The Texas House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a Republican-drawn redistricting map that could create five more U.S. House seats for the GOP.
The bill now faces another rendering in the House and must go back to the Senate before it can be signed by Gov. Greg Abbott.
House Bill 4, which passed with an 88-to-52 party-line vote, is a rare mid-decade redistricting based on 2020 Census data. The push to redraw the state’s maps came at the behest of President Donald Trump, who asked Abbott, a MAGA loyalist, to “pick up five seats” ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Texas’ redistricting battle, which has evolved into a national arms race among blue and red states, was initiated as a GOP effort to guard against losing control of the U.S. House during the upcoming election. Both Republicans and Democrats expect the contest to be a referendum on Trump’s unpopular policies.
Abbott and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, made redistricting the top priority in the new special session, which began Friday. The House still hasn’t held any hearings this session on flood legislation.
Lawmakers debated HB 4 for hours Wednesday as the only item on the day’s agenda.
Among amendments considered, Democrats introduced a motion that would force the map to adhere to the second section of the Voting Rights Act, which states that no procedure will deny or abridge the right to vote based on race or color.
Republican lawmakers pushed back, saying the amendment was unnecessary because the independent law firm that drew the map, Butler Snow, had already taken the Voting Rights Act into consideration. However, Butler Snow also drew up the state’s 2021 map, which Republicans now argue is in violation of the law.
House Minority Leader Gene Wu, D-Houston, even prefilled an amendment to predicate adoption of the map on U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s release of the Epstein files. His amendment met with snickers and jokes from across the aisle.
Another amendment by Rep. Trey Martinez-Fischer proposed that the 2021 map would be upheld should the new map become mired in legal challenges. During floor comments, the San Antonio Democrat predicted that multiple lawsuits by voting-rights groups would target the GOP’s redistricting scheme.
Experts widely expect Texas’ new map to draw legal challenges alleging it dilutes the voting power of people of color. Even so, Republican-controlled House struck down all of the Dems’ amendments.
Nearly 60% of Texans are people of color, and 95% of the state’s population growth in the past decade has come from those communities, according to a Time Magazine op-ed by Texas Rep. Vince Perez, D-El Paso. Perez estimates it would take just 445,000 white residents to secure one member of Congress under the new map but some 1.4 million Latino residents and 2 million Black residents to do the same.
The mid-decade redistricting map is drawn using Census data from 2020. However, since that Census, Texas’ Latino population has surpassed that of whites, and the state, overall, has experienced a population boom of people moving in from elsewhere. Those variables have led lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to question the wisdom of redrawing Congressional districts based on old data.
Map sponsor Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, argued that while he hasn’t seen new Census estimates, the newly proposed map is based on the partisan concern of “improving Republican political performance.” Hunter also cited the 2024 ruling in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals case Pettaway v. Galveston County, Texas, which found minority coalition districts to be illegal.
Texas Democrats argue the redrawn map further dilutes Black and Brown votes by separating them from their communities and making them share districts with rural, white voters — with whom they may not share the same values or priorities.
“Now we are looking at further gerrymandering the state of Texas, using racial lines to rob districts from [Black and Brown] representatives,” State Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, said on a reporter call about how redistricting would impact Latino voters.
Hunter identified five specific congressional districts now held by Democrats as targeted for Republican pickup: Congressional Districts 9 (U.S. Rep. Al Green, Houston), 28 (U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, Laredo), 32 (U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, Farmers Branch), 34 (U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, McAllen), and 35 (U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, Austin).
“They don’t want a better, more inclusive democracy, they want a democracy that works for them,” said Hector Sanchez Barba, President and CEO of Latino voting rights group Mi Familia Vota.
The maps passed Wednesday incorporated some changes compared to the one proposed the prior special session, though they are substantively similar, the Texas Tribune reports. That is why SB 4 will need to return to the Senate even though the body already passed a version of map during the prior special session.
“In about 12 hours, the silly games, petulant name-calling and ridiculous publicity stunts of our Democrat colleagues will be met with the resounding and overwhelming adoption of the fair, legal and constitutional congressional redistricting plan, HB 4,” State Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, posted on X ahead of Wednesday’s debate. “I can’t wait to vote YES to send the Big Beautiful Map to the desk of [Gov. Greg Abbott]!”
House Minority Leader Wu took the podium in the same clothes he’d worn since Sunday, having spent several nights sleeping on the House floor. He’s remained in the building in solidarity with Rep. Nicole Collier, who refused to sign a permission slip enabling a Department of Public Safety escort to surveil her 24/7 to ensure she would return to the House floor rather than flee and deny quorum.
“Are you aware that during slavery times, Blacks fled?” Collier asked map sponsor Hunter on her third day living and sleeping on the House floor. “Are you aware that people fled during Nazi Germany? They were fleeing from their oppressors.”
Wu directed much of his speech Wednesday to the voters themselves.
“You may not understand gerrymandering, you may not understand redistricting, but I hope you can understand lying, cheating and stealing,” Wu said. “Texas Republicans … when they can’t win, they cheat.”
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This article appears in Aug 7-20, 2025.