Efforts to redraw congressional maps in Texas and beyond are setting off a flurry of litigation as Republicans and Democrats look to add pickup opportunities in the House ahead of 2026.
Several groups have filed lawsuits against Texas’s congressional maps, which seek to put five more seats in play for Republicans heading into next year’s midterms, arguing the map is unconstitutional and violates the Voting Rights Act.
But pending litigation in several other states, including Louisiana and North Dakota, could have major ramifications for the Voting Rights Act and who’s allowed to bring those lawsuits in the first place — decisions that could have consequences for future maps down the line.
Here’s a look at five legal redistricting battles to watch:
Texas
A handful of groups have sued over the new House lines Texas lawmakers approved this summer, which would offer five pickup opportunities in the House for the GOP heading into 2026.
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, some of the groups suing over the maps, had sued Texas back in 2021 over its state legislative and congressional lines, arguing they violated the Voting Rights Act and were unconstitutional.
In a supplemental complaint filed as Texas Republicans looked to advance their new House map this year, LULAC and other groups argued the new congressional maps violated the Voting Rights Act, saying in the filing that the “new map weakens or completely eliminates the ability of Latino voters to elect their preferred candidates in existing Latino majority districts across the state.”
The groups also argued in the filing that the new map “violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because it intentionally discriminates against and racially gerrymanders Latino voters.”
A federal court has scheduled dates for a preliminary injunction hearing as groups have looked to temporarily block the congressional maps from going into effect. The hearing is expected to start Oct. 1 and run through Oct. 10, while litigation over the merits of the map winds its way through the courts.
Louisiana
The Supreme Court made the unusual decision in late June to rehear a case over Louisiana’s congressional map after the state was ordered to incorporate a second majority-Black House district during the 2024 cycle.
After the 2020 census, state legislators drew a House map that only included one majority-Black House district, prompting then-Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) to veto the map, arguing it didn’t meet the Voting Rights Act standards given the state’s Black population made up a third of the state but was only represented in one House district.
Several groups sued over the congressional lines after GOP lawmakers overrode Bel Edwards’s veto, a case that eventually wound its way to the Supreme Court. While the House map was used during the 2022 cycle, legislators were ultimately ordered to draw a map with two majority-Black districts ahead of the 2024 cycle following a separate decision by the Supreme Court over Alabama’s congressional maps.
A group of non-Black voters sued over the new map in 2024, arguing it violated the 14th and 15th amendments “by intentionally discriminating against voters and abridging their votes based on racial classifications across the State of Louisiana,” and by “enacting racially gerrymandered districts” in violation of the 14th Amendment.
The Supreme Court was expected to issue a decision on the Pelican State’s map earlier this year but is instead rehearing the case, with oral arguments scheduled on Oct. 15. The state is pressing the high court to oppose race-based redistricting.
North Dakota
Earlier this month, several Native American tribes and voters asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider a lower court ruling issued earlier this year that stipulated only the Justice Department can enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act says no voting qualification, procedure or practice can be used “in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”
The Native American tribes and voters sued over North Dakota’s state legislative maps, which had created one majority-Native American district in northeastern North Dakota after the 2020 census; that area of the state previously had three majority-Native American districts.
The state was initially required to create a new map, but a federal appeals court later ruled private citizens can’t enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and that those same claims can’t be channeled through Section 1983 of Title 42, an antidiscriminatory section of U.S. code. The case could have implications for who’s allowed to bring cases over Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in future redistricting cases.
Mississippi
In a case similar to the one playing out in North Dakota, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and other top officials in the state are asking the Supreme Court to determine whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is privately enforceable after the state was forced to redraw its legislative maps.
The case stemmed from a lawsuit brought by the Mississippi chapter of the NAACP and other groups in 2022, which alleged the legislative maps in both chambers violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and were unconstitutional.
The courts ruled last year the groups “did not establish the redistricting maps are unconstitutional racial gerrymanders” but did have standing to sue over Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Utah
Democrats scored a win this year in the Beehive State when a state judge ordered lawmakers to redraw Utah’s congressional lines in accordance with a ballot initiative passed in 2018 that created an independent redistricting commission.
GOP legislators had previously repealed the 2018 initiative passed by voters and enacted their own commission, which was structured differently, in creating their House map. But the courts have made it clear Republicans were wrong to repeal a voter-approved initiative with their own law.
Republican lawmakers have asked the Utah Supreme Court to review the state judge’s decision ordering the GOP to toss out their House map by Sept. 15, as lawmakers have been ordered to put in place new maps later this month.
