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In mid-August, during a prominent redistricting conflict in Texas, CNN’s Jake Tapper questioned Governor Greg Abbott on the state’s decision to redraw its congressional map. “You are doing this to give Trump and Republicans in the House of Representatives five additional seats, right?” Tapper inquired. “That’s the motivation, is to stave off any midterm election losses.”
Abbott refuted this claim, referencing a recent ruling from the 5th Circuit that prevented Black and Hispanic voters from collaborating to file voting rights lawsuits. “To be clear, Jake, the reason we are doing this is because of that court decision,” Abbott asserted. “Texas is now authorized under law that changed, which is different from 2021 when we last engaged in redistricting.”
This assertion, which Abbott reiterated in multiple interviews and was initially supported by Republican lawmakers, became a central point in a federal court’s decision to invalidate Texas’ new congressional map as an unlawful racial gerrymander.
If Abbott had maintained that the redrawing was purely a matter of political strategy, the court would likely have upheld the new map based on Supreme Court precedents that generally permit partisan gerrymandering. However, by consistently linking the redistricting process to a court ruling that altered the racial dynamics of who can initiate legal challenges under the Voting Rights Act, Judge Jeffrey Brown noted that Abbott “explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict based on race.”
Brown’s comprehensive 160-page opinion also sharply criticized Republican lawmakers for inappropriately co
ecting the process to racial considerations and specifically condemned State Senator Phil King, chair of the Senate redistricting committee, for being dishonest and inconsistent during testimony.
In a pointed dissent released the day after Brown’s ruling, 5th U.S. Circuit Judge Jerry Smith argued that there was no evidence suggesting that Abbott or the lawmakers approached redistricting with a racial perspective. “The challenge faced by these plaintiffs and Judge Brown is to explain how it could be that the Republicans would sacrifice their stated goal of political gain for racial considerations,” he remarked, labeling the ruling’s conclusions as “both perverse and bizarre.”
The ruling, issued on Tuesday, has already been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is anticipated to respond swiftly. Candidates have until December 8 to declare their intentions for the 2026 elections, placing pressure on the courts to clarify which map will be used.
While there is consensus that a controversial letter was a misstep, the situation was complicated when Trump urged Texas Republicans to engage in redistricting. Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon sent a letter to Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, indicating that four of the state’s congressional districts were unconstitutional.
Dhillon referenced a recent 5th Circuit ruling in the case of Petteway v. Galveston County, which stated that different racial groups ca
ot unite to file voting rights complaints. Consequently, Texas was required to redraw four of the majority non-white congressional districts created in 2021, Dhillon asserted.
Texas had recently completed a month-long trial in which its legal team argued that the 2021 maps were drawn without regard to race. Paxton responded to Dhillon’s letter by reiterating that defense while suggesting the state might still pursue redistricting to strengthen Republican representation.
“The intent behind his letter seems to have been to redirect the redistricting conversation toward acceptable considerations such as partisanship, politics, and traditional districting criteria, rather than legally contentious issues like race,” Brown stated in his ruling. “If that was the purpose of the letter, it failed.”
Abbott continued to reference Dhillon’s letter, instructing the Legislature to redistrict “in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice.” He suggested that by incorporating the DOJ’s race-based redistricting request, the Governor was directing the Legislature to provide the racial adjustments sought by the DOJ.
Subsequently, Abbott embarked on a media campaign, insisting to various outlets, including CNN, that the redraw was in response to these constitutional concerns. He claimed that by eliminating coalition districts, the new map “turned out to provide more seats for Hispanics … It just coincides that it’s going to be Hispanic Republicans elected to those seats.”
Eventually, Abbott altered his stance, omitting references to the DOJ letter during a second special session call for lawmakers, following Democrats’ return from a quorum break. However, Judge Brown noted that this change did not eliminate “the racial taint” of the initial proclamation. “The map that the Legislature passed during the second session was largely identical to the first, indicating that racial considerations had already tainted the map by the time the Governor issued the second proclamation,” he wrote.
