Who’s involved
- Plaintiffs: Civil-rights organizations (e.g., LULAC, NAACP, MALDEF, Fair Maps Texas), the U.S. Department of Justice, and individual voters.
- Defendant: The State of Texas (Governor Greg Abbott, Secretary of State Jane Nelson, and others in official roles).
What the challengers argue
The challengers make two main kinds of claims:
1. Violation of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), Section 2
- Core argument: The new 2025 map dilutes the voting strength of Black and Latino voters.
How:
- It splits (“cracks”) cohesive minority communities among several districts so they can’t form a majority anywhere.
- It packs some minority voters into a few heavily minority districts, wasting their votes in others.
- Example: In the Austin, Houston, and South Texas areas, plaintiffs say fast-growing Latino populations were divided or attached to heavily white suburban areas, making it harder for Latino voters to elect candidates of their choice.
- Legal standard: Section 2 of the VRA forbids district lines that leave minority voters with less opportunity to participate and elect preferred candidates, even without proof of racist intent.
2. Constitutional violations (14th and 15th Amendments)
- Core argument: The Legislature intentionally discriminated based on race when drawing lines.
- Plaintiffs claim lawmakers had racial data in hand and used it to minimize minority influence while claiming to focus only on partisan advantage.
- They argue this violates equal protection (14th Amendment) and voting rights protections (15th Amendment).
3. Additional claim (in some suits): Partisan gerrymandering
- Plaintiffs say the map goes beyond normal partisanship — that it’s so skewed that it effectively locks in one party’s control and denies fair representation.
- However, federal courts (since Rucho v. Common Cause, 2019) have said partisan gerrymandering is not justiciable under the federal Constitution, so this is more of a supporting argument than a winning claim.
What the state argues in defense
1. Population and partisanship, not race
- Texas says the lines were drawn to account for population growth and protect incumbents, not to discriminate by race.
- The state argues that partisan goals are legal, even if they correlate with racial demographics, and that any impact on minority voters is incidental.
2. Compliance with traditional redistricting principles
- The state claims the map follows legitimate criteria:
- - Equal population,
- - Compactness,
- - Keeping counties and cities whole where possible,
- - Avoiding pairing incumbents against each other.
3. No requirement to create “minority opportunity” districts
- Texas contends Section 2 doesn’t require proportional representation or guarantee a certain number of “minority” districts.
- They argue plaintiffs can’t prove a “geographically compact” minority community that meets the Thornburg v. Gingles test (the key VRA case).
4. Burden of proof
- The state insists that challengers must show both discriminatory effect and intent (for constitutional claims), which it says plaintiffs cannot do.
What happens next
- A three-judge federal court panel in El Paso is handling most of these challenges (LULAC v. Abbott).
- Hearings are underway to decide whether the 2025 map can be used in the 2026 elections or whether an interim map must be drawn.
- The case could eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court, much like earlier Texas redistricting disputes.
