(CNN) — A federal court Tuesday blocked Texas from using its newly drawn congressional map in next year’s midterms, ruling that the map is likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

The ruling, which is likely to be appealed, is a major setback for President Donald Trump and Republicans, who had made Texas the centerpiece of a national campaign to redraw maps ahead of the midterms.

The court ordered Texas to use its previous map, which the state enacted after the 2020 census.

If the ruling stands, Republicans could end up on the losing end of the mid-decade redistricting fight they started.

The new Texas map aimed to help Republicans flip five Democratic House seats next year, and it kicked off a rush of redistricting efforts from both parties across the country. The Justice Department has joined a similar challenge to the new Democratic-drawn map in California enacted in direct response to Texas aiming to flip five Republican-held seats.

US District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, wrote that the challengers were “likely to prove at trial that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”

The three-judge panel that heard the case split 2-1, with Obama appointee David Guaderrama joining Brown. Reagan appointee Jerry Smith opposed the decision.

Judge criticizes a letter Trump’s DOJ sent to Texas

Tuesday’s ruling centers on a letter the Trump administration sent to Texas in July in which Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the civil rights division at the Department of Justice, warned of potential legal action over the state’s map because of what it called “unconstitutional” coalition districts, or districts with a non-White majority but where no single racial group makes up a majority.

While Brown calls DOJ’s assertion “legally incorrect,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott cited the letter when he added redistricting to a special session he’d scheduled for the legislature.

“In doing so, the Governor explicitly directed the Legislature to draw a new U.S. House map to resolve DOJ’s concerns. In other words, the Governor explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict based on race,” Brown wrote.

“The map ultimately passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor—the 2025 Map—achieved all but one of the racial objectives that DOJ demanded,” Brown wrote. “The Legislature dismantled and left unrecognizable not only all of the districts DOJ identified in the letter, but also several other ‘coalition districts’ around the State.”

Brown skewered Dhillon’s letter in his decision, writing that it’s “challenging to unpack the DOJ Letter because it contains so many factual, legal, and typographical errors.”

“Indeed, even attorneys employed by the Texas Attorney General—who professes to be a political ally of the Trump Administration—describe the DOJ Letter as ‘legally[] unsound,’ ‘baseless,’ ‘erroneous,’ ‘ham-fisted,’ and ‘a mess,” Brown wrote.

Abbott did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Texas Democrats who fought the GOP-led effort – including by leaving the state to delay the passage of the map – celebrated Brown’s ruling.

“A federal court just stopped one of the most brazen attempts to steal our democracy that Texas has ever seen,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, who leads the Texas House Democrats.

The national redistricting battles play out in court

The legal wrangling over efforts by Democrats and Republicans across the country to enact rare, mid-decade congressional maps will continue to play out in coming weeks and months. Last week, the Justice Department sued officials in California over newly enacted maps meant to give Democrats in the Golden State an edge next year. A court is set to hear arguments in that case next month.

Attorneys with the department are arguing that California’s redistricting plan, which was approved by voters in early November, was sold as a purely partisan effort, when in fact “the focus was not partisanship, but race,” which they say would be impermissible under the US Constitution.

Perhaps with a nod to the likelihood that Tuesday’s action could also end up before the US Supreme Court, Brown began the panel’s ruling on the Texas maps by quoting Chief Justice John Roberts in a 2007 opinion: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The-CNN-Wire
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