"A federal court has blocked Texas from moving forward with a new congressional map hastily drawn in recent months to net Republicans up to five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in next year's midterm elections. The ruling on Tuesday is a major political blow to the Trump administration, which set off a redistricting arms race throughout the country earlier this year by encouraging Texas lawmakers to redraw its congressional district boundaries mid-decade - an extraordinary move bucking traditional practice."
"The three-judge federal court panel in El Paso said in a 2-1 decision that "substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map," ordering the state to revert to the maps it had drawn in 2021. Texas' Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who at Trump's behest directed GOP state lawmakers to proceed with the plan, vowed on Tuesday that the state would appeal the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court."
"Californians responded to Texas' attempted move by voting on Nov. 4 to approve a new, temporary congressional map for the state, giving Democrats the opportunity to pick up five new seats. Initially, the proposal pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, known as Prop. 50, had trigger language that would have conditioned new California maps going into effect based on whether Texas approved its new congressional districts."
A federal three-judge panel found substantial evidence that Texas racially gerrymandered its 2025 congressional map and ordered the state to revert to the 2021 maps. The mid-decade redistricting effort, encouraged by the Trump administration, aimed to net Republicans up to five additional U.S. House seats. Governor Greg Abbott vowed to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. In a related development, California voters approved a temporary congressional map via Prop. 50, initially tied to Texas' actions, that could give Democrats the chance to gain five seats in the 2026 midterm elections.
Read at Los Angeles Times
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]