By Lori Lee
NDG Contributing Writer
The Texas Senate passed a bill on August 23, Republicans pushing it through despite the earnest fight Texas Democrats gave them.The bill redraws the state’s congressional district map, carefully painting the districts red in a plan to win five new Republican House seats next year.
In hopes of negating the action and playing by their rules, Governor Gavin Newsom announced a plan to redraw California’s district map, while giving American voters a “fair chance,” the New York Times reported.
On November 4, California voters will have an opportunity to approve the state’s new map, a chance Texas voters never got. Changing the process requires voter approval because it’s in their state’s constitution, explained Representative Gene Wu, Democratic Leader in the Texas House of Representatives, speaking at an August American Community Media (ACoM) briefing.
“In Texas, there are no state laws governing redistricting whatsoever, said Wu. It is truly the Wild West.” The only recourse available to Texas Democratic legislators is to deny quorum with the leverage of creating a spectacle that’s highly visible, helping lawmakers get out their message, said Wu.
Redistricting is supposed to happen after the decennial census to account for population changes so the added people can be equitably represented. Yet, the Texas GOP jumped ahead, repeating a move they made back in 2003 and redrawing the map ahead of turn. After the parties had failed to come to an agreement following the 2000 census, the district court stepped in to draw the Congressional districts. The court-ordered map, which allowed democrats to take control of the House in 2002, would have remained in effect until 2010 had the state not redrawn the map, Pew Research reported.
What started as a special session, Wu recalled, ended with Texas lawmakers traveling to Illinois, to New York, to Massachusetts, and then to California, remaining in the media spotlight for two weeks.
“We showed everyone exactly what these people are like,” he said.
Realizing their policies are causing massive price increases, coffee and grain doubling over the last two months, Republicans have chosen to stack the deck, which according to Wu, is most likely their only path to victory. Tourism is down by 50% in many areas, and people will soon lose their jobs, he said. We’re headed straight into one of the worst recessions in a long time, he warned.
If states continue to battle it out, if every state, whether red or blue, set up their districts so they’d never lose, political leaders wouldn’t care enough to listen to the people, he explained. There would be no more democracy, and no representation of small or minority communities.
Yet, communities of color in Texas are growing to be too much of a threat, explained Wu, this in Houston, South Texas, and Dallas. These communities have built up power over time, he said, so Republicans are hacking them apart.
“It’s a real threat to our area and to our community,” Wu warned.
Congressional Districts 9 and 18 are large African American communities that have built up power over time. In District 18, you have famous voices like Barbara Jordan, Mickey Leland, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Sylvester Turner. In Congressman Al Green’s District 9, 40% are African American, and that’s enough to sway elections, he said.
To oppose these powerful Black districts, Republicans have responded with a thing called “packing,” he said. This is where two large communities are effectively pushed into one. After the August redistricting, they will have 80% Black voters concentrated in one community. In essence, Black voters in Texas will be able to elect one representative rather than two, he said. This is remarkable considering Texas has the 20th highest percentage of Black people in all of the states.
In Latino communities, like South Texas and Dallas, what they’re doing is the inverse of packing, called “fracking.” Since Latino growth has been more spread out, the strategy is to take a chunk here and there and pull them into a majority White district, effectively thinning out the Latino vote, said Wu. They can vote all they want, he said, and they will never be able to change the outcome of an election.
You might imagine that in a rational world, governed by laws, there would be a national standard for partisan gerrymandering and for racial fairness applied evenly across the states. Not in this case, he said. In Texas, we now have a system with about one White representative for every 400,000 Anglo voters, one Latino representing 1.5 million Hispanics and one Black Congressional member for every 2.5 million Black voters, he said.
Texas will now have 5 to 7 more Republican seats than would have come up in a neutral process, he added. Already a gerrymander, the August redistricting adds 3 to 5 seats to the Republican deck. “This gives Texas the dubious honor of having basically the most extreme congressional gerrymander in the history of voting rights,” Wu said. And while the Supreme Court has said partisan redistricting is unconstitutional, they have declined to do anything about it.
Sarah Rohani of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund also spoke at the briefing.
Consistently, Supreme Court precedent has remedied discrimination against Black voters, she said. Yet, 2020 census results have shown key districts with strong increases in Black and decreasing White populations, this as some states have failed their post-census, constitutional and statutory duties to reflect this.
In recent history, we’ve had a number of cases involving voting rights, including Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, which weakened the Voting Rights Act, said Rohani.
Now, litigation is still in the courts concerning maps in Alabama and Louisiana, she explained. After Allen v. Milligan found Alabama’s map diluted the Black vote, and the state refused to draw a reflective map, their 2024 elections proceeded under a court-ordered map, which finally lined up with the Voting Rights Act. Yet this year, a federal court ruled Alabama’s 2023 map had been racially discriminatory, violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and requiring two Black districts. The State of Alabama is now directly challenging Congress’ very power to enact Section 2 under the constitution, this, after rejection by multiple lower courts, she said.
Yet, this provision was passed specifically to root out racial discrimination and to actively enforce equal protections for disenfranchised groups, especially Black voters. So does the Voting Rights Act, Rohani argued.
Though the Louisiana case will be heard on October 15th, the state has indicated they will probably follow Texas’s example as they plan to hold a special session to pass a new map.
There are three ways redistricting can be made more fair, added Wu. One is through the courts. Another and possibly the most effective, is by citizens consulting and advocating with local representatives.Yet, every state is different, and so understanding state law and state policy is going to be critical in protecting representational rights, added Rohani.
Finally, there are redistricting commissions, expkained Wu. According to Common Cause, seven states use commissions rather than their state legislatures to draw Congressional maps. These include Montana, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, California, Colorado and Michigan.
Over time, state legislation, voter initiatives, and state court rulings have helped improve district competition, Wu explained.
Thomas Saenz, President and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEV) also contributed to the discussion. The state of Texas legislature and governor have been in Republican hands for decades, said Saenz, as the state attempts to maximize GOP advantage.
The state has been challenged repeatedly for failing to create new representative seats or overly considering race in redistricting. Since 2021, Latino and other communities of color have dominated in terms of growth, he said, while the Texas map does not reflect this fact.
Currently, the state is seeking to comply with the Voting Rights Act based on a letter sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi to the Texas government, in which she misstated the law in a number of respects, he said. Unfortunately, the Department of Justice has lost most of its lawyers experienced in voting rights. This may be intentional as a means of providing a fig leaf or justification for calling a special session to redraw the map. The effort is clearly orchestrated with one objective—to result in a massive loss of seats in the House.
The Texas map is already being challenged, he added, while other states assert they will redraw their lines following Texas’ example.
As we get closer and closer to the 2026 elections, and as filing deadlines for candidacies approach, it will become harder and harder to sustain a map that does not present opportunity for review by the courts. It’s very late in the Texas calendar, said Saenz, and this is already a potential issue in Texas.
“This is all happening because Americans have chosen not to pay attention to politics and to what’s happening in their country,” concluded Saenz. America is headed toward true authoritarian rule. If people do not stand up, if communities around this country do not start getting ready to fight and to stand up to this at every opportunity, our country is gone.”
“Fair representation is an option in this country, added Rohani. It’s the right of all Americans to equal voting power. It’s a central pillar of our democracy, and throughout history, and clearly to this day, voters of color have been excluded from the democratic process.”
Even if the redistricting process can’t be stopped legally, she explained, it can be overcome if everyone eligible to vote does so in November 2026, particularly in communities of color. Maximizing turnout can overcome all of the manipulation of the Democratic redistricting process, she concluded.
