Ahead of next year’s midterm elections, Texas Republicans are moving to redraw their state’s congressional district maps, netting the GOP at least five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, but federal judges have accused the Lone Star State’s legislature of racial gerrymandering.

“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics,” wrote Judge Jeffrey Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, in a decision this week barring the use of the new congressional maps. “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.”

Most federal cases are heard first by a district court, then a court of appeals, and finally by the U.S. Supreme Court, if they make it that far in the appeals process. Voting rights cases, however, are heard by a three-judge panel consisting of two federal district court judges and one appellate judge, and are then appealed immediately to the Supreme Court. Brown, appointed by President Donald Trump, was joined in his decision to reject Texas’s new congressional maps by Judge David Guaderrama of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, who was appointed by Barack Obama. Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, was the sole dissent.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) announced immediately following the decision that he would appeal the case to the Supreme Court. “The radical left is once again trying to undermine the will of the people. The Big Beautiful Map was entirely legal and passed for partisan purposes to better represent the political affiliations of Texas,” Paxton insisted, repudiating the claims of racial gerrymandering. “For years, Democrats have engaged in partisan redistricting intended to eliminate Republican representation. Democratic states across the country, from California to Illinois to New York, have systematically reduced representation of Republican voters in their congressional delegations,” the attorney general continued. “But when Republicans respond in kind, Democrats rely on false accusations of racism to secure a partisan advantage. I will be appealing this decision to the Supreme Court of the United States, and I fully expect the Court to uphold Texas’s sovereign right to engage in partisan redistricting.”

In the court’s injunction blocking the use of the new maps, Brown alleged that Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) and the Republican-led state legislature had been hesitant to redistrict along partisan lines when Trump made the suggestion earlier this year. Instead, Brown charged, Lone Star State officials only moved on the proposal when the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) civil rights division warned that the state may face lawsuits over its current “unconstitutional” congressional maps, which the DOJ argued created illegal racial coalitions favoring Democrats over Republicans and thus diluting what would otherwise be a majority vote for a Republican candidate.

Appearing on Wednesday night’s episode of “Washington Watch,” FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter commented, “The mid-decade redistricting cycle we’re in was always going to be litigated, and it seems like we’ve arrived at that stage now where the courts are going to have to weigh in.” He also anticipated that a number of states “waiting in the wings trying to figure out which way this is headed” before redrawing congressional maps may be encouraged to do so if the Supreme Court backs Texas in its move. “I think whatever comes from the Supreme Court, if they decide to take up this case, is going to have enormous ramifications for some of the states that are making overtures that they’re going to redraw their own districts,” Carpenter suggested. “Florida is looking at redrawing their districts. Indiana is — it’s kind of stalled, but they’re looking at it as well. And you’ve got blue states like Virginia and Maryland that are also looking at redistricting, and there’s potential for even more in the future.”

Trump and Indiana Governor Mike Braun (R) have pressed the Hoosier State’s legislature to draw new district maps favoring Republicans, potentially eliminating two Democrat-held seats in the U.S. House, but Republicans in Indiana’s GOP-dominated senate split over whether or not to push the congressional maps through in a special session next month, ensuring that they would be used in the 2026 midterms, or delay until early next year and risk not redistricting in time to effect the midterms. All 10 Democrats in the state senate voted against participating in a special session, while Republican senators split evenly on the issue: 19 in favor, 19 against.

Carpenter noted that Indiana senate Republicans may not “have the votes to go through with this redistricting push” during a special session. “It looks as though they may take up redistricting when they convene for their regularly scheduled session,” he explained. “So I guess the concern was they were not able to get the votes during a special session, but we’ll see if, maybe with some additional time once they convene in January, perhaps they’ll have the votes needed to look at their maps again.”

Redistricting in Virginia, where Democrats expanded their control over the state legislature and took the governor’s mansion in off-year elections earlier this month, will likely come down to meeting deadlines, Carpenter observed. “Each state has their own sort of labyrinth of constitutional requirements and statutes around redistricting. The situation in Virginia is there’s basically no room for error,” he explained. “They have to pass a constitutional amendment this session with this governor,” Carpenter noted, referring to outgoing Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin. “He won’t have to veto it, but then they have to come back next session and pass an identical constitutional amendment, get it on the ballot before their spring primaries — which I believe are in April — and get it passed,” Carpenter detailed. “So they have a series of events that that they can’t miss any one of those deadlines in order to circumvent their constitutionally-required bipartisan redistricting commission.”

In Maryland, Carpenter anticipated, Governor Wes Moore (D) may not attempt redistricting through the usual legislative means, due to the makeup of the Old Line State’s Supreme Court. “They have a Supreme Court that’s been loaded up from former Republican Governor Larry Hogan. And so I think the political calculus from Democrat Governor Wes Moore in that state and the Democratic leadership in the legislature is that they’re not likely to get new maps past that Republican dominated state Supreme Court,” Carpenter observed. “Nevertheless, Governor Moore is pushing through with a redistricting commission, so he’s trying to circumvent the legislature.”