The Supreme Court finally gave the Texas GOP the permission slip they’ve been begging for. In a move that surprised absolutely no one who has paid attention to the last decade of Texas politics, the court decided that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act isn’t technically dead—it’s just been moved to the intensive care unit. Now, if you want to complain about racial gerrymandering, you have to prove the mapmakers were intentionally being mean, rather than just “accidentally” erasing the voting power of entire demographics. Good luck finding a “Dear Diary, today I suppressed some votes” entry in Austin.
Representative David Spiller of Jacksboro is already doing victory laps on social media, telling us to “get ready” for a map-drawing frenzy in 2027. Apparently, the current maps—which are already being fought over in court like the last piece of brisket at a Lubbock tailgate—just aren’t “partisan” enough yet. The goal is to “rebalance” the state House, Senate, and Board of Education, which is Austin-speak for “ensuring Democrats can’t even stage a quorum break without permission from a Republican subcommittee.”
Governor Abbott, never one to miss a chance for a high-minded soundbite, called the ruling a victory for the “inherent equality of all Texans.” It’s a beautiful sentiment, really. Nothing screams “equality” like carving up neighborhoods with a digital scalpel until every district looks like a Rorschach test designed to keep the same incumbents in power until the heat death of the universe. Meanwhile, Rep. Matt Shaheen claims we’re living in a “colorblind society,” which is a bold take for a state that spends millions of taxpayer dollars every year arguing about exactly which skin colors live in which ZIP codes.
The GOP is specifically eyeing “coalition districts”—places where Black and Hispanic voters have the audacity to vote together. A top aide to Ken Paxton even circulated a handy spreadsheet of 22 districts ripe for the picking. They’re calling it “hardball,” but in any other context, we’d just call it “rigging the game so you never have to hear a dissenting opinion again.” But hey, as long as the maps represent the “reality” of the state, which apparently consists entirely of red ink and gerrymandered suburbs, everything is just fine.
At what point do we just stop pretending and let the Legislature draw the maps in Crayon during a closed-door brunch at the Austin Club?
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