Texas Map Challenge Could Add Five GOP Seats

A three-judge federal panel in El Paso is hearing Oct. 1–10 a challenge to Texas’s mid‑decade congressional map, which was redrawn this summer at former President Donald Trump’s urging. Plaintiffs, including Democratic lawmakers and voting‑rights groups, say the map unlawfully dilutes Black and Hispanic voting power in violation of the Voting Rights Act, while Texas officials call it a lawful partisan gerrymander. The map would increase Republican-held seats from 25 to 30 of Texas’s 38 districts by eliminating five coalition districts, a shift that could help preserve the GOP’s narrow House majority. Plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction before candidate‑filing deadlines; the hearing is expected to last more than a week and lawyers say the case and any appeals could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Similar fights are unfolding nationwide: in Ohio a bipartisan commission has an Oct. 31 deadline and Republicans may move decisions to the GOP‑controlled legislature after November if the commission fails, and in Missouri the Democratic National Committee is assisting a People Not Politicians referendum effort to force a statewide vote to block a map passed in a September special session.