EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The fate of five congressional districts redrawn by Texas to ensure Republicans retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026 is now in the hands of three judges.
Representatives of civil rights organizations alleging the maps discriminate minorities presented closing arguments Friday in U.S. federal district court in El Paso. They were immediately followed by state attorneys refuting that claim.
The plaintiffs allege Texas disenfranchised thousands of Hispanics and African Americans by moving them from traditionally Democratic voting districts to ones a Republican will likely win. This is race-based gerrymandering prohibited by the Voting Rights Act, said lawyers representing the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and other groups.
They are asking the three-judge panel to issue a temporary injunction preventing Texas from enacting the changes.
But state attorneys said the displacement was based on politics, not race; the Legislature put Democrat-voting neighborhoods into new districts, and many of those Democrats happened to be minorities.
“It is not sufficient to say, ‘That doesn’t look like party-driven, that looks like race,’” state attorneys said in closing arguments Friday, asserting that the plaintiffs did not prove that the Legislature’s intent was to suppress the vote of minorities.
The August redistricting in Texas came following a July 7 Department of Justice letter expressing concern that five so-called coalition districts were illegal. Those consist of enclaves of Hispanics, African Americans or other minorities assembled into a single district which typically elects a minority to Congress.
That alone, the plaintiffs’ attorneys said, shows clear racial intent and harm. Other evidence presented is that some Hispanic congressional districts in the state were left at just over 50 percent of voting age population with no guarantee of electing a candidate of their choice, and some Democrat members of Congress likely might have to face off against each other because of the way district lines were redrawn.
State attorneys said politics drove the changes.
“There can be no doubt the reason for the federal redistricting in Texas is that President Trump publicly said he wanted to redistrict to keep a majority in the House of Representatives,” one of the state attorneys said.
The state quoted several Democratic leaders in Texas blasting Trump for his political gerrymandering in the days after his comments went public, then “changing their tune” to an alleged racial motivation.
The plaintiffs, in turn, refuted the state’s claim that the maps could’ve been drawn differently to comply with the Trump mandate but not deprive thousands of minorities of a chance to elect an amenable representative. One of the lawyers drew his map of the contested districts to make a point.
State attorneys said it wasn’t a fair comparison because it wasn’t a map of all 38 congressional districts in the state nor took into account that some GOP incumbents would be losing voters. They further stated that states like Massachusetts and California have been gerrymandering districts for decades to minimize Republican votes, and no one seems to object to non-minority voters being suppressed.
The two sides will present a written summary of their conclusions next week to the three-judge panel hearing the case. The judges — Senior U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama of El Paso, District Judge David Brown of the Southern District of Texas and Judge Jerry E. Smith of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — said they are aware their decision likely will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, so they asked the parties if they would like a quick summary ruling with a detailed opinion to be written later, of if they would rather wait for one final comprehensive ruling.
The court in theory has until Dec. 8 to rule on the injunction, but some of the judges hinted they could have a ruling in weeks.
The parties did not appear to give a direct response.
There was also debate among the parties as to when the new congressional maps go into effect. The plaintiffs believe the 2021 redistricting maps are still valid.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the HB 4 redistricting law in September, and it’s supposed to be in force for the 2026 mid-term elections. Some politicians have already declared intent to run in some of the new districts, according to testimony Friday.
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