Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter here.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is calling on state lawmakers to consider a rare midcycle redrawing of the state’s congressional maps during a special legislative session this month, following a push by President Donald Trump’s advisers to help Republicans maintain control of the U.S. House.
Abbott said he was asking lawmakers to consider redistricting now “in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice.”
Neither Abbott’s office nor the Justice Department responded to a request for additional information about the concerns. But in a July 7 letter to Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Rights Division, said four of the state’s congressional districts are so-called coalition districts that the Justice Department believes are “unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.”
Dhillon’s letter was first reported by the political news site The Texan.
Coalition districts refer to districts where multiple minority groups with similar political interests combine to constitute a majority, as a way to preserve the political influence of voters from those groups.
For decades, some courts held that under the Voting Rights Act, different groups of minority voters could join forces to challenge new district boundaries on the grounds that they diluted minority voting power — as long as they were groups that tended to vote the same way and could show that their political interests aligned.
But in 2024, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reviews cases from Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, overturned a longstanding precedent permitting such claims in those states, ruling that districts formed this way are unconstitutional. Dhillon’s letter cites that ruling.
The four congressional districts highlighted in the letter are the 9th District, south of Houston; the 18th District, which includes inner Houston and surrounding areas; the 29th District, east of Houston, and the 33rd District, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. All four elected Democrats in 2024. Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Democrat who represented the 18th District, died in March; a special election to replace him is scheduled for Nov. 4.
Michael Li, a redistricting expert with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, said it isn’t clear that the districts Dhillon singled out are coalition districts that were formed for reasons prohibited by the 5th Circuit ruling. The statement “is not clearly supported by any evidence in the letter,” Li said.
Redistricting is always politically fraught. Midcycle redistricting is rare, though not unprecedented, and Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation have expressed doubts about the idea, which could make some of their districts more competitive.
Li also said that a rushed redistricting process could create more legal challenges for the state by limiting public hearings and potentially creating fuel for legal challenges.
In addition to the redistricting, Abbott wants lawmakers to consider proposing a constitutional amendment that would give the Texas Attorney General authority to prosecute election crimes, an effort that has failed in the previous two regular sessions.
Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org
