Doggett calls it quits after Supreme Court sanctions new Texas map

Daniela Altimari, CQ-Roll Call on Dec 5, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett is retiring after all, bringing an end to a nearly 50-year political career.

“I will continue working with the same urgency and determination as if next year were my last, which in public office it will be,” the longtime Democratic lawmaker said in a statement Friday.

Doggett had first announced he’d forgo running for a 17th term in August if courts upheld the new House map that Texas Republicans drew at the urging of President Donald Trump. The new map targeted five Democrat-held seats, making them more favorable for the GOP.

Two Austin-area districts were merged into a single seat, which would have teed up a primary between Doggett, 79, whose current seat covers around two-thirds of the city, and Greg Casar, a younger Democrat who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus and whose current district encompasses Austin’s east side and portions of San Antonio.

But last month, after a panel of federal judges in Texas blocked the new map on the grounds that it constituted a racial gerrymander, Doggett, the senior-most member of the Texas delegation, reconsidered. “To borrow from Mark Twain, the reports of my death, politically, are greatly exaggerated,” he said in a video posted on social media.

In a final twist Thursday, a sharply divided Supreme Court said it would allow Texas to use the new GOP-drawn map, finding that the three-judge panel committed serious errors in its ruling.

Doggett took aim at Trump’s push for mid-decade redistricting to help House Republicans defend their majority and pick up seats in next year’s midterm elections, a move that has spawned tit-for-tat efforts in Democrat-run states.

“Trump’s racial gerrymandering is only his first major shenanigan designed to win next year’s election and retain a House that poses no restraint to his dangerous whims and incessant drive for unlimited power. More outrageous schemes will follow,” the congressman said.

Doggett, a senior member of the Ways and Means and Budget committees, has compiled a progressive track record over more than three decades in the House.

He began his political career by winning a special election for the Texas Senate as a 26-year-old in 1973, just a few years out of law school. He was the Democratic nominee for Senate in 1984, losing to Republican Phil Gramm. He rebounded with his election to the Texas Supreme Court in 1988, and six years later he succeeded retiring Democratic Rep. J.J. Pickle.

Last year, Doggett was the first Democratic member of the House to publicly call on President Joe Biden to abandon his reelection campaign after his raspy-voiced and stumbling performance in a debate with Trump.

Doggett is the seventh Texas lawmaker to announce plans to leave the House next year, but the first Democrat. Republicans Morgan Luttrell, Michael McCaul, Jodey C. Arrington and Troy Nehls are retiring, while Rep. Chip Roy is running for state attorney general and Rep. Wesley Hunt is challenging Sen. John Cornyn in a primary.

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—Andrew Menezes contributed to this report.