A three-judge panel ruled that Texas cannot use its new redistricting maps that activists claimed were targeting minorities, court documents show.
The judges issued a “preliminary enjoins” order preventing the new maps from going into effect for the 2026 midterm elections. State officials will be required to use the previous maps used in the 2021 elections.
This injunction is issued early in a lawsuit to maintain the status quo and prevent irreparable harm while the case proceeds toward a final judgment.
“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics. 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,” the ruling states.
The judges were under a tight deadline to make a ruling with the candidate filing period for the 2026 midterm elections starting on Saturday, Nov. 8, and ending on Monday, Dec. 8.
The court ruling and any decision by the U.S. Supreme Court could push back the filing deadlines for the Texas primaries for 2026. The midterm general election includes the seat of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, all of the Texas House of Representatives and Senate seats, and governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
Senior U.S. District Judge David C. Guaderrama of the Western District of Texas, 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry E. Smith and U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown of the Southern District of Texas heard testimony from state and civil rights organizations’ attorneys in the case.
Brown and Guaderrama ruled in favor of barring the new maps. Smith is expected to file a dissenting opinion, the ruling states. No time was given for when Smith will file his dissenting opinion. The ruling opinion was written by Brown, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump.
The ruling comes more than a month after hearing 10 days of testimony and arguments over the legality of the new redistricting map. The hearing, held between Oct. 1 to Oct. 10, was held at the Albert Armendariz Sr. U.S. Courthouse in Downtown El Paso.
Gov. Greg Abbott denounced the judges’ ruling, calling it “erroneous” and he continued to claim the state did not target minorities.
“The Legislature redrew our congressional maps to better reflect Texans’ conservative voting preferences — and for no other reason,” Abbott said in a statement. “Any claim that these maps are discriminatory is absurd and unsupported by the testimony offered during 10 days of hearings.
“This ruling is clearly erroneous and undermines the authority the U.S. Constitution assigns to the Texas Legislature by imposing a different map by judicial edict. The state of Texas will swiftly appeal to the United States Supreme Court.”
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, praised the decision and called the ruling an “important victory” for voting rights.
“Today, the court made the right decision: Texas Republicans’ unprecedented mid-decade redistricting scheme purposely diluted the voting power of communities of color,” Escobar, who represents District 16, which was affected by the redistricting effort, said in a statement. “The Republican proposed 2025 map fundamentally disregarded the bedrock of our democracy: one person, one vote, and instead drew maps based on race. Let this serve as a lesson to Donald Trump.”
El Paso State Reps. Joe Moody, Mary González, Eddie Morales Jr., Claudia Ordaz, and Vincent Perez released a joint statement praising the court’s ruling. Moody, who serves as the House’s Speaker Pro Tempore, was one of the Texas Democrat leaders who testified at the hearing.
“We fought these maps on many fronts earlier this year, and the courts were one where we believed we’d see justice done for the people whose votes would be stolen by this shameless racial gerrymander,” the statement read. “That was vindicated today. Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and they’ve been under direct assault by this administration.
“But there are always brave people willing to stand up for what’s right, whether it’s a panel of judges or a hardworking El Paso voter casting a ballot on their lunch break. Those people are why democracy in America will never be defeated.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he will appeal the judges’ ruling. Despite two of the judges, Smith and Brown, being appointed by Republican presidents, Paxton called them “the radical left.”
“The radical left is once again trying to undermine the will of the people,” Paxton said in a statement. “The Big Beautiful Map was entirely legal and passed for partisan purposes to better represent the political affiliations of Texas … I will be appealing this decision to the Supreme Court of the United States, and I fully expect the Court to uphold Texas’ sovereign right to engage in partisan redistricting.”
Judges lay out reasoning for decision
In the 160-page ruling, the judges quoted U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, before laying out their reasoning for their decision.
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” reads the Roberts’ quote at the top of the introduction to the ruling.
Trump demanded five additional seats in Texas. The Trump administration “reframed its request as a demand to redistrict congressional seats based on their racial makeup, Texas lawmakers immediately jumped on board,” the ruling states.
The judges wrote that the U.S. Department of Justice “threatened legal action if Texas didn’t immediately dismantle and redraw these districts — a threat based entirely on their racial makeup.”
With clarity, the judges stated that they side with voter rights advocacy groups that the maps were drawn targeting minority-majority districts.
“Notably, the DOJ letter targeted only majority-non-White districts. Any mention of majority White Democrat districts — which DOJ presumably would have also targeted if its aims were partisan rather than racial — was conspicuously absent,” the judges wrote.
They added Abbott “explicitly directed” the Texas Legislature to create the new map to resolve the demands of the Trump administration.
They added that Abbott gave numerous statements in the news media stating the maps were drawn based on race. The ruling states Abbott “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.”
Abbott’s claim to create majority-Hispanic districts was echoed by state Republican leaders. By combining minority-majority districts, it created new Republican-leaning districts and left minorities with less representation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The judges ruled that the evidence presented at the hearing is “likely to prove at trial that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map. So, we preliminarily enjoin Texas’s 2025 map.”
How did redistricting efforts start?
The redistricting focused on four districts in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and South Texas — all with a majority population of Hispanics and Blacks.
The efforts to change the state’s voting maps started after the U.S. Department of Justice claimed the four districts were unconstitutional because they were coalition districts, in which two minority groups combine to form a voting majority. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled coalitions are legal, but can be altered.
The DOJ sent a letter telling Texas Republican leaders, including Abbott, to find Trump five more Republican-leaning congressional seats in Texas. The five additional seats help Republicans retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 midterm elections.
Republicans claim redistricting targeted Democrats
The key testimony during the trial came from Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, who created the maps.
Kincaid testified that he looked at no racial data when building the map, solely relying on targeting districts that historically voted for Democrats.
He combined Democrat-leaning districts into one district. He took Republican portions of those districts to create their own districts. The outcome gave Democrats one less representative, while adding more representation for Republican voters.
Kincaid and Republican leaders claimed the redistricting was done “race blind.” He testified he targeted Democrats, not minorities, which is allowed under the U.S. Constitution.
Voting rights groups say redistricting targets minorities
Democratic leaders and voting rights groups argued that the only districts targeted and impacted were Hispanic and Black majority districts. Hispanic and Black voters historically vote Democrat.
In Texas, voters are not required to register by political party. They are free to vote in the primary of their own choosing.
The redistricting map suppresses the voice of Texas minorities, including Hispanics, who make up the largest minority population in the state, Democratic state leaders testified in the trial.
“They are not built to give Hispanics or African Americans a candidate of their choice,” Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, testified about the new maps.
Democrats and voting rights groups questioned why Trump focused on those four districts and why they were the only districts that were dramatically altered. They claimed Republicans had already created the map before discussions were held in the Texas Legislature and the public allowed to comment on it.
“That’s not Texas,” testified Rep. Ramon Romero, D-Fort Worth. “That’s not how we do things here.”
What’s next?
The lawsuit will now head to the U.S. Supreme Court for the justices to determine if the federal judges’ ruling falls within the U.S. Constitution. Attorneys on both sides will have to file briefs on their arguments to present to the justices.
The Supreme Court could deny listening to the case, but the importance and significance of the case could force the justices to take it on. It is unknown when the justices, if they decide to hear the case, could make a ruling.
Aaron Martinez covers the criminal justice system for the El Paso Times. He may be reached at amartinez1@elpasotimes.com or on X/Twitter @AMartinezEPT.
El Paso Times reporter Jeff Abbott contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Federal judges bar Texas redistricting maps being used, cite racial profiling
Reporting by Aaron Martinez, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
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