NAACP sues Texas over new Congressional map, claiming it violates Voting Rights Act

The Civil Rights group National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on Tuesday sued Texas over its newly redrawn congressional map, claiming that the map violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The Texas state House passed the controversial map last week, which would potentially give Republicans a chance for five more congressional seats in the 2026 midterms.

The NAACP's new lawsuit, which was filed jointly with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, alleged that the map was racially gerrymandered in a way that decreases black voices in elections. But the Justice Department has claimed that the old map was the one that was racially motivated.

“The state of Texas is only 40% white, but white voters control over 73 percent of the state’s congressional seats,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement. "It's quite obvious that Texas's effort to redistrict mid-decade, before next year's midterm elections, is racially motivated. The state's intent here is to reduce the members of Congress who represent Black communities, and that, in and of itself, is unconstitutional." 

The lawsuit comes as the Supreme Court weighs another redistricting case, where Democrats in Louisiana have accused the state of racial gerrymandering in its new maps. The congressional map includes two majority-black districts, after a federal court ruled that only having one black-majority district in the state likely violated the Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Louisiana case in October.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.