Federal judge instructed state to use older maps, with Republicans likely to appeal decision
New maps that added five Republican districts in Texas hit a legal roadblock on Tuesday, with a federal judge saying the state cannot use the 2025 maps because they are probably “racially gerrymandered”.
The decision is likely to be appealed, given the push for more Republican-friendly congressional maps nationwide and Donald Trump’s full-court press on his party to make them. Some states have followed suit, and some Democratic states have retaliated, pushing to add more blue seats to counteract Republicans.
A panel of three federal judges in Texas said in a decision that the state must use previously approved 2021 maps for next year’s midterms rather than the ones that kickstarted a wave of mid-decade redistricting. The plaintiffs, including the League of United Latin American Citizens, are “likely to prove at trial that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map”, so the court approved a preliminary injunction to stop the map’s use for next year’s elections.
You could do PR with the ballot of potential Reps distributed by district. When the election is settled the district Reps are assigned starting with the highest-skewed district. E.g.:
Overall vote: 60:40 (red:blue)
D1: 80:20 D2: 40:60 D3: 70:30 D4: 45:55 D5: 30:70You can go randomly, round Robin, or winner-first to divvy up the districts, but essentially you would expect D1, D3, and D4 to be assigned their local red Rep (even though red “lost” in the close D4 race) and D2 & D5 to go blue
With more parties, random or round robin are a little more “fair” for the third party - winner first allocation could result in 3rd party getting the “whatever’s left” district where they didn’t actually get any votes.
It’s not perfect, but neither is the current system.