Texas Minority Voters Challenge Redistricting on Racial Grounds

New Congressional redistricting lines that Texas passed over the weekend to give Republicans five additional House seats were drawn illegally based on the racial makeup of voters in the districts, a coalition of minority voters say.

“Every aspect of this mid-decade redraw of the congressional map has been infused with impermissible racial motives,” the plaintiffs said in a complaint.

The intentional dismantling of districts whose large minority populations favored Democratic candidates violates the 14th and 15th Amendments, the complaint says. Those voters are now being squeezed into districts that already leaned heavily left.

The legal challenge, filed Aug. 23 in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, is the latest effort to kill the new lines after Democratic House members fled the state to avoid a vote before returning once they ran out the clock on a 30-day special session.

A longshot bid in the Senate to derail the map through continuous debate failed over a procedural ruling Aug. 22, leading to a vote in the early hours Aug. 23. The lawsuit soon followed, coming in the form of a supplemental action to an active case challenging Congressional lines Texas passed in 2021.

The latest map rewrite, which was urged by President Donald Trump, ignited tit-for-tat throughout the country with Democratic leaders in other states vowing to redraw their maps to offset the GOP gains in Texas.

The plaintiffs, 20 Black or Latino voters alleging their votes are diluted under the new map, brought the action against Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Secretary of State Jane Nelson (R).

The plaintiffs are represented by Brazil & Dunn, Jesse Gaines of Fort Worth, Texas, Sonni Waknin of Culver City, Calif., Mark P. Gaber PLLC, and Molly Danahy of Helena, Mont.

The case is League of United Latin Am. Citizens v. Abbott, W.D. Tex., No. 3:21-cv-00259, 8/23/25.