The latest aftershock of the political earthquake resulting from the redesign of the electoral map in the United States shook Texas this week. On Tuesday, a panel of federal judges blocked the new state-approved congressional map that benefited the Republican Party, and in the process not only disrupted preparations for the 2026 elections but also sparked an unprecedented internal revolt among Republicans themselves. The ruling – written by Judge Jeffrey Brown, nominated by Donald Trump and with clearly conservative tendencies – concludes that the map approved this summer is a gerrymandering unconstitutional race. In response, the Republican leadership of the state of Texas, where it controls all government powers, has closed ranks and launched an offensive to restore the map presented in the summer, appealing directly to the US Supreme Court and denouncing what they call a judicial attack on legislative authority.
But the figure at the center of this storm is not a progressive jurist, nor a Democratic appointee, but Brown. For more than two decades, Brown has been a trusted ideological ally of Texas governors, attorneys general and conservative advocacy groups. His conviction then rocked the state Republican Party, prompting accusations of treason and a cascade of attacks.
Brown quickly rose in the Texas judicial hierarchy. Appointed in 2001 by then-Governor Rick Perry to the 55th District Court, he reached the Texas Supreme Court, where he served on an all-Republican bench. His rulings earned him praise among conservative activists: he repeatedly sided with opponents of same-sex marriage and openly expressed anti-abortion positions. When Donald Trump nominated him as a federal judge in 2019, Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrated him as a jurist of “fidelity to the Constitution,” while Governor Greg Abbott praised his “commitment to the rule of law.”
That long history made his ruling Tuesday even more unexpected. Brown and Judge David Guaderrama – a Barack Obama appointee – concluded that the 2025 map was not simply a partisan ploy, but a deliberate racial re-engineering of Texas’ congressional boundaries. Although he gerrymandering Partisanship is legal under federal law, racialism is not. According to the court, Texas officials crossed that line when they attempted to dismantle so-called “coalition districts” — where no racial group has a majority — and replace them with districts expressly designed to have Hispanic majorities, which began over the past decade to consistently vote Republican for the first time in state history.
Brown wrote that Gov. Greg Abbott “explicitly directed the Legislature to redistrict by race” and prioritized purging coalition districts to comply with what state leaders interpreted as a Justice Department directive. Lawmakers “deliberately manipulated the racial numbers of the districts,” he concluded.
Republican leaders reacted immediately. Attorney Paxton addressed the Supreme Court, accusing the “radical left” of attempting to “undermine the will of the people,” despite Judge Brown’s impeccable conservative credentials. Governor Abbott called the ruling “clearly erroneous” and argued that the judiciary had usurped powers reserved for Parliament.
Meanwhile, the state’s political-electoral machine fell into chaos. Counties had already begun reconfiguring voting districts, hiring polling workers and processing applications based on the now-suspended map. Suddenly, they were forced to improvise solutions less than three weeks before the December 8 deadline for registering applications. Many Republican hopefuls had already begun campaigning and raising money in districts that no longer legally exist.
“I’m not worried,” insisted Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Waco, according to the Texas Grandstand. “This will go to the Supreme Court and everything will be fine.” But others recognized strategic errors. Former state legislator and former Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi wrote in That approach, he said, could give courts in their final decision the impression that racial — and not political — motivations drove the redistribution.
If the political establishment has exploded, the judicial establishment has not been far behind. Judge Jerry Smith, a Ronald Reagan appointee and third member of the commission, the only one to disagree with the suspension of the maps, issued a vigorous 104-page private dissent that reads more like a political argument than a technical legal text.
“Buckle up. It’s going to be a busy night!” the opinion begins, before launching accusations that Brown and Guaderrama marginalized him, rushed the sentencing and prevented him from having sufficient time to write his dissent. He described his behavior as “pernicious judicial misconduct” and called Brown an “inexperienced wizard” trapped in an “illogical straightjacket.”
Smith argued not only that the map’s authors acted out of partisan interests – a constitutionally permissible motive – but also that the majority’s decision favored Democratic elites. He went so far as to say that the main beneficiaries of Brown’s ruling were billionaire philanthropist George Soros and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, allegations that are reminiscent of long-standing right-wing conspiracies and that drew immediate criticism from Latino civil rights organizations.
LULAC, one of the appellant organizations, rejected Smith’s interpretation as “in direct contradiction to the facts” and said that protecting voters from racial discrimination “is a constitutional obligation, not activism.”
A race against time to decide the appeal
The Texas appeal is now in the hands of Judge Samuel Alito, the Fifth Circuit’s handler on emergency motions from the states. The Supreme Court could temporarily suspend the ruling and allow Texas to use the disputed map in the 2026 midterm elections while the litigation continues. The decision is expected to come within days: Registration of candidates is already underway and election administrators warn that last-minute changes between maps could confuse voters and paralyze preparations for the March primary.
Despite the chaos, the district court insisted that the fault lies not with the judiciary, but with lawmakers. “The Legislature – not the Court – redrawn the Texas congressional map weeks before the periods to register candidates and district presidents opened,” the ruling states. “The state has chosen to game its election laws on the eve of the 2026 elections.” That decision, at the explicit order of President Trump, was what sparked a national battle to redraw electoral maps, in which California has already approved a redistricting that would give Democrats five more seats in the House of Representatives in the 2026 elections.
The ruling also highlights a reality: Judges, even conservative ones, sometimes deviate from political expectations. It’s worth remembering now that the case heads to the Supreme Court, where conservatives have a 6-3 majority. For now, however, Texas Republicans show no signs of introspection. Their strategy is clear: confront, challenge and escalate actions, betting that the Supreme Court will eventually agree with them.
