AUSTIN - On Monday, the Legal Defense Fund filed an amicus brief in a suit over Texas’ redistricting efforts, arguing that the newly enacted 2025 congressional map is racially discriminatory.
The brief was filed in the case of League of United Latin American Citizens, et al., v. State of Texas, et al. and asks a federal court to block the map from going into effect before the 2026 elections.
The Texas legislature passed a congressional map in August during an extraordinary special session calling for mid-decade redistricting.
Groups such as ACLU of Texas contend the new map weakens electoral opportunities for Black and Hispanic voters, particularly in the Harris County and the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
“Texas surgically targeted for redrawing these districts with significant numbers of Black and Hispanic voters,” ACLU of Texas press release states. “Rather than addressing the constitutional issues in Texas’s prior congressional map, the legislature doubled down on racial discrimination by again using an impermissibly race-driven process to enact a new congressional map that discriminates against Black and Hispanic voters.”
The ACLU asserts the Texas legislature attempted to conceal their discrimination by passing the new congressional map in a rushed, non-transparent, and non-democratic process, ignoring overwhelming public testimony warning of the harms the new map would bring to black and other Texans.
Texas is home to the largest total number of eligible black voters in the country.
The LDF and the groups it leads released the following statement: “Black voters and other voters of color deserve fair representation — not to be harmed through unlawful maneuvering. The use of this new congressional map threatens to undermine their ability to elect leaders who understand their communities and will work with them to address urgent and ongoing challenges.
“Our Constitution protects against efforts that weaken the voices of Black voters and other communities of color. We must remain steadfast in the pursuit of equal and fair representation for every community. The strength of our multiracial democracy in Texas, and across the nation, depends on it.”
In addition to LDF, the amicus brief was filed on behalf Black Voters Matter, the Houston Area Urban League, Barbara Jordan Leadership Institute, Friendship-West Baptist Church, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Texas, League of Women Voters, and League of Women Voters of Texas.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court of Western Texas, El Paso Division.
Case No. 3:21-cv-00259-DCG-JES-JVB
