'Racially motivated and unconstitutional': NAACP sues Texas over new congressional map; alleges discriminatory gerrymandering

The NAACP and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Texas, accusing the state of deliberately diluting the voting strength of Black and minority communities through its newly redrawn congressional maps.

The lawsuit also names Republican governor Greg Abbott and secretary of state Jane Nelson as defendants, seeking a preliminary injunction from a federal judge to block the use of the maps. The petition argues that the redistricting plan violates both the US Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by improperly reducing the political representation of voters of colour.

Texas’s Republican-controlled legislature approved the new map on Saturday, with expectations of securing five additional seats for the GOP in the next Congress. Democrats, who remain a minority in both chambers, had few options to stop the measure. Earlier, a group of Democratic lawmakers fled the state for nearly a month to deny Republicans a quorum, but that protest collapsed as California began its own push to counterbalance Texas.

In a tit-for-tat move, California’s Democratic-led legislature passed its own redistricting plan, designed to deliver five extra seats to Democrats. The effort too drew legal challenges, with Republicans calling it a gerrymander aimed at undermining their gains. President Donald Trump has said the Justice Department will sue California over the move.

The Texas NAACP strongly condemned the redistricting, calling it a direct assault on minority voting rights. “We now see just how far extremist leaders are willing to go to push African Americans back toward a time when we were denied full personhood and equal rights,” Texas NAACP president Gary Bledsoe said in a statement. “Our democracy depends on ensuring that every person is counted fully, valued equally and represented fairly. We are prepared to fight this injustice at every level.”

NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson also criticised the plan, pointing out demographic disparities. “The state of Texas is only 40% white, but white voters control over 73% of the state’s congressional seats. It is quite obvious this mid-decade redistricting is racially motivated and unconstitutional,” he said.

Governor Abbott, who has yet to sign the measure into law, predicted the maps will survive court tests and said other Republican-controlled states are likely to follow Texas’s lead in redrawing lines to secure more congressional seats.

The NAACP, while challenging Texas, also urged states like California and New York to immediately draw “lawful and constitutional maps” of their own to counterbalance Republican efforts. This position marks a departure from earlier progressive calls to leave redistricting to neutral commissions.

The Supreme Court has previously ruled, in 2019, that the Constitution does not prohibit partisan gerrymandering — only gerrymandering explicitly based on race.