#racial-gerrymandering

#racial-gerrymandering

A federal court struck down Texas' new gerrymander on Tuesday, in an extraordinary rebuke to Republicans who sought to hand the GOP five additional seats in the House of Representatives. The 160-page ruling -authored by Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, a conservative Donald Trump nominee-scorched the scheme as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, declaring that the Legislature "intentionally drew district lines" to discriminate against Black and Hispanic Texans.

California Republicans, now joined by the Trump administration's Department of Justice, have sued California in federal court to stop implementation of Proposition 50, a voter-passed ballot measure that creates a Democratic gerrymander of the state's congressional districts, adding up to five more Democratic seats. The lawsuit argues that the Legislature had an unconstitutional race-focused intent on the state's Latino voters when it passed the maps.

A panel of federal judges has ruled that Texas's newly redrawn congressional districts cannot be used in next year's 2026 midterm elections, striking a blow to Republican efforts to tilt races in their favour. On Tuesday, a two-to-one majority at the US District Court for western Texas blocked the map, on the basis that there was substantial evidence to show that Texas racially gerrymandered the districts.