STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Three federal judges in Texas are overseeing a case challenging the state's plan to overhaul of its congressional map. The new map would likely help Republicans get up to five more seats in the House of Representatives. President Trump pushed Texas Republicans to game the system this way, and Republicans openly proclaimed that they would, leaning into a Supreme Court ruling that partisan redistricting does not violate the Constitution. But racial redistricting to disenfranchise people would violate the Constitution. And the lawsuit alleges that's what really happened. Here's Blaise Gainey of the Texas Newsroom.
BLAISE GAINEY, BYLINE: In El Paso, a federal court is hearing testimony after a coalition of minority advocacy groups, like the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, challenged the legality of the newly approved map. University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray testified that Republicans targeted minority districts.
RICHARD MURRAY: They did not mess with the white-controlled Democratic districts. What they went after aggressively were a half dozen of the minority control districts, which were, as I surgically assaulted and dismembered.
GAINEY: This started when President Trump asked Texas Governor Greg Abbott to get Republicans five more seats in Congress. In a special session, the Republican-controlled Texas legislature did just that. Representative Barbara Gervin-Hawkins is a Texas Democrat that testified last week.
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BARBARA GERVIN-HAWKINS: What the plaintiff side really want to show is that we can be in a state with a majority-minority and don't have proper representation at the congressional and state level.
GAINEY: After Texas released its Republican-favored map, California redrew their congressional map to favor the Democratic Party. But there, voters will have to approve them in November. The outcome of the Texas case could create a pattern where other states consider mid-decade redistricting. State legislators in Indiana and Kansas are already eyeing the option.
For NPR News, I'm Blaise Gainey in Austin.
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