San Antonio and Austin reps' plans upended following court reversal of Texas redistricting

U.S. Rep. Greg Casar attends a protest against the bloodshed in Gaza at the University of Texas at Austin last year. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / ScreamOfTheNight

Tuesday’s court decision throwing out Texas’ redrawn congressional maps will restore San Antonio’s four congressional seats while causing plans to shift for U.S. House members and candidates on both sides of the aisle.

A panel of three federal judges in El Paso preliminarily enjoined the mid-decade Congressional map that Texas Republicans forced through this summer. In the 2-to-1 decision, Trump-appointed Judge Jeffrey Brown issued a rebuke to the redistricting and the Department of Justice letter that precipitated it, writing “substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”

If upheld, the court ruling will restore several Democratic seats that were drastically redrawn by the mid-decade map, including that of San Antonio-Austin U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, whose district had been replaced with a Republican stronghold. The redistricting also created a domino effect, forcing Casar — who chairs the House Progressive Caucus — to plan to run for a blue district that covers Austin but not San Antonio.

Republican Carlos De la Cruz quickly announced his run for Casar’s newly red District 35, which still included San Antonio. De la Cruz joined the mad dash of other GOP candidates seizing on potential pickup opportunities throughout the state.

Indeed, many had already begun fundraising for their campaigns when Tuesday’s decision came down, calling those plans into question. However, as of press time, De la Cruz has made no mention on his social media whether he plans to stop campaigning.

Not retiring after all

Casar’s displacement under the Republican redistricting scheme also prompted 79-year-old U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, an Austin Democrat, to announce his retirement, essentially a stepping aside to enable the younger upstart to take his reliably blue district.

With the redistricted map thrown out, Doggett has reversed course on retirement. In a Tuesday announcement video, the longtime congressman said he’s now seeking reelection.

“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,” Doggett said in Facebook post accompanying the clip. “I am now actively seeking reelection for TX-37 to represent ATX, the only place I’ve called home. Never give up, never give in! Onward to victory!”

Should Tuesday’s decision stand, Casar tweeted that he plans to run for reelection to continue representing both San Antonio and Austin.

The Trump Abbott maps are clearly illegal, and I’m glad these judges have blocked them.

If this decision stands, I look forward to running for reelection in my current district.

No matter what, we must fight to pass a federal ban on gerrymandering once and for all. https://t.co/jtpylw6hmT

— Greg Casar (@GregCasar) November 18, 2025

Other Democrats whose seats have been restored include Dallas U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Houston U.S. Rep. Al Green, both outspoken Trump critics and progressive voices in the House.

The court ruling’s domino effect also calls into question Crockett’s potential plan to launch a U.S. Senate bid. The Democratic up-and-comer has publicly said she’s weighing a pivot to running for the upper chamber.

“[E]very other day there’s a poll that comes out that makes it clear that I can win the primary for the U.S. Senate race in Texas, and I am looking, because if you want to take my seat of 766,000 away, I feel like there has to be some karma in that to where I take your seat — that is for 30 million — away,” Crockett said on SiriusXM’s The Lurie Daniel Favors Show.

Crockett has said she’s giving herself until Thanksgiving to decide whether she’ll run against Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.

In a statement following Tuesday’s court decision, Crockett made no mention of how the restoration of the state’s political maps might change her plans. However, she called on Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore and fortify protections in the Voting Rights Act to guard against what she called an “insidious move” to disenfranchise communities of color.

‘A good day for democracy in Texas’

The reversal of Texas’ redistricting also means Republicans have lost a potential five-seat gain in the U.S. House as they guard their razor-thin majority against what many predict will be crushing midterm losses.

Tuesday’s order also means Black and Brown communities have regained power taken from them by the 2025 map, which the court determined was drawn along racial lines.

“Today is a good day for democracy in Texas!” San Antonio Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro said in a statement. “The courts blocked Governor Abbott and Trump’s illegal power grab. Their racist re-districting attempt would undermine the voting power of Latino and Black communities. They failed. This is the right decision.”

Rep. Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat, told the Texas Tribune that he was expecting this outcome, given how racially gerrymandered the newly drawn up map was.

“I always thought that their plans to redraw this map were so over the top, so racist, so discriminatory, that I’m really not surprised,” Veasey said.

Like clockwork, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — an indefatigable Trump ally — has already signaled he’ll appeal the decision by requesting a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court.

“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,” Paxton said in a statement.

“For years, Democrats have engaged in partisan redistricting intended to eliminate Republican representation,” he continued. “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 U.S. Supreme Court has until Dec. 8 — Texas’ filing deadline for the midterm elections — to rule. If the justices fail to act by then, the elections will move ahead employing the existing 2021 map.

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San Antonio and Austin reps’ plans upended following court reversal of Texas redistricting

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