Texas is aiming for ‘super turbocharged racial gerrymandering’ says Dem leader Gene Wu

Texas State Rep. Gene Wu says the push to redraw political maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections is designed to shield President Donald Trump and a Republican majority Congress from voter backlash, particularly from Black and Brown communities.

Speaking at a news conference Aug. 14 — jointly organized by American Community Media and Houston Ethnic Media — Wu, the Democratic leader in the Texas House said: “What they’re trying to do is rewrite the rules in the middle of the game because they know they know they’re going to lose. Everything that’s happening is so incredibly unpopular, not just what President Trump is doing, but also what Republicans are doing in Congress.”

“Trump’s big, beautiful bill makes massive cuts to communities all across Texas, not just in liberal cities, but also in rural communities. It also affects farmers, also affects workers, affects everybody. And people are starting to wake up to that and they know this. Republicans know this and they know that people are gonna blame them for going along with Trump. And so they’re trying to cut it off preemptively,” said Wu.

The redrawn maps handily passed the state Senate on a 19-2 vote. The proposal then moved to the House. 50 Texas House Democrats fled the state two weeks ago to block a quorum in the House. They announced Aug. 14 that they plan to return Aug. 18, after the end of a special session imposed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The governor will have to call another special session to get the redistricted maps passed.

‘Cracking and packing’

The redrawn maps would, according to Wu:

Create two majority-white districts despite minority growth: Even though 96% of Texas’s population growth over the past decade came from Black, Latino, and Asian residents, both new congressional seats created after the 2020 census were drawn with white majorities. The new maps would preserve that imbalance and extend it to additional districts.

“Crack” Latino communities: In South Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, large, politically cohesive Latino populations would be split into multiple districts and merged with faraway, whiter, more conservative areas. This reduces Latino voters’ ability to elect candidates of their choice.

“Pack” Black voters in Houston: Two African American districts — each roughly 40% Black — would be merged into one supermajority Black district, concentrating their influence in a single seat while weakening their impact in surrounding areas.

Fragment Asian communities: Growing Asian American populations in Fort Bend County and Southwest Houston would be cut apart and reassigned to districts that are geographically distanced, reducing their power as a voting bloc.

‘Trigger maps’

“Ultimately, our communities will be harmed because Black people, Latinos, and Asians will not be able to ask for the things that we need. If we cannot go and talk to our congressional members and that we need this for our community, we will be hurt. The money doesn’t come. Our people will die.”

Wu urged all blue states to enact “trigger maps” to counter the imbalance in Texas. California’s Governor Gavin Newsom Aug. 14 announced his state’s “trigger maps” which he said would go into effect if any Republican state gerrymanders its maps.

Karla Maradiaga, voting rights attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, stated that the move to redraw the state’s maps came after Abbott received a letter from the Justice Department urging him to do so. At a Houston hearing, more than 1,000 people gathered to protest the redrawing of Congressional districts. “At these hearings, the maps had not been released. So the community did not have a lot of information to speak meaningfully about what this will mean. Even so, they showed up,” she said.

‘Democracy, upside down’

“When you rig the maps in a way where the representatives choose their voters, not voters choosing representatives, they are not accountable to us. And that basically turns our democracy upside down,” said Maradiaga.

She pointed to Tarrant County as a cautionary example. In June, the Republican majority on the commissioners court used maps from an out-of-state group to dismantle a majority-minority district that had elected Black commissioner Alisa Simmons. “Now the minority community can only elect one representative out of five,” she said. “This is how distorted this has become, how silenced our voices have become.”

Former census worker Melissa Allala said Republican legislators in Texas are trying to capture the Latino vote — which shifted Republican during the 2024 election — and at the same time, dilute its power. She pointed to CD 29, which is 3/4 Latino, and noted that portions of that district are going to be shifted to another white majority district.

Asked how Latinos can fight back, Allala responded: “For me, it’s inviting Latinx organizations and telling them that we need to have a broader town hall, that we need to have conversations about what our game plan is. Genuinely it’s remaining boots on the ground, continuing these conversations and also giving it the context of, ‘hey, we still need to vote.’”

Redistricting commissions

Carmella Walker of the Houston Urban League noted that many have encouraged Texas to use bi-partisan, non-politician redistricting commissions, in the manner of California and 10 other states, to create a safety net.

“But those safety nets come with pressure. They come with potential lawsuits depending upon who’s at the table. And so we really just have to weigh in on stopping the bleeding because what’s happening here has the potential to happen every session,” said Walker.

“Fairness is a civic value. It’s not a partisan one. It’s not a racial one. We have a human condition and a human responsibility to our friends, family, loved ones, and all of us as a family together. So regardless of political affiliation, the democratic process requires elected officials to compete for votes and not manipulate boundaries or guaranteed outcomes,” said Walker.