Federal Court Blocks Texas’ 2025 Redistricting Map — NAACP Texas State conference and Allies Secure Victory Against Racial Gerrymandering
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Austin, Texas — In a historic civil rights victory, a three-judge federal court has granted a preliminary injunction halting Texas from using the discriminatory 2025 congressional map in upcoming elections. The ruling mandates that Texas revert to its 2021 congressional map for the 2026 election cycle, finding that the 2025 plan constituted unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.
The Texas NAACP participated as a lead plaintiff along with the Congresspersons and other partners in defending the constitutional rights of minority voters in Texas, including those who reside in historically diverse “coalition districts” as they were called by the majority. These districts empower Texans of different racial and ethnic backgrounds to elect representatives of their choice — the very principle the new map sought to eliminate. The parties sued under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
Court Finds Race, Not Policy, Drove Texas’ Redistricting
The court concluded that racial considerations predominated in drawing the 2025 map after Texas lawmakers responded to a Department of Justice (DOJ) letter wrongly asserting that “coalition districts” were unconstitutional. The panel found this directive legally incorrect and racially motivated, noting that the DOJ targeted only majority-non-White districts while ignoring similarly situated majority-White districts.
In a 2–1 decision, Judges Jeffrey V. Brown and David C. Guaderrama held that Texas had “substantial evidence of racial motivation” when dismantling diverse coalition districts across Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth. As a result, the state’s actions violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fifteenth Amendment’s prohibition on racial discrimination in voting. The panel decided that the race-blind testimony from the State’s mapdrawer was not credible.
“This Is a Victory for Every Texan Who Believes in Fair Representation, but the State is preparing to appeal this matter to the United States Supreme Court so we know the fight will continue, but it is our hope that we can find at least 5 justices who will be able to put law and justice above politics and continue to give true meaning to the 14th and 15th Amendments.”
Under the Court’s ruling, the 9th, 18th, 30th , 32nd, 33rd and 35th Congressional Districts (along with a number of others such as the 28th, 29th and 34th) will be restored for the next election.
The Texas NAACP is very thankful for the efforts of its legal team, led by the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law including David Rollins-Boyd, Jennifer Nwatchukwu, Rob Weiner, Jeremy Lewis, the Dechert Firm including Lindsay Cohen and Neil Steiner and attorneys Carroll Rhodes of the National NAACP Voting Rights Project, Robert Notzon and Gary Bledsoe.
Next Steps
The case, League of United Latin American Citizens v. Abbott, will now proceed to trial. Any appeal from this order will go directly to the United States Supreme Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1253.
For Texas voters, today’s decision reaffirms that civil rights protections are not optional — they are the foundation of a democratic society.
Media Contact: Texas NAACP Communications Office Email:lkerrnaacp@gmail.com
Phone: (512) 659-4816 and website is Texas-naacp.org.
