Lawyers for the state of Texas spent nine days in a recently concluded federal hearing insisting that the state didn’t discriminate against Black and brown voters when it drew its new gerrymandered congressional map this summer.
But they fought tooth and nail during the hearing to keep as little information as possible from coming out about the mapmaking process.
The panel could issue its ruling quickly, given that time is running out before Texas candidates are scheduled to begin filing for a place on the 2026 primary ballot Nov. 8. Regardless of the decision, it’s likely the ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The hearing did reveal some important new facts about the redraw, which was engineered by Texas Republicans after pressure from President Donald Trump to boost the GOP’s chances of maintaining control of Congress next year.
From the testimony of Adam Kincaid – the director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, and the person who drew the map – the public learned:
- That Kincaid had numerous contacts with the White House and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over the redistricting effort — including sending messages on Signal that were set to automatically delete.
- That Kincaid viewed a draft of the letter sent to Texas by DOJ officials, urging them to redistrict because of concerns about race-based districts in the state’s existing map. The letter was central to the plaintiffs’ claim that the map illegally targeted voters based on race.
- That Kincaid was hired by the Republican National Committee to draw the map — underscoring the priority the national GOP placed on conducting the gerrymander.
- That Kincaid entirely ignored the input of ordinary Texans, provided at public hearings held over the summer — instead taking directions only from the White House and Texas’ GOP congressional delegation.
- And that Kincaid previously had been instructed to protect some minority districts when he drew the last Texas map in 2021. In 2025, however, he said he received no such instruction.
But, not unlike the Republican lawmakers who kept even the mapmaker’s identity a secret during the legislative session, lawyers for Texas put up obstacles to the plaintiffs’ inquiries at every turn in the hearing. And the panel of three federal judges often went along with them.
The panel was made up of Senior U.S. District Judge David C. Guaderrama, an appointee of former President Barack Obama; U.S. Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan; and U.S. District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, a Trump appointee.
First, the state was allowed to present Kincaid not as an expert, but as an ordinary lay witness. That legal maneuver allowed Kincaid to give the court his version of the story without turning over any of the detailed information that could have undercut his claims about how he made the map.
Defense lawyers insisted that Kincaid, as well as a handful of GOP legislative leaders who testified, were exempt from answering a sweeping range of inquiries about how the state came to draw a new congressional map mid-decade, without any new census data to trigger the process.
Minority voters* and voting advocates are asking a federal court to stop Texas from using the new map in the upcoming 2026 election, arguing the mid-decade gerrymander Republicans rushed through the state legislature this summer is racially discriminatory.
Since a 2019 Supreme Court ruling, federal courts have been unable to block partisan gerrymandering, while racial gerrymandering remains against the law. As a result, lawyers for Texas argued the state stole congressional seats from Democratic voters – not from minority voters. The near-impossibility of untangling race and partisanship in a state where voting is heavily polarized along racial lines, went largely unmentioned.
The plaintiffs’ case centered on the July 7 letter sent from the DOJ to Texas leaders urging the state to dismantle specific minority districts because of race. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) repeatedly told the public that the letter was the reason why he called on the legislature to redraw the map.
In her closing argument Friday, Nina Perales, an attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, pointed to the letter, and Abbott’s comments, to argue that there was unequivocal evidence the state had intentionally diluted minority voting strength when drawing the new map.
“We could not have clearer facts than we have today,” Perales said.
Texas sought to distance the redistricting effort from the DOJ letter, arguing the letter simply provided political cover for Republicans to create five new GOP seats in Congress. The state pointed many times to a June 9 New York Times story that it argued was proof the gerrymander was political, not racial.
And, backed by the panel of judges, they blocked witnesses from answering a string of questions that could have shed light on the question.
Citing legislative privilege, a lawyer for Abbott blocked Kincaid from answering a question about what he discussed in June meetings on Texas redistricting with Abbott and the White House. Abbott’s attorney also blocked Kincaid from answering whether the DOJ letter triggered the special session.
Attorneys also blocked Kincaid from revealing what instructions he received from the White House when he drew the map, the requests he received from the GOP congressional delegation about redistricting, and what was said when he discussed the DOJ letter with Abbott.
And they blocked Kincaid from saying what he talked about when he met with two Texas Republican lawmakers days before the legislative special session started.
Later, it was revealed that one of the state’s expert witnesses in the hearing, UCLA political science professor Jeffrey Lewis, also was retained by an outside law firm to consult for the Texas Senate about the map in August. Lawyers for Texas claimed Lewis couldn’t answer questions about his work on the map because of state Sen. Phil King (R)’s legislative privilege – even though King claimed in his own testimony he didn’t know who the law firm retained as an expert.
The judges rarely spoke throughout the nine-day hearing, but some had questions of their own for the mapmaker.
Brown pressed Kincaid on whether he knew some of the districts he targeted provided minorities an opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.
Kincaid responded, “I did.”
During closing arguments, Smith called Kincaid a “pretty impressive witness” and praised him for testifying without using notes. Smith asked each of the plaintiffs’ attorneys to be “frank with us” about whether they thought Kincaid was telling the truth about his communications or how he drew the map.
Some said they questioned Kincaid’s credibility. But others said it was difficult to form an opinion at all when so much of the information they sought had been obscured.
Some Texas voters are represented by the Elias Law Group (ELG). ELG firm chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.