Judge Smith, the dissenting judge, contended that Abbott’s comments regarding Hispanic districts were made after the first version of the map was drawn, suggesting he “adjusted his rhetoric to defend the map in a forward-facing capacity,” rather than directing the Legislature to proceed based on a race-based rationale.
Following the ruling, Abbott characterized it as “absurd” to claim that the maps were discriminatory. “I have never seen a judgment, an opinion so erroneous in its writing,” he commented on Fox News. “It appeared that Judge Brown tailored his writing to achieve a specific outcome, which I believe the United States Supreme Court will not tolerate.”
As acknowledged by all three judges, Abbott’s comments have less significance than the actions taken by the Legislature in response. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that when courts attempt to distinguish between partisan gerrymandering and racial influence, they should typically grant legislatures the benefit of the doubt.
However, Judge Brown found “direct evidence” that “key legislators … had the same racial objectives as DOJ and the Governor.” He cited a press release from House Speaker Dustin Burrows, noting that the chamber had “delivered legislation to redistrict certain congressional districts to address concerns raised by the Department of Justice,” as well as comments from lawmakers who identified the Petteway ruling as the catalyst for the redraw.
Burrows expressed his disagreement with the ruling and predicted it would be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court “in short order.”
Brown also examined statements from State Representative Todd Hunter, the Corpus Christi Republican who advocated for the bill that enabled the map. During the floor presentation of the bill, Hunter discussed the racial demographics of each district and, without prompting, noted that the new map increased the number of Hispanic and Black majority districts.
“Chairman Hunter’s floor statements and exchanges with other legislators imply that he and the bill’s joint authors viewed the plan’s racial numbers not merely as raw statistical facts, but as selling points of the bill,” Brown commented. “He described it as ‘good,’ ‘great,’ and a ‘strong message’ that those four districts were majority-Hispanic.”
Brown also highlighted the rise in districts where Black or Hispanic voters barely constituted a majority of the eligible voting population. “The main proponents of the bill deliberately manipulated the districts’ racial numbers to make the map more palatable,” he wrote. “That’s racial gerrymandering.”
Judge Smith vehemently disagreed, asserting that none of Brown’s arguments undermined the presumption of good faith owed to legislators. He took particular issue with Brown’s interpretation of Hunter’s comments. “For Judge Brown to assert that [Hunter] harbored underlying racial animus on this ambiguous fact pattern unfairly characterizes Hunter, a former Democrat, as an unreformed, unrepentant racist masking partisan hostility under a veneer of segregationist ideology,” Smith stated. “This distorted interpretation by Judge Brown is a clear error and warrants reversal.”
Hunter did not respond to requests for commentary.
Several lawmakers made statements that supported the partisan argument now presented in court, including House Redistricting Committee Chair Cody Vasut, R-Angleton. Smith noted that these statements should be weighed equally with those from other legislators, while Brown disagreed.
“We conclude that the contemporaneous statements of legislators involved in the 2025 redistricting are more indicative of racial motives than partisan ones,” he wrote.
Senator King, who chairs the Senate redistricting committee, consistently claimed that the process was driven purely by partisan objectives. However, Brown dismissed his remarks, arguing that he was not as involved in the process as Hunter and deemed him an unreliable witness due to inconsistencies in his testimony.
The focus of contention lies in King’s communications with Adam Kincaid, the executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, who created the map for Texas. King claimed he explicitly told Kincaid he did not want to discuss redistricting and never inquired about potential Republican gains; Kincaid contended that King spoke candidly about the process during their meeting, including how many seats the GOP might gain.
Inconsistencies between King and Kincaid’s testimonies led Brown to suggest that one of them was incorrect and raised questions regarding the meeting’s potential to reveal unlawful legislative motives.
Judge Smith concurred that King was
