NRF-Supported Plaintiffs Call on SCOTUS to Uphold Lower Court Ruling Blocking Texas’s Mid-Decade Gerrymander

Washington, D.C. – Today, plaintiffs supported by the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF) submitted a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court in Abbott v. LULAC, calling on the Court to affirm a lower federal court’s determination that Texas’s mid-decade gerrymander likely violates the U.S. Constitution and block the map from use in future elections. A ruling on this matter could determine the future of Texas’s congressional map for the 2028 election. 

“This is a clear-cut case. A federal three-judge panel—led by a Trump-appointed judge—followed the facts and determined that Texas’s mid-decade gerrymander likely violates the U.S. Constitution by unlawfully silencing the voices of millions of voters of color,” said Marina Jenkins, Executive Director of the NRF. “Yet, instead of adhering to the lower court’s order to deliver justice to Texans, the state of Texas has asked the nation’s highest court to turn a blind eye to blatant racial discrimination. Texans deserve a congressional map that gives them an equal opportunity to exercise their right to vote. Delayed justice is justice denied to the people. The Supreme Court must allow justice to be delivered for voters of color in the Lone Star State.”

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:

Following the 2020 Census, Texas was the only state to gain two congressional seats due to significant population growth. The census data also showed that 95% of the state’s population growth came from communities of color. Despite this, in 2021, the state of Texas enacted a congressional map that reduced the number of districts where voters of color have a fair chance to elect candidates of their choice and increased the number of majority-white districts. Immediately after the congressional map was enacted, the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF) filed Voto Latino v. Scott, now renamed Gonzales v. Nelson and consolidated under LULAC v. Abbott, challenging Texas’s 2021-enacted congressional map for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. 

Just two months after the trial in the case against the 2021-enacted map, at the request of President Trump and the Department of Justice, Governor Greg Abbott called for an August special session in the Texas Legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map. Coming out of the 2025 special legislative session, the State of Texas enacted a new congressional gerrymander that goes even further to diminish the voting power of communities of color. 

As enactment of the new gerrymander was imminent in August 2025, the NRF initiated a legal challenge in federal court against the newly enacted congressional gerrymander, asking the court to strike down the new map on several grounds, most immediately through a motion for a preliminary injunction. After a ten-day hearing in October 2025, a federal three-judge panel issued an order blocking Texas’s gerrymander from being used in the 2026 midterm elections, on the grounds that it likely violated the U.S. Constitution. On an emergency request from Texas, the Supreme Court issued a stay of the lower court’s order, allowing the new gerrymander to be used pending a decision from the Court on the merits.

The NRF’s filing today to the Supreme Court asks the justices to affirm the lower court’s ruling and block Texas’s mid-decade gerrymander from being used in future elections. To learn more about the NRF’s work, click here. 

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