In a heated courtroom in El Paso, Texas, the fate of five congressional districts—and by extension, the political representation of thousands of Texans—now hangs in the balance. At stake is whether the state’s latest redistricting plan, crafted by Republican lawmakers and signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in September 2025, will stand for the 2026 mid-term elections or be struck down as an illegal attempt to dilute minority voting power.
On October 10, 2025, civil rights groups, led by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and joined by other organizations, presented their closing arguments before a three-judge federal panel in El Paso. Their core claim? That Texas intentionally discriminated against Hispanic and African American voters by redrawing district lines to move them out of traditionally Democratic strongholds and into districts where Republicans are favored to win. This, they argue, is race-based gerrymandering—a practice explicitly forbidden by the Voting Rights Act.
State attorneys, however, pushed back hard, insisting that the redistricting was driven purely by politics, not race. They argued that the Legislature simply targeted Democrat-voting neighborhoods, many of which happen to be minority communities, for inclusion in new districts. "It is not sufficient to say, 'That doesn’t look like party-driven, that looks like race,'" state attorneys asserted in their closing statements, according to Border Report. They maintained that the plaintiffs failed to prove the Legislature's intent was to suppress the minority vote.
The courtroom drama is just the latest chapter in a saga that began this past summer. In July 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a sharply worded letter to Governor Abbott, raising concerns that five so-called coalition districts—areas where Hispanic, Black, or other minority groups are clustered together—were drawn in ways that violated federal law. The Texas Legislature responded with a rapid-fire redistricting process in August, with the new maps expected to net Republicans as many as five additional congressional seats, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Plaintiffs argue that the intent behind these changes is clear. Not only did the new maps leave some Hispanic districts with just over 50 percent of the voting age population—making it far from certain that these communities could elect candidates of their choice—but the redistricting also set up scenarios where Democratic incumbents might be forced to run against one another. The effect, critics say, is a deliberate dilution of minority voting power. "The GOP leaders ran roughshod over minority opportunity districts to accomplish their goal," The Dallas Morning News editorialized, adding that Black voters, who overwhelmingly support Democrats, are especially impacted.
The specifics are telling. In North Texas, lawmakers scrambled the boundaries of the 32nd and 33rd Congressional Districts, packing more minority voters into District 33 while diluting their influence in District 32. Black Congressman Marc Veasey was drawn out of his district and placed into a majority-white, Republican-led district, while more Black voters were packed into Jasmine Crockett’s 30th Congressional District. Similar tactics, plaintiffs say, were used elsewhere in the state. Republicans counter that they actually created two Black-majority districts and one Hispanic-majority district, but critics argue that this "packing" of minority voters ultimately weakens their overall influence by concentrating them unnecessarily.
The legal landscape is further complicated by a 2024 decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed longstanding precedent by ruling that minority coalition districts—those where Black and Latino voters are combined—are not protected under federal law. This means that even as Texas faces scrutiny for allegedly undermining such districts, the courts may be less inclined to intervene.
Adam Kincaid, the architect of the new maps, testified that he did not use racial data in the redistricting process. However, as The Dallas Morning News pointed out, this claim is muddied by the fact that the Department of Justice’s 2025 letter to Abbott stated that the previous maps—drawn by the same Republican leadership—impermissibly used race as a basis for district lines. The letter, critics say, became a convenient pretext for launching a redistricting process that former President Trump had publicly requested. State attorneys themselves referenced Trump’s comments, noting, "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." They accused Democratic leaders of initially decrying Trump’s political gerrymandering, only to shift their arguments to racial discrimination as the case advanced.
For the three-judge panel—Senior U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama, District Judge David Brown, and Judge Jerry E. Smith—the central question is both simple and thorny: Were the new maps drawn primarily on the basis of race, which would be unconstitutional, or on political grounds, which the U.S. Supreme Court has said is permissible, even if the practical effect is to disadvantage minorities? As The Dallas Morning News editorialized, "It’s absurd to ask courts to ignore those effects because the gerrymanderers say their work was strictly political." The editorial further challenged the logic of separating racial effects from political motivations, especially when the impact on minority voters is so stark.
Both sides presented extensive evidence. Plaintiffs even drew up their own alternative maps to demonstrate that it was possible to comply with political goals without disenfranchising minority voters. State attorneys dismissed these as unfair comparisons, noting they did not account for all 38 congressional districts or the realities facing GOP incumbents. They also pointed to states like Massachusetts and California, arguing that Democrats have long engaged in gerrymandering to minimize Republican votes, yet there is little outcry when non-minority voters are affected.
The stakes are high and the clock is ticking. The court has until December 8, 2025, to issue a ruling on the requested temporary injunction, but the judges hinted that a decision could come within weeks. They even asked the parties whether they preferred a quick summary ruling with a detailed opinion to follow, or a comprehensive ruling all at once. No clear answer was given. Meanwhile, Governor Abbott’s HB 4 redistricting law is set to take effect for the 2026 mid-term elections, and some politicians have already declared their intent to run in the newly drawn districts.
Whatever the outcome, the case is almost certain to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, ensuring that the debate over race, politics, and representation in Texas will not be settled anytime soon. For now, the eyes of the nation—and thousands of Texas voters—remain fixed on the three judges in El Paso, awaiting a decision that could reshape the state’s political landscape for years to come.