WASHINGTON — A last-ditch effort by leading Texas Republicans has failed to block the withdrawal of U.S. control over internet domain names.

On Friday, a federal district judge in Texas denied a legal challenge to prevent the long-planned action. That means oversight of the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, will transfer to private global stakeholders Saturday as planned.

U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks Jr. of Galveston said Friday that there wasn't enough evidence that the transfer would be harmful, the Houston Chronicle reported.

The decision could be a fatal blow to the push by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz to prevent what they've called an "internet giveaway." The lawsuit by Texas and other states had sought emergency action to force renewal of the contract before it expired.

Other avenues could still exist to fight the transfer after the fact, and Paxton spokesman Marc Rylander said his office would "continue to weigh our options as the suit moves forward."

"It's a dire day in our country when the president is allowed to unilaterally give away America's pioneering role in ensuring that the internet remains a place where free expression can flourish," Rylander said.

An ICANN spokesman didn't immediately return a request for comment. Neither did a spokeswoman for the U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which has overseen the ICANN contract.

But U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson filed a scathing 26-page brief Friday defending the transfer.

"The planned transition will preserve the stability, security, and openness of the internet," he wrote. "Plaintiffs are seeking to interfere with that transition, creating the possibility that Internet governance will be disrupted and damaged as a result."

The legal battle over internet domain names stemmed from a transfer that's been years in the works.

The domain name system is the process by which regular websites are assigned numerical internet protocol addresses. The transfer has been supported by the tech industry and internet access experts as a relatively mundane way — a clerical function — to preserve internet freedom.

But some Republicans, led by Cruz, pushed back.

Those opponents said the transfer would chill free speech and allow "authoritarian regimes" to seize control of the internet. And the lawsuit filed by Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma and Nevada said the Obama administration had overstepped its authority in giving away the U.S. oversight role.

"The U.S. government is handing over control of the 'vast democratic forums of the Internet' to private parties, and giving those parties free reign to employ prior restraints," the states said in their lawsuit.

But even before the lawsuit, Cruz couldn't rally Congress this week to stop the transfer. And Magidson, the U.S. attorney, blasted the last-minute challenge against a "plan that has been years in the making by the global internet community and has recently been endorsed by Congress."

"Only now do plaintiffs seek to stop the government in its tracks," Magidson wrote. "This alone is sufficient basis to deny plaintiffs' request for emergency relief."