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The NAACP and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law are suing the state of Texas over its newly drawn congressional map, per Reuters.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in El Paso on Tuesday (August 26), alleging that the Republican-led redistricting effort is racially motivated and seeks to suppress Black and minority voting power ahead of the 2026 midterm election. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Secretary of State Jane Nelson are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
“The state of Texas is only 40 percent white, but white voters control over 73 percent of the state’s congressional seats,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement. “It’s quite obvious that Texas’s effort to redistrict mid-decade, before next year’s midterm elections, is racially motivated. The state’s intent here is to reduce the members of Congress who represent Black communities, and that, in and of itself, is unconstitutional.”
The Republican-controlled Texas legislature passed the newly drawn map last week, despite Democrats fleeing the state earlier this month to break the quorum needed to vote. The new map could give Republicans an additional five congressional seats in the midterm elections. California responded by passing its own redistricting plan to add five seats for Democrats.
The lawsuit aims to block the use of the new Texas map in future elections.
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