Paxton predicts failure for Justice Department's lawsuit over new map

Texas will gain two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives due to a continued population increase. It will have 38 seats, second only to California, which lost one and will have 52 starting in 2023.

But new congressional and state House districts drawn up by the Texas Legislature are being challenged by the U.S. Department of Justice, which alleges the lines were unfairly drawn to give white voters more power than the state’s growing black and Hispanic population.

Many state and federal elected officials have denounced the Justice Department claim, announced Dec. 6, by Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton dismissed the DOJ’s claims.

Jesse Crosson of Trinity University. | Trinity University

“The Department of Justice's absurd lawsuit against our state is the Biden administration's latest ploy to control Texas voters,” Paxton said in a Dec. 6 tweet. “I am confident that our legislature's redistricting decisions will be proven lawful, and this preposterous attempt to sway democracy will fail.”

Gupta said the DOJ is asking that the newly drawn districts not be used in 2022 elections.

“These redistricting plans will diminish the opportunities for Latino and black voters in Texas to elect their preferred representatives," she said on Dec. 6. "And that is prohibited by federal law.” 

“The complaint asks the court to prohibit Texas from conducting elections under the challenged plans and asks the court to order Texas to devise and implement new redistricting plans that comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act," Gupta added. "The complaint also asks the court to establish interim plans pending a lawful state redistricting. This is not the first time Texas has acted to minimize the voting rights of its minority citizens. Decade after decade, courts have found that Texas has enacted redistricting plans that deliberately dilute the voting strength of Latino and black voters and that violate the [1965] Voting Rights Act.”

She noted that the Lone Star State’s population grew by 4 million people from 2010-20, with 95% of that coming from minority populations.

Jesse Crosson, an assistant professor of political science at Trinity University in San Antonio, said this legal action was not unexpected.

“These sorts of suits are not especially uncommon across the country,” Crosson told Houston Daily. “We aren't used to them here in Texas, since this is the first set of maps for which we didn't have to apply for pre-clearance. In fact these maps were almost certain to draw greater scrutiny regardless of how they looked, given that preclearance is no longer required.”

He said the process is inherently difficult and controversial.

“I will preface this by saying that no matter what anyone says, there is no perfect way to draw a map,” Crosson said. “With that said, there are certain districts that do raise eyebrows from a legal perspective. According to legal precedent, legislators are required to draw districts with as large as possible segments of majority populations. In the Dallas area, which is heavily populated with non-white Texans, there are no longer any districts that are majority-minority. This even includes Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson’s (D-Texas) district. I can’t comment on exactly how those decisions were made, but there is a strongly possibility that the courts could take issue with that.”

What are the odds the lawsuit succeeds?

“These things are notoriously hard to predict,” Crosson said. “There is a good chance that any decision is appealed. If the state wins, DOJ has every incentive to appeal. If the state loses, it could choose to work with the court in order to tweak the map.”