WASHINGTON — A federal court on Tuesday blocked Texas from moving forward with its new congressional map, hastily drawn in hopes of netting up to five additional Republican seats and securing the U.S. House for the GOP in next year's midterm elections.

The ruling is a major political blow to the Trump administration, which set off a redistricting arms race throughout the country earlier this year by encouraging Texas lawmakers to redraw the state's congressional district boundaries mid-decade — an extraordinary move bucking traditional practice.

The three-judge federal court panel in El Paso said in a 2-1 decision that "substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map," ordering the state to revert to the maps it had drawn in 2021.

Texas' Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who at Trump's behest directed GOP state lawmakers to proceed with the plan, vowed on Tuesday that the state would appeal the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court.

Californians responded to Texas' attempted move by voting on Nov. 4 to approve a new, temporary congressional map for the state, giving Democrats the opportunity to pick up five new seats.

Initially, the proposal pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, known as Prop. 50, had trigger language that would have conditioned new California maps going into effect based on whether Texas approved its new congressional districts.

But that language was stripped out last minute, raising the possibility that Democrats enter the 2026 midterm election with a distinct advantage. The language was removed because Texas had already passed its redistricting plan, making the trigger no longer needed, said Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, who drew the maps for Prop. 50.

"Our legislature eliminated the trigger because Texas had already triggered it," Mitchell said Tuesday.

Newsom celebrated the ruling in a statement to The Times, which he also posted on the social media site X.

"Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned — and democracy won," Newsom said. "This ruling is a win for Texas, and for every American who fights for free and fair elections."

An aide to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who led an effort in California to enshrine nonpartisan districting practices, suggested that California's effort could face problems going forward after it was sold to the public as a response to Texas.

"The title of the proposition said it was a response to Texas, and the voter guide mentioned Texas 13 times, so I'd imagine you will find voters who feel misled that if Texas' gerrymander doesn't happen, California's still does," said Daniel Ketchell, a spokesperson for Schwarzenegger.

Legal scholars had warned that Texas' bid would invite accusations and legal challenges of racial gerrymandering that California's maps would not.

The new Texas redistricting plan appears to have been instigated by a letter from Assistant Atty. Gen. for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, who threatened Texas with legal action over three "coalition districts" that she argued were unconstitutional.

Coalition districts feature multiple minority communities, none of which comprises the majority. The newly configured districts passed by Texas redrew all three, potentially "cracking" racially diverse communities while preserving white-majority districts, legal scholars said.

"I think the decision was both very smart and very careful in following the law," Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School and former deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, said of the 160-page opinion.

"These are judges who took the law seriously," Levitt said, "and also judges who were — rightly — absolutely furious at DOJ for a letter starting the whole charade, where the legal 'reasoning' wasn't worth the paper it was printed on."

While the Supreme Court's rulings on redistricting have been sporadic, the justices have generally ruled that purely political redistricting is legal, but that racial gerrymandering is not — a more difficult line to draw in southern states where racial and political lines overlap.

In 2023, addressing a redistricting fight in Alabama over Black voter representation, the high court ruled in Allen vs. Milligan that discriminating against minority voters in gerrymandering is unconstitutional, ordering the Southern state to create a second minority-majority district.

The Justice Department is also suing California to attempt to block the use of its new maps in next year's elections.

J. Morgan Kousser, a Caltech professor who recently testified in the ongoing case over Texas' 2021 redistricting effort, said the potential downfall of Texas' new map was an ironic twist for a president whose strategic goal was to give himself a leg up in the midterms.

He blamed Tuesday's court decision — written by a Trump appointee — on the president's gutting of legal talent at the Justice Department, arguing its legal strategy was flawed from the start.

"The California gerrymander is likely fixed in stone, because there is no evidence of 'racial predominance' in the California action, especially compared to the plentiful evidence of racial motives quoted carefully by the district court in Texas," Kousser said, "and the opinion of the Texas district court is so meticulous and persuasive that the Supreme Court majority will have difficulty overturning it."

"Purging the DOJ left no one to warn the Trump appointees that what they were about to do would likely boomerang," Kousser added. "This is the law of unintended consequences run riot."

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(Times staff writers Melody Gutierrez and Seema Mehta contributed to this report.)

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WASHINGTON — A federal court has blocked Texas from moving forward with a new congressional map hastily drawn in recent months to net Republicans up to five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections.

The ruling on Tuesday is a major political blow to the Trump administration, which set off a redistricting arms race throughout the country earlier this year by encouraging Texas lawmakers to redraw its congressional district boundaries mid-decade — an extraordinary move bucking traditional practice.

The three-judge federal court panel in El Paso said in a 2-1 decision that “substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map,” ordering the state to revert to the maps it had drawn in 2021.

Texas’ Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who at Trump’s behest directed GOP state lawmakers to proceed with the plan, vowed on Tuesday that the state would appeal the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court.

Californians responded to Texas’ attempted move by voting on Nov. 4 to approve a new, temporary congressional map for the state, giving Democrats the opportunity to pick up five new seats.

Initially, the proposal pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, known as Proposition 50, had trigger language that would have conditioned new California maps going into effect based on whether Texas approved its new congressional districts.

But that language was stripped out last minute, raising the possibility that Democrats enter the 2026 midterm election with a distinct advantage. The language was removed because Texas had already passed its redistricting plan, making the trigger no longer needed, said Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, who drew the maps for Proposition 50.

“Our legislature eliminated the trigger because Texas had already triggered it,” Mitchell said Tuesday.

Newsom celebrated the ruling in a statement to the Los Angeles Times, which he also posted on the social media site X.

“Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned — and democracy won,” Newsom said. “This ruling is a win for Texas, and for every American who fights for free and fair elections.”

Legal scholars had warned that Texas’ bid would invite accusations and legal challenges of racial gerrymandering that California’s maps would not.

The new Texas redistricting plan appears to have been instigated by a letter from Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, who threatened Texas with legal action over three “coalition districts” that she argued were unconstitutional.

Coalition districts feature multiple minority communities, none of which comprises the majority. The newly configured districts passed by Texas redrew all three, potentially “cracking” racially diverse communities while preserving white-majority districts, legal scholars said.

While the Supreme Court’s rulings on redistricting have been sporadic, the justices have generally ruled that purely political redistricting is legal, but that racial gerrymandering is not — a more difficult line to draw in southern states where racial and political lines overlap.

In 2023, addressing a redistricting fight in Alabama over Black voter representation, the high court ruled in Allen vs. Milligan that discriminating against minority voters in gerrymandering is unconstitutional, ordering the Southern state to create a second minority-majority district.

The Justice Department is also suing California to attempt to block the use of its new maps in next year’s elections.

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(Times staff writer Melody Gutierrez contributed to this report.)

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