest signal that whatever Republicans try, the U.S. Supreme Court will back them up. Even more alarming is that…
Republicans want the Supreme Court to save them from their own inept mistake
Anti-gerrymandering protesters outside of the Supreme Court. | Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images Last month, a federal court in Texas ruled that a Republican gerrymander, expected to give the GOP five extra seats in the US House, must be struck down because of incompetent lawyering by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department. In August, at Trump’s urging, Texas Republicans redrew their state’s congressional maps to ma…
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