Federal judge instructed state to use older maps, with Republicans likely to appeal decision
New maps that added five Republican districts in Texas hit a legal roadblock on Tuesday, with a federal judge saying the state cannot use the 2025 maps because they are probably “racially gerrymandered”.
The decision is likely to be appealed, given the push for more Republican-friendly congressional maps nationwide and Donald Trump’s full-court press on his party to make them. Some states have followed suit, and some Democratic states have retaliated, pushing to add more blue seats to counteract Republicans.
A panel of three federal judges in Texas said in a decision that the state must use previously approved 2021 maps for next year’s midterms rather than the ones that kickstarted a wave of mid-decade redistricting. The plaintiffs, including the League of United Latin American Citizens, are “likely to prove at trial that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map”, so the court approved a preliminary injunction to stop the map’s use for next year’s elections.
Its probably for the better. Short of a clause triggered by eliminating the congressional district system entirely in favor of proportional voting, the idea of “counter-gerrymandering” clause is a major legal hazard’
The supreme court, for instance, might zero in on such a clause and cynically say California is ‘violating the 10th amendment rights of other states’ instead of having to find a way to strike it out under 14th amendment provisions (an amendment which the current supreme court hates)