Trump Appointee from Texas Pens Decision
that Brands New GOP Map Unconstitutional

Capitol Inside
November 18, 2025

A federal judge who President Donald Trump appointed dealt a potentially fatal blow to the Republicans' mid-decade redistricting push on Tuesday when he ordered the state of Texas to hold elections for the U.S. House next year on a map that was drawn by Republicans here four years ago.

In a decision authored by U.S. District Judge Jeff Brown, a three-judge panel in El Paso found that a congressional map that the GOP-controlled Legislature adopted in a special session in August to be a product of blatant racial gerrymandering that rendered it unconstitutional and effectively worthless for the 2026 vote.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will appeal the ruling from the federal appellate jurists in the court's western district. But the preliminary injunction that the court served up today effectively prevents Governor Greg Abbott from calling an eleventh-hour special session to try to fix the new map before the filing deadline for the party primary elections in early December.

"Additionally, the court has identified a serious legal flaw in the 2025 Map ... and the 2021 Map is already a viable congressional map that was drawn by the Legislature," Brown wrote in the opinion that consumed 160 pages.

"By reverting to the 2021 Map, this Court will not preempt the Legislature’s authority to draw its congressional districts. Rather, this Court will uphold the Legislature’s authority while requiring the least amount of change and disruption to both Texas’s election officials and voters," the jurist added.

Brown was appointed as a state district judge in Harris County by then-Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, during his first year as the top Texas leader in 2001. Brown served on the lower state court for six years and six more on the Fourteenth Court of Appeals at the state level before an appointment from Perry to the Texas Supreme Court in 2013. Brown was elected to the state's highest civil court in 2014 and 2018 before Trump tapped him the following year for the federal bench during his first term as president.

The decision that put the new Texas congressional voting boundaries on hold emerged from the appeals court on a vote of 2-1. The case could be destined for the U.S. Supreme Court with no guarantee of success or failure for the state.

The ruling Republicans in Austin had no plans for redrawing U.S. House districts throughout the regular session in 2025. But Abbott ordered lawmakers to revise the congressional map in a way that gave the GOP five additional seats immediately after Trump implored Texas to approve such a plan.

Abbott claimed initially that he'd added redistricting to a special session agenda as a result of a Department of Justice letter that accused the state of having illegal coalition districts that had been fashioned for specific minorities. But some Republican map sponsors insisted that race hadn't been a factor in the new map's construction at the same time others directly contradicted that assertion with statements at hearings.

The Republicans in Austin argued that the new U.S. House map was produced exclusively for partisan gain through legal political gerrymandering. But the Trump appointee who composed the majority opinion for the federal judicial panel torpedoed into that line of spin with today's decision. The DOJ letter that Abbott used to justify the summer map remake was an instrumental ingredient in the appellate panel ruling as evidence of racial gerrymandering despite persistent denials from GOP leaders and lawmakers here.

The GOP power grab in Austin inspired California Democrats to counter the Texas map with one of their own that created five new seats that Democratic candidates would be favored to flip. A walkout during the first special summer session by Democrats in the Texas House bought critical time for California Governor Gavin Newsom to drum up support for Proposition 50 - which gave voters the opportunity to bless or to reject the Congress map counter punch.

The fact that the new California map is voter-certified could boost the blue state's chances of prevailing in court challenges. It's conceivable - as a consequence - that Democrats could pick up five U.S. House seats in the Golden State a year from now while Texas Republicans are doing good to break even on the 2021 map.

more to come ...

"Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned -- and democracy won. This ruling is a win for Texas, and for every American who fights for free and fair elections."

“BREAKING: 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. 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. 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”

“The Legislature redrew our congressional maps to better reflect Texans' conservative voting preferences – and for no other reason. Any claim that these maps are discriminatory is absurd and unsupported by the testimony offered during ten days of hearings. This ruling is clearly erroneous and undermines the authority the U.S. Constitution assigns to the Texas Legislature by imposing a different map by judicial edict. The State of Texas will swiftly appeal to the United States Supreme Court.”

"For all those Republicans, who have tried for so many years in so many ways to assure my defeat by gerrymander, not yet, not so quick. I am now actively seeking reelection for TX-37 to represent ATX, the only place I’ve called home. Onward!"