Complying like the good Republican he is, Gov. Greg Abbott wasted no time before acknowledging that some districts were drawn “along strict racial lines.” Abbott then added redistricting to the agenda for the upcoming special session, citing "Constitutional concerns.” All four districts being targeted are held by Democrats of color, which is probably a coincidence and not at all intentional on the DOJ or Abbott’s part.
The interesting thing about Abbott’s admission is that it comes just weeks after a trial in which state representatives swore that the drawing of districts was “completely satisfactory” and done without consideration of race.
“During the trial we had in El Paso, ‘blind to race’ was used by a member of the Legislature more times than I can count,” Chad Dunn, one of the lawyers challenging the state’s current maps, told The Texas Tribune. “Now the Department of Justice is saying that the Republican legislators who authored this plan weren't telling the truth, and actually were drawing it on the basis of race. It's going to be interesting to get to the bottom of that.”
Several organizations joined the consolidated trial to sue the state over the electoral maps Republicans drew in 2021. A group of plaintiffs, including the Texas NAACP and League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), argued that the new maps consolidated minority voters, specifically Latino and Black voters, into fewer districts across the state, weakening the electoral power of the demographic. The groups are asking for the maps to be thrown out entirely, and for two new “Latino opportunity districts” to be created, one in the Dallas-Fort Worth region and one in Harris County, to accurately reflect Texas’s Latino population.
The trial wrapped up in early June and has yet to be decided, but throughout the entire process, the state swore that coalition districts, where minority voters constitute the majority, aren’t a thing. Now that the DOJ disagrees, though, the state is acquiescing.
According to The Texas Tribune, some plaintiffs have asked for testimony in the case to be reopened to consider the DOJ’s letter's “flatly contradictory” contents.
What This Means for Dallas’ Congressional Districts
Rep. Veasey has called the attempt to redraw his district “absolutely disgusting,” and it doesn’t seem lost on anyone that Abbott and the DOJ thought that last week, just days after deadly floods swept through Central Texas, was the best time to embark on this endeavor.In a statement released after Abbott announced the special session agenda, Veasey accused President Donald Trump and his “lap dog” Abbott of attempting “to rig the system” ahead of next year’s midterm elections by redrawing the districts in favor of Republicans.
“We will fight this assault in the courts, in the streets and at the ballot box,” Veasey said.
Redistricting typically takes place at the start of each decade when new census data can be considered, and a spokesperson for Veasey’s office said that town halls and hearings are generally a part of the map-drawing process. With the timeline Abbott has proposed, in which the redistricting could be tackled during the 30-day special session that will begin July 21, those sorts of community events likely won’t be possible.
“We don’t know what these maps will look like. No one has seen them,” Veasey’s spokesperson said. “The changes could be minimal, or they could be drastic. We don’t know.”
Congressional District 33 was created by a court order in 2012 in response to the 2010 census. The NAACP and LULAC successfully argued that the compactness of Hispanic and Black populations in Tarrant and Dallas Counties warranted the creation of a new majority-minority coalition district, which has historically been created to ensure voters of color are not disenfranchised through voting-map boundaries.
Veasey has overwhelmingly held the seat since it was created, but in 2024, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Voting Rights Act does not protect districts that aggregate voters based on minority race or ethnicity. That precedent contradicts rulings made by the 5th Circuit Court itself, and the letter from the DOJ acknowledges that while Texas’ electoral maps were drawn in compliance with the precedent that was in place in 2021, when the maps were drawn, “that interest no longer exists.”
Which brings us to the DOJ’s claim that CD 33 is “nothing more than a vestige of an unconstitutional racially based gerrymandering past.”
Gerrymandering is a thing of Texas’ past, so says the DOJ.
Absent new census data, the state can’t get rid of CD 33 completely. But it could be tweaked, completely redrawn, or moved out of DFW completely, the spokesperson for Veasey’s office said, which is probably less than ideal 15 months out from a potential reelection campaign. And as the Tribune notes, any redrawing of the existing maps will likely be met with a swell of legal challenges.
“It’s a question of how bold and ambitious [Republicans] are going to try and be,” Veasey’s spokesperson said. “The maps that we have now are Republican maps. These are not maps that Democrats proposed. Abbott, what he doesn’t say in his [statement], he is calling his own maps unconstitutional.”
