Texas’ mid-decade redistricting is not, as the drive-by media insists, a cynical power grab orchestrated by Republicans in Austin. It is the direct and unavoidable consequence of a federal court ruling in Petteway v. Galveston County, which held that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not require the creation of minority coalition districts. For decades, states like Texas were told they had to draw such districts, districts in which no single racial or ethnic group forms a majority, but minority groups combined hold one. That mandate was always a constitutional anomaly. The Equal Protection Clause prohibits race from being a predominant factor in redistricting except when compelled by the Voting Rights Act. If the VRA never required these coalition districts, then their creation was never constitutionally permissible in the first place. By definition, they are now unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. That is the point the national press refuses to explain.
The Fifth Circuit’s decision did not simply give Texas the option to abandon coalition districts, it made clear that the legal foundation for them has crumbled. A law that does not require race-based districting cannot justify race-based districting. Without the shield of the VRA, these maps violate equal protection and must be dismantled. That is not optional. It is required by the Constitution itself. When the DOJ under Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon flagged four districts, TX-9, TX-18, TX-33, and TX-29, it was not indulging in a partisan exercise. It was enforcing constitutional limits. TX-9, TX-18, and TX-33 were Black/Hispanic coalition districts. TX-29, a nominally Hispanic-majority seat, was infected by its creation alongside those coalitions. Surprisingly Dhillon failed to highlight the five other coalition districts in Texas and as a result they remain in coalition form under the Legislature’s proposed map. That is unacceptable.
The drive-by media will not tell you that eliminating all nine coalition districts would give Republicans an eight-seat advantage instead of the five-seat edge under the current proposal. They prefer to suggest that this is a naked partisan ploy rather than a constitutional correction. But if the goal is compliance with the Equal Protection Clause, half-measures will not suffice. Every coalition district in Texas must be eliminated because they all suffer from the same constitutional defect: they were drawn on the premise that the VRA required them when it did not.
The story of Galveston County Precinct 3, which gave rise to Petteway, is instructive. Before 2021, Precinct 3 was the county’s coalition district, represented by Stephen Holmes, a Black Democrat and the lone minority member of the commissioners court. The new map dismantled Precinct 3, scattering its Black and Hispanic voters. Holmes was placed in a heavily white, Republican district. Then, in an irony lost on the plaintiffs, the county appointed Dr. Robin Armstrong, a Black Republican, to fill a vacancy in Precinct 4. Armstrong later won election unopposed. For a time, Galveston County had two Black commissioners. Yet the plaintiffs refused to acknowledge Armstrong as evidence of minority electoral success because he was not the choice of Black or Hispanic voters. Under their theory, a Republican who is Black ceases to be Black for purposes of the Voting Rights Act. That ideological litmus test exposes the true nature of these cases, they are not about racial representation in the abstract, but about electing Democrats.
The Fifth Circuit rightly rejected the legal scaffolding for this system. It held that Section 2’s language, guaranteeing equal opportunity to members of “a class” of citizens, means a single racial or ethnic group, not an amalgam of groups. This aligns with the Sixth Circuit’s Nixon v. Kent County decision from 1996, which likewise barred coalition claims. The pressure is now on other circuits to follow suit. States like California and New York, which still maintain coalition districts, will face mounting legal challenges. The logic of Petteway travels well: if the VRA does not require race-based line-drawing for coalitions, then doing so violates the equal protection clause of the constitution.
This is not happening in isolation. Louisiana v. Callais, now before the Supreme Court, could go further, potentially gutting the entire apparatus of race-based redistricting under Section 2. If the Court holds that even majority-minority districts created to comply with the VRA violate equal protection, the era of using race as a map-drawing criterion will end. That would make coalition districts not just optional to eliminate, but impossible to justify anywhere in the country.
The media’s silence on Petteway is telling. Mentioning it would undermine the narrative that Texas Republicans are abusing their power. It would reveal that Texas is responding to a court decision, not initiating a partisan scheme. Even when they acknowledge Dhillon’s letter to the state, they spin it as proof that President Trump is behind the redistricting, rather than as evidence that the DOJ is following binding precedent. This selective reporting keeps the public ignorant of the real stakes: that states cannot continue to use race in districting absent a VRA mandate.
Texas should not stop at half-measures. Every coalition district is a constitutional liability. The Legislature should remove them all now, not later. The Fifth Circuit has made the legal landscape plain, and the Supreme Court may soon make it plainer still. Other states should be paying attention, because once Petteway’s logic spreads, the coalition district era will be over from coast to coast.
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I love this article. it is very well written and very easy to understand. I agree with this premise that this should be done nation wide; however, unless the MSM were to explain it publicly, getting the word out there is going to be a big problem.