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.
In Denmark where I’m from we’ve just held mayoral elections and an interesting thing happened that highlights how much voting systems matter. In one particular municipality a party got enough votes that they had more seats in the local legislature than to hey had candidates. This meant that they appointed someone from a different party to the final seat. They got more votes than they could represent themselves so they chose who they thought most aligned with them and appointed that person. No votes were ignored due to happenstance, there were clear rules to handle it.
Now I very much do not agree with this party and I’m saddened by their popularity in the area, but such is life in a democracy.