The litigation over Galveston County’s precinct maps – the term Texas law uses for county commissioner, justice of the peace, and constable districts – is closely watched for its implications for voting rights law, in particular the viability of minority coalition claims under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The lead case is Petteway v. Galveston County, which includes claims of intentional discrimination and racial gerrymandering under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments that remain pending in federal court, and a separate dispute over district/precinct boundaries the county adopted in June 2026 is proceeding in state court. A summary of the litigation thus far is below.
Pre-Shelby Preclearance Activity
In 2011, the Galveston County Commissioners Court submitted three changes to the U.S. Department of Justice for preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act: a new commissioners court map, a new justice of the peace and constable precinct map, and a reduction in the number of those offices. The Justices of the peace were reduced from nine to five, and constables from eight to five. The county engaged Geographic Strategies, the firm of Republican strategist Dale Oldham and his then-partner Thomas Hofeller, to draw the 2011 maps. Hofeller’s files, released publicly after his death, show that he drew several of the county’s justice of the peace precincts while working for county legal counsel. On March 5, 2012, the Department denied preclearance. The county revised its commissioners map later that year to preserve Precinct 3, the county’s only precinct in which Black and Hispanic residents together formed a majority, and the Department did not object to the revision; its objections to eliminating the justice of the peace and constable precincts where Black and Latino candidates had been elected remained in place.
In June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder, ending the coverage formula that had subjected Texas jurisdictions to federal preclearance. That August, the commissioners court adopted a justice of the peace and constable map that reduced the county from eight precincts to four – the minimum permitted for a county of its size under Article V, Section 18 of the Texas Constitution – eliminating two precincts in which minority candidates had been elected. According to one civil rights advocate who reviewed the litigation, Hofeller was retained again to redraw those precincts. The Campaign Legal Center later described Galveston as one of the first jurisdictions in the country to enact previously blocked justice of the peace and constable districts after Shelby County. That 2013 map governed every justice of the peace and constable election in the county until June 2026.
The 2021 commissioners map
On November 12, 2021, the commissioners court adopted a new map for its own four precincts, the first drawn without federal preclearance review. Precinct 3 had been represented since 1999 by Stephen Holmes, the court’s only Black member and its only Democrat. Holmes cast the sole vote against the map. Before the vote, Black and Hispanic residents made up more than 60 percent of Precinct 3’s voting-age population; afterward, eligible white voters constituted at least 57 percent of the electorate in each of the four precincts. The county retained Republican strategist Dale Oldham to draw it. At the single public hearing, resident after resident, most of them Black, spoke against the plan. Among those present was Derreck Rose, then the Precinct 3 constable, who did not speak.
The litigation, 2022 through 2024
Three lawsuits followed in early 2022: one by individual voters, including Terry Petteway, Penny Pope, and Derreck Rose; one by three Galveston-area NAACP branches, LULAC Council 151, and three individual civil rights leaders; and one by the United States. The court consolidated them on June 1, 2022, designating Petteway v. Galveston County, No. 3:22-cv-00057, as the lead case. In defending the suit, the county argued that since the 2011 redistricting cycle, some of the same plaintiffs had sued it three times without success, and that those earlier cases had not found intent to discriminate. A trial was held in August 2023 before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, at which Rose testified as the first witness, stating that he believed the 2021 maps were racially discriminatory and criticizing the county for holding a single public meeting in a room too small to seat those who attended.
On October 13, 2023, the court held that the map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and permanently enjoined its use. The county appealed; the U.S. Supreme Court declined to disturb a Fifth Circuit stay on December 12, 2023, over the dissent of three justices, leaving the 2021 map in place for the 2024 election. On August 1, 2024, the Fifth Circuit sitting en banc reversed, holding that Section 2 does not authorize vote-dilution claims brought on behalf of coalitions of two or more minority groups, and remanded the plaintiffs’ intentional discrimination and racial gerrymandering claims to the district court. In November 2024, Holmes lost Precinct 3 to Republican Hank Dugie, 68.8 percent to 31.2 percent, producing a 5-0 Republican commissioners court; Rose won re-election as constable.
The coalition-claims holding traveled beyond the county. Galveston Commissioner Robin Armstrong, who serves as Texas’s Republican National Committeeman, cited the ruling in urging state legislators to take up congressional redistricting in 2025, the redraw that opened the national mid-decade redistricting cycle.
2026: Callais, then a second redraw
On April 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Louisiana v. Callais, reworking the standards governing race and redistricting. On May 19, Judge Brown ordered supplemental briefing on the decision’s effect on the surviving claims and set argument for July 28. On June 8, the commissioners court passed a resolution to reexamine its precinct boundaries, listing three bases: compliance with applicable law, the 2020 census results, and improving partisan performance in favor of Republican candidates. The county judge and two commissioners voted for the resolution; two commissioners were absent.
On June 29, at a special meeting in League City, the commissioners court voted 5-0 to adopt a single map governing commissioner, justice of the peace, and constable precincts, replacing the 2021 and 2013 maps and merging two systems that had never shared boundaries. The order took effect immediately. The new lines extend the Precinct 3 justice of the peace and constable districts farther into League City while moving portions of Texas City and La Marque into neighboring precincts. The vote followed more than two hours of testimony from pastors, civil rights advocates, and longtime residents. “What is it about Precinct 3 that’s different from Precincts 1, 2 and 4?” asked William Henry King III, senior pastor of Greater New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Dickinson. The adopting order cited neither Callais nor partisan performance as reasons, stating only that the court had determined “that the interests of the people of the county are best served” by the change.
The merger produced an immediate consequence. Because officeholders serve in the precinct where they reside under new boundaries, unifying the maps placed the Precinct 3 justice of the peace, Democrat Billy A. Williams Jr., into Precinct 4, and the Precinct 4 justice of the peace, Republican Kathleen McCumber, into Precinct 3. Williams ran unopposed in the March Democratic primary for Precinct 3; McCumber was not on the ballot, having been elected in 2024 to a term through 2028. The change also moved Constable Rose from Commissioners Precinct 1, which is not on this year’s ballot, into Commissioners Precinct 4, meaning he will vote in November for a nominee chosen in a primary he could not participate in and had no chance to seek the office himself.
The County’s Position on the Redraw
County Judge Mark Henry, who presided over the commissioners court in 2011, 2021, and 2026, described the new map’s purposes publicly: it would “improve judicial function for the Justices of the Peace, create opportunities for government fiscal efficiencies, and enhance partisan outcomes.” He added: “I ran on the promise of being a fiscal conservative and turning Galveston County Republican. This map accomplishes just that.”
The county said the same thing in federal court. On July 28, county attorney Joseph Nixon confirmed to Judge Brown that the 2026 map would govern the November general election even though the primary had been conducted under the 2021 and 2013 maps. Asked whether he was aware of any prior instance of a Texas map being changed between a primary and a general election, Nixon answered, “No.” When Brown observed that the new lines would likely leave no Democrat in the 2028 constable races, Nixon replied, “That was the intent.” When Brown said the map would “certainly enhance Republican performance in 2028 in the constable races,” Nixon answered, “That’s the intent of the County.” In its later filing with the Texas Supreme Court, the county wrote that commissioners may change boundaries between a primary and a general election for several reasons, including to increase partisan performance (as in the 2021 map), address new laws, or comply with population requirements.
Why a partisan rationale matters legally
The distinction between partisan and racial motive carries specific legal weight. Federal courts do not adjudicate partisan gerrymandering claims following Rucho v. Common Cause (2019); racial gerrymandering and intentional racial discrimination claims remain justiciable, and the surviving Petteway claims fall into that second category. A partisan explanation, if credited, therefore places conduct outside federal review, and Callais increased the burden on plaintiffs to separate race from politics.
The county deployed that rationale toward a different end as well. On June 30, the day after adopting the map, it filed a suggestion of mootness in federal court, arguing that because the 2021 map was no longer in use, no relief remained available and the court lacked jurisdiction.
Three rulings in two weeks
Judge Brown denied the mootness motion on August 7, applying the voluntary-cessation exception and finding the claims live regardless of which burden applied or whether the county received a presumption of good faith. He found all three factors that can defeat that presumption weighed against the county: it had made no binding statement that it would not reinstate the 2021 map, the timing of the new map was “highly suspicious,” and it continued to defend the 2021 map on the merits at the same hearing where it argued the case was moot. On the timing, Brown noted that the county acknowledged the new map alters no partisan outcome in the 2026 general election beyond making commissioner precincts slightly more Republican, that the principal change, the Precinct 3 constable seat, would not arrive until 2028, and that the map leaves a Democratic justice of the peace nominee unopposed in a precinct that would otherwise likely elect a Republican. He observed that the county could have redrawn at any point before the election cycle, and that nothing in Callais required a mid-cycle redraw. He also rejected a renewed challenge to the plaintiffs’ standing and granted them leave to supplement their complaints.
In state court, three county residents, Constable Rose, Wilma Green, and Diane Merchant (known as “relators” in a mandamus proceeding) represented by the Campaign Legal Center, the UCLA Voting Rights Project, Brazil & Dunn, and attorney Neil G. Baron, petitioned the Texas Supreme Court on August 4 to bar use of the 2026 map, arguing that changing precinct lines between the primary and the general election violates the Texas Election Code and the equal protection guarantees of the Texas and U.S. Constitutions. The court denied the petition on August 14 “without prejudice and without regard to the merits,” stating that the matter should first be presented to a lower court; it did not rule on whether the map change is lawful. The relators refiled the same night in the Texas 14th Court of Appeals, which denied relief on August 20, writing that “Relators have not met their burden of proof that no disputed facts exist and the duty they seek to compel is clear.” That court likewise did not rule on the map’s legality. Having now sought relief in a lower court as the Texas Supreme Court had required, the residents returned there the same day. Briefing closed on September 1, and a decision is pending.
Connections beyond Galveston
The county’s lead counsel in both proceedings, Joseph M. Nixon and J. Christian Adams, practice with the Public Interest Legal Foundation. Tarrant County subsequently retained the same firm to redraw