The fight for congressional seats: What we can do to protect our voting rights

Maps of Texas and California showing Texas' efforts at redistricting and cleaner districting in CA with a scale of Justice in between - Map AI created

On August 29, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’ new Congressional map into law, potentially adding 5 new congressional seats to the U.S. House of Representatives. Texas’ new redistricting maps would strengthen the GOP’s narrow lead in Congress before the 2026 midterm elections, by taking these seats away from Democratic lawmakers.

Advocates representing Black and Latino voters have already filed lawsuits to prevent Texas’ new redistricting maps from becoming law. The dangers for Democrats is real. If, for example, this new redistricting map had existed during the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, a map created by the Texas Legislative Council shows that President Trump would have won three more congressional districts in 2024 than former Pres. Joe Biden.

New Texas redistricting map showing 5 additional seats obtained by Republicans. Map credit:Texas Legislative Council - texastribune.org

Four panelists – all experts in their fields, explained the dangers and ramifications of this type of redistricting to a group of reporters in an American Community Media’s Zoom conference on August 22, 2025 and stressed what it means for all of us.

Rep. Gene Wu, the Democratic leader in the Texas House of Representatives, told how he held an unsuccessful protest in the Texas legislature with other Texas representatives to resist the GOP’s efforts to pass their new redistricting maps. Rep Wu warned that if states continue to redraw maps after every election, it will lead to a loss of democracy and a loss of power for minority communities. He cited how one redistricted map combines two African American communities that would normally have two black elected officials so that the community now only has one representative. The same thing happened in Latino communities, which had built up power over time. Their districts were pushed into majority white areas. Breaking districts up in this way and diluting the power of a single group of voters by pushing them into another larger district is known as “cracking and packing” “So,” as Wu said, “their voices will no longer matter.”

Wu warned that this kind of change in representation has long, lasting effects, affecting such things as “how your community is funded, whether your community gets money for a hospital, for a school….”  He said that losing representation will have an effect that ripples outwards.

Sarah Rohani, assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, underscored Wu’s ideas in her remarks on the impact of the redrawn maps on the black vote, for example.

She said, “The 2020, census results revealed that black populations were increasing while white populations were decreasing…and the data was really clear, the population growth in this country over the last decade has been driven by voters of color, and new electoral maps should reflect greater electoral opportunities for black voters and other voters of color.”

However, because of a 2013 ruling involving Selby County, Alabama “that severely weakened a crucial section of the Voting Rights Act,” which required states with histories of racial discrimination in elections to obtain approval before implementing any proposed voting changes, including new maps… the door was opened for a bevy of suppressive voting laws and racial vote dilution tactics that have severely harmed black voters in this country”

Rohani emphasized that fair maps are the foundation of democracy. She said, “When maps are drawn to exclude or diminish the influence of certain groups, it discourages voter participation and erodes trust in the system.”

To counter Texas redistricting efforts, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on August 21, 2025 that would suspend California current congressional districts and replace them with a map favoring Democrats. This measure, known as Proposition 50 will go to the voters for their approval or rejection in an upcoming November 4 special election.

For Dr. Sam Wang, president of the Electoral Innovation Lab At Princeton Univ., such redistricting efforts, most notably by legislatures like Texas, show that voting rights are clearly under attack, especially, when it comes to racial fairness. He said that the only way for the public to have any control is for people to vote and voting at the state level is critical. He listed three ways to make redistricting fair.

One is to implement an independent redistricting commission, as there is in California, which Newsom wants to temporarily suspend to counter the Republican Party’s current efforts to hold on to Congress for the next four years.

Another is for courts to make sure that every single one of the 50 states have some protection for voting rights and use independent redistricting commissions to reduce partisan manipulation.

Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel at Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), also spoke about the Voting Rights Act and said that in seeking to add 5 additional seats in the Texas State Legislature, the Republican legislators were again violating the Voting Rights Act. He said that the five new legislators would also be obtained at the expense of the Latino community. As Rohani talked about the growth of the black community, Saenz pointed to the growth of the Latino community and other communities of color whose numbers have outstripped the growth of the white community. He has promised the filing of a lawsuit to contest Texas’ new redistricting map and he said the litigation is already under way.

The speakers agreed that the U.S. is headed towards authoritarian rule if people do not protest the type of redistricting occurring in Texas that violates the Voting Rights Act. They stressed the importance of protecting voting rights not only at the federal level, but also at the state level and they urged that the public needed to do more to protect their own voting rights, by going out to vote. It was agreed that maximizing voter turnout will overcome the manipulation of the redistricting process for partisan party politics.  

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