Texas has sparked a nationwide rush to redraw district maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. To understand why this domino effect was triggered, it’s important to start at the beginning, when Gov. Abbott was forced to choose between keeping the existing map, already under legal challenge from both sides of the political aisle or drawing new lines.

Abbott called a special session to redraw Texas’s district map in October of 2021. After it was signed into law and used in the 2022 primaries, the map was challenged by the League of United Latin American Citizens. They argued that it violated the 14th and 15th Amendments as well as Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting Latino voting power and marginalizing minority communities. The case was consolidated with others, including United States v. Texas (filed by the Biden administration), streamlining multiple legal challenges into a single high-stakes proceeding. But it didn’t stop there.

In a separate case, Biden’s U.S. Department of Justice filed Petteway v. Galveston County, Texas, alleging that Galveston County’s 2021 redistricting plan for its Commissioners Court violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Though the U.S. District Court ruled the plan illegal, the Fifth Circuit delivered a landmark reversal

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