
Lawsuits filed to stop Texas' new congressional map
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Two lawsuits have been filed against the newly drawn redistricting map in Texas.
Opponents of the gerrymandered map, which creates more Republican districts, said it is racially discriminatory, and redrawing maps mid-decade is unconstitutional.
Stephanie Gomez, political director for the advocacy group Move Texas, said under the current system, Texas’ maps will always favor the majority party.

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"Ultimately the issue that we need to be talking about as a state and a country, what does it look like to have an independent – actually community-led – redistricting process?" Gomez emphasized. "We know that this type of stuff exists in other states but in Texas they have made it so we can’t have that."
The map was redrawn at the urging of President Donald Trump, to increase the number of Republican seats in Congress. Lawsuits have been filed by the League of United Latin American Citizens, the NAACP, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. A hearing on the map is scheduled for October.
In hearings leading up to the final passage of the legislation, hundreds of Texans testified against redrawing the lines. Gomez stressed voters want lawmakers to address other issues.
"Rising rent, disaster preparedness, student loans, jobs and wages," Gomez outlined. "That’s when, at the state and federal levels, we have leaders who don’t want to be bold. And so, I think for us, it’s what are our options to do something about it? Sometimes that’s voting, sometimes that’s protesting, sometimes that’s running for office."
The new map moves more Democratic voters in Dallas and Houston into districts the minority party already controls and puts Democratic voters in largely Republican districts.