Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday that the state Legislature would return to Austin later this summer for a special session. On its own, the announcement was not surprising: With the Texas Constitution limiting regular sessions of the Legislature to only 140 days a year, these bonus legislative sessions have become the norm for governing a state with over 31 million people. What was surprising was one of the agenda items that Abbott listed for the session: drafting legislation that “provides a revised congressional redistricting plan in light of constitutional concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice.”
A redistricting push in 2025 is an oddity. States typically only redraw their congressional districts every 10 years in response to the U.S. census results. But the reason Abbott claims this shuffle is necessary is a gross smoke screen that mocks the Voting Rights Act and the protections it provides.
The reason Abbott claims this shuffle is necessary is a gross smoke screen
The Justice Department concerns that the governor cites are a reference to a lawsuit filed in 2021, alleging that Texas’ current congressional map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In particular, the DOJ accused Texas of “creating redistricting plans that deny or abridge the rights of Latino and Black voters to vote on account of their race, color or membership in a language minority group.” It was just the latest in a long history of complaints against Texas, which has had to repeatedly redraw its maps since 1964 in the face of federal judges’ rulings.
Four years after it was filed, the 2021 lawsuit recently went to trial in El Paso — but the Justice Department is no longer one of the plaintiffs. The Trump administration had the DOJ withdraw from the lawsuit in March, leaving civil rights groups like LULAC and the Texas NAACP to continue the court battle without the legal firepower the federal government provides. And while Abbott’s phrasing implies Texas legislators will work to address the alleged discrimination, his administration is continuing to fight back against the claims in that case.
In fact, the major driving force for this redistricting push is coming not from the Justice Department — or from Texas Republicans — but the White House. President Donald Trump has reportedly been leaning on Abbott to rejigger the state’s 38 congressional districts to help protect the slim Republican majority in the House ahead of the 2026 midterms. The president, terrified of a repeat of the 2018 midterms that opened the door to two impeachments against him, has zeroed in on even more extreme gerrymandering to limit Democrats’ midterm gains.
The New York Times reported last month that “President Trump’s political team is encouraging Republican leaders in Texas to … turn Democratic districts red by adding reliably Republican voters from neighboring Republican districts.” As NBC News noted Wednesday, there are at least a few potential gains to be had:
Trump carried two of the 13 Texas seats that Democrats hold, the South Texas districts of Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez. Cuellar’s district went to Trump by 7 points, while Gonzalez’s went to Trump by 4 points, according to analysis by NBC News’ Decision Desk. Cuellar won his seat by less than 6 points, while Gonzalez was victorious by less than 3 points, illustrating the slim margins at play in the region. But the Times also reported that “congressional Republicans from Texas professed little interest in redrawing their districts” ahead of an election that historically would benefit the Democrats. Since 2003, Texas has spent the last several redistricting cycles maximizing the GOP’s grasp on the House delegation. The state’s demographics have shifted in that time, leading to a worry that the move could wind up endangering Republicans more than hurting Democrats. When you add in California reportedly mulling a tit-for-tat redistricting effort and the long to-do list ahead of Texas lawmakers, the whole scheme seems very high-risk/mid-tier reward. Importantly, none of this affects the issue that Abbott claimed as the reason for needing redistricting at all. Importantly, none of this affects the issue that Abbott claimed as the reason for needing redistricting at all. The Texas Republican Party didn’t even bother repeating the governor’s false pretense in its statement on the special session, calling redistricting “an essential step to preserving GOP control in Congress and advancing President Trump’s America First agenda.” Cracking open Democratic-controlled districts to gerrymander in new GOP-leaning voters would more likely result in an increase in minority voters’ disenfranchisement. There would inevitably be even more lawsuits to that effect, slowing the new map’s implementation. And while the U.S. Supreme Court has been unfriendly to the Voting Rights Act overall, the justices in 2023 ordered Alabama to redraw its districts to create a new majority, or near majority, Black district. Despite the warning signs, Abbott still decided to move ahead with gerrymandering efforts just as Trump visits areas of the state affected by last week’s deadly floods. Abbott’s willingness to exploit legitimate concerns over whether Texan minorities are being fully represented in Congress shows that he knows how risky the real reasoning is both politically and legally. Over the next weeks and months, this play could wind up being decisive in determining control of the House next year — or it could blow up in his and Trump’s faces and leave members of their own party more vulnerable to losing their seats than before.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House. 
