Texas House set to vote on redistricting maps Wednesday

AUSTIN Texas — The Texas House is set to vote on congressional redistricting Wednesday, setting up a political fight over a plan that could be critical for Republicans to hold on to a majority in the 2026 midterm elections.

The House is rushing to approve the plan after enough Democrats returned to the Capitol to restore a constitutionally required quorum. Work had been halted since Aug. 4 in the chamber after more than 50 House Democrats left the state to block a vote on the bill.

The redistricting plan, which advanced out of a committee late Tuesday, reshapes urban districts in North Texas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin. Several districts that have heavily favored Democrats would be transformed into districts expected to vote for Republicans by wide margins.

In North Texas, the plan aimed at Democratic U.S. House Reps. Marc Veasey and Julie Johnson. Veasey was moved out of his district while Johnson’s district was stretched to include a wide swath of northeast Texas, turning it from a safe Democratic district to one that would have voted for President Donald Trump by 41 percentage points.

House lawmakers redrawing the maps are led by Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi. Hunter’s latest iteration of the map made public Monday makes further alterations to the Houston area.

There, Republicans are set to gain one seat in Congress by transforming the district represented by Democrat Rep. Al Green from an urban southern Houston district that favored former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election by 44 percentage points to a district that combines shards of eastern Houston with a swath of rural east Texas that stretches 60 miles to the north and east.

The new district would have voted for Trump over Harris by nearly 20 percentage points. Compared to a previous draft plan, it pushes what was the most drastic change in the partisan makeup of a district even further to the right.

Trump has called for Texas to flip five seats to the GOP. If Democrats gain control of the U.S. House, it would likely kneecap his ability to enact his agenda in the final two years of his term. Congressional Democrats would also gain the ability to launch investigations into his administration or possibly impeach Trump again.

On Tuesday, Trump praised the redistricting effort on social media, thanking Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock.

“It is wonderful to see Republicans everywhere standing up to Save our Country. It is one of the most popular initiatives I have ever supported. Republicans love watching us fight for a Great Cause. Please pass this Map, ASAP,” Trump said.

In North Texas, very few changes were made from the original version of the redistricting plan to the one set for a vote Wednesday.

Abbott placed redistricting on the agenda for a special session after the Department of Justice notified his office that four majority nonwhite districts violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for being racial gerrymanders.

Republicans approved those districts in 2021, with the lawmakers who drew the maps repeatedly stating both at the Legislature and in court testimony that the current maps were created without any consideration of their racial makeup.

Abbott’s citation of the DOJ letter placed several Republican lawmakers in an inconvenient position of defending maps they broadly approved while undertaking redistricting based on a finding that they violated racial gerrymandering rules.

Republicans have since defended redrawing districts as a partisan gerrymander that the U.S. Supreme Court has said is allowed in 2024 and 2019 rulings. Abbott’s latest call for redistricting removed a citation to the DOJ letter.

The effort to redraw congressional seats in Texas has also spawned a counter-effort in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom is asking his state legislature to approve a temporary map that seeks to undo any Republican gains in Texas.

On Tuesday, a group led by a law firm founded by the same lawyer who drafted the DOJ letter that was initially used to justify Texas’ redistricting effort sued to stop Newsom’s gerrymander.

Litigation is also beginning to spin up in Texas.

Recent filings in a protracted lawsuit over the 2021 maps now seek to halt any congressional map approved by the Legislature during the special session.