NAACP Suing Texas Over Congressional Map It Says Strips Black Voters of Power

NAACP President Derrick Johnson says Texas state leaders are on a mission to reduce the members of Congress who represent Black communities.

After a weeks-long showdown between Texas Democrats and Republicans over the state’s proposed redrawn congressional maps, the NAACP is now suing the state. In a news release obtained by BLACK ENTERPRISE, the NAACP is accusing Texas state leaders of engaging in racial gerrymandering to prevent Black voters from electing candidates of their choice.”

The NAACP is joining the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in a lawsuit that names Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson as defendants, according to The Guardian.

“The state of Texas is only 40 percent white, but white voters control over 73 percent of the state’s congressional seats,” Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP, wrote in a statement. “It’s quite obvious that Texas’s effort to redistrict mid-decade, before next year’s midterm elections, is racially motivated.”

Johnson says Texas state leaders are on a mission to reduce the members of Congress who represent Black communities.

According to the Texas local chapter of NAACP, organization leaders say that since the Voting Rights Act was adopted, Texas leaders have consistently discriminated against Black and brown people when it comes to redistricting and drawing congressional maps.

“We now see just how far extremist leaders are willing to go to push African Americans back toward a time when we were denied full personhood and equal rights,” said NAACP Texas President Gary Bledsoe.

NAACP Calling on Blue States To Intervene

As the NAACP gears up to sue Texas, the organization is calling on blue states to immediately pass new, constitutionally sound redistricting laws and electoral maps in response to Texas.

“We must counter Texas’s unconstitutional move and ensure that if all else fails, Black Americans still have a voice in Congress,” said Johnson.

So far, California is fighting back. The state’s Democratic Governor, Gavin Newsom, recently signed legislation that calls for a special election to redraw the state’s congressional maps in November. Newsom led the campaign in direct response to Texas, where lawmakers pushed President Donald Trump’s agenda to secure five additional House seats from the state, which would likely benefit Republicans.

In California, if voters decide to redraw the map, Democrats could win five more U.S. House seats in the Midterm Election.