Federal judge instructed state to use older maps, with Republicans likely to appeal decision
New maps that added five Republican districts in Texas hit a legal roadblock on Tuesday, with a federal judge saying the state cannot use the 2025 maps because they are probably “racially gerrymandered”.
The decision is likely to be appealed, given the push for more Republican-friendly congressional maps nationwide and Donald Trump’s full-court press on his party to make them. Some states have followed suit, and some Democratic states have retaliated, pushing to add more blue seats to counteract Republicans.
A panel of three federal judges in Texas said in a decision that the state must use previously approved 2021 maps for next year’s midterms rather than the ones that kickstarted a wave of mid-decade redistricting. The plaintiffs, including the League of United Latin American Citizens, are “likely to prove at trial that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map”, so the court approved a preliminary injunction to stop the map’s use for next year’s elections.
When the highest tier of appeal is the current Supreme Court, that means it will almost certainly settle in Republicans’ favor eventually. You’re right in that it’s just a question of how long it takes to get there.
The only chance this redistricting has at not passing on appeal is if all of the retaliatory redistricting efforts are taken down with it and there is a concern that the sum total of these redistricting efforts may cost the Republicans more seats than they are to gain. There’s no way they allow Texas to be rejected while California goes forward.
California was a referendum by the voters. Texas was a unilateral decision by the current government.