A Republican-drawn congressional map has cleared the Texas House, advancing a mid-decade redistricting push that could net the GOP as many as five additional U.S. House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms.
After hours of debate, the House chamber voted 88-52, sending House Bill 4 to the Senate and then to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature. Republican lawmakers voted against all 12 amendments proposed by Democrats, including one by State Rep. Gene Wu.
Wu’s amendment aimed to block the maps until the Jeffrey Epstein files are released.
“The Wu Amendment makes the effective date of the bill contingent on a matter that is not even remotely related to the congressional redistricting,” said Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows.
Your vote sheet on the Texas congressional redistricting plan #txlege pic.twitter.com/Y94UXx4KTp
— Phil Jankowski 🌟 (@PhilJankowski) August 20, 2025
What happened before this?
Abbott called the second special session when Republican lawmakers failed to pass maps and other agenda items in the first session when Democratic House members walked out in an attempt to break quorum and avoid voting on the new maps.
The redistricting saga started with a July 7 letter from the U.S. Department of Justice warning that four current districts—three in Houston (TX-9, TX-18, TX-29) and one in Dallas (TX-33)—unlawfully sorted Black and Hispanic voters together to diminish their power.
Republicans say the new plan fixes those concerns. In contrast, Democrats and voting-rights groups say it turns protected multiracial “coalition districts” into safer Republican or more tightly controlled single-race seats.
Inside the House, bill author Rep. Todd Hunter (R-Corpus Christi) disagreed with his colleagues across the aisle, repeatedly framing the redraw as a partisan project permitted by federal law.
“I did ask to see if we [Republicans] could increase political performance and I’ve been clear on that,” Hunter said. “Partisanship, political performance pro-Republican…it’s fine. It’s legal…Nothing unusual.”
He added that redistricting can be conducted at any point in time.
“The underlying goal of this plan is straightforward: improve Republican political performance,” he said.
The race factor
Race was central to the redistricting debate, shaping the maps and the rhetoric inside the chamber.
Lawmakers sparred over whether creating single-race majority districts remedied or worsened concerns raised by the DOJ. Republicans argued they were complying with federal law by turning coalition districts, where Black and Hispanic voters had long joined forces, into majority-Black or majority-Hispanic seats. Democrats countered that this maneuver diluted political power by dismantling functioning multiracial coalitions.
They charged that the new maps “packed and cracked” communities of color, echoing what they saw as an intentional strategy to weaken minority representation.
State Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins pressed Hunter on seeking input from Black Texans on the map. “As an African American here in the chamber…we weren’t asked any questions or engaged in the process at all. Do you believe that’s fair? I’m talking about the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, which potentially will lose two seats,” she asked Hunter.
She also asked if the new maps eliminate two Black-majority districts.
“I’m not sure that they eliminate because I think anybody can win any election,” Hunter replied. “But did those demographics I just read change? The answer’s yes.”
“So there is your racism right there, correct?” Gervin-Hawkins clapped back. “When you lose two African American-leaning seats, then that tells you there is a race issue going on.”
State Rep. Ron Reynolds stressed that despite Texas having the largest African American population in the country, the new plan would cut their representation in half. He warned that HB 4 would pit two African American incumbents, Rep. Al Green of District 9 and the future representative of District 18, against each other, undermining decades of progress that began with the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan’s historic election.
Introducing an amendment, State Rep. Yvonne Davis urged lawmakers to return to the redistricting framework they overwhelmingly approved in 2021, rather than advancing a mid-decade redraw that undermined minority representation. Her proposal, PlanC2165, sought to restore African American and Hispanic districts by maintaining coalition districts, reducing the number of incumbent pairings and avoiding splits of counties and communities of interest. Davis criticized the current plan for cutting African American districts from four to two despite population growth, calling it a move that weakens fair representation.
Together, these examples highlighted deep fears that the mid-decade maps would disenfranchise Black communities and erase hard-won political gains.
In her speech, Republican lawmaker Katrina Pierson defended the mid-decade redistricting plan while condemning Democratic criticism as baseless and hypocritical. She argued Republicans are unfairly branded as racist despite creating two Black CVAP districts where none previously existed, calling that an increase in representation. Pierson highlighted her pro-Trump stance, contending the maps are far from racist.
“More and more minority voters are voting their values, not their skin color,” she said. “Many of them are moving to Texas to escape the blue states because their values have been successfully gerrymandered into suppression…My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are struggling right now because the fact is, President Trump won Hispanic voters in the state of Texas.”
When my community is under attack, I will never stay silent. Today, I spoke against the mid-decade redistricting scheme that would dilute the power of Hispanic voters in Congressional District 29. #txlegehttps://t.co/Zh9YJMEi7p
— Armando Walle (@RepWalle) August 20, 2025
Legal theories
Republicans’ legal theory leans on two pillars. First is Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that partisan gerrymandering claims are political questions beyond the reach of federal courts, leaving partisanship itself largely unchecked at the federal level. The Second is last year’s Fifth Circuit decision in Petteway v. Galveston County, which curtailed the use of Black-Latino “coalition districts” under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a ruling Democrats say state leaders are now weaponizing to dismantle multiracial districts in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.
Those cross-currents were displayed as members dissected how the plan reconfigured Houston-area seats. Under HB 4, Republicans said, Congressional District 18 would become a majority-Black citizen voting-age population (CVAP) district at 50.71%, a shift they argued responds to DOJ concerns.
Democrats countered that Congressional District 29’s Hispanic CVAP drops roughly twenty points, from the mid-60s to the low-40s, reducing Latino voters’ ability to elect their candidate of choice. Hunter replied that the district would still “perform as a Democrat district.” The plan also converts the 9th Congressional District from what lawmakers described as a coalition district to a majority-Hispanic CVAP seat (50.15%), which Republicans cited as bringing it into line with Petteway.
The process became a flashpoint. Members pressed Hunter on why a late committee substitute map wasn’t available during field hearings in Austin, Houston and Arlington and why live testimony was capped at five hours apiece. Hunter said he was not the committee chair and did not know, although he noted that written comments were accepted. He further said he conducted no racially polarized voting or performance analysis, instead relying on the law firm.
Outside the House, the political stakes are unmistakable. The new map arrives as control of the U.S. House could again hinge on a handful of seats. Republicans have openly touted the goal of creating five new GOP-leaning districts, an aim echoed by national allies and reflected in how the plan reconfigures battlegrounds from Harris County to Tarrant County.
Democrats who fled the Capitol to break quorum returned under DPS supervision. With the majority reassembled, Republicans moved the bill swiftly, over objections that the map dilutes minority voting strength in the very communities DOJ flagged.What happens next is already coming into view. Civil-rights groups signaled immediate lawsuits, likely arguing that the state’s “fix” for DOJ’s race-sorting complaint unlawfully “cracks and packs” minority communities, substitutes single-race districts for functional multiracial coalitions and violates Section 2 despite Petteway.
