Advocates File Immediate Legal Challenge to Texas Gerrymander 

Hours after Texas lawmakers approved a new gerrymandered congressional map Saturday morning, Texans asked a court to block it.

The plaintiffs*, a group of Black and Latino Texans, filed an amended complaint in an ongoing challenge to the electoral districts Texas drew in 2021. The amended complaint alleges that the new map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment by diluting the voting power of Black and Latino communities.

It also argues that the redistricting violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause “because it unnecessarily and unjustifiably considers racial and partisan demographics as part of a voluntary, mid-cycle redistricting,” and because it is “malapportioned” in violation of the principle of one person, one vote. 

In addition, the plaintiffs argue that the new redistricting “intentionally destroy[ed] majority-minority districts and replac[ed] them with majority-Anglo districts.” This was done, the plaintiffs charge, “explicitly because of the racial composition of those districts.”

That kind of race-dominant remapping would be unconstitutional. 

The plaintiffs ask the U.S. District Court for Western District of Texas for a preliminary injunction blocking the new congressional redistricting, which was designed to give Republicans five more safe congressional seats. 

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has said he will sign the map into law. Abbott ordered a mid-decade redistricting in response to a letter sent from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in July that several districts were “racial gerrymanders” under the 2021 maps — even though Texas argued in court the opposite.  

A status hearing is scheduled for Wednesday to discuss the plaintiffs’ motion to schedule an expedited preliminary injunction hearing on Texas’ new congressional map.

*The Texas voters are represented by the Elias Law Group (ELG). ELG firm chair Marc Elias is the founder of  Democracy Docket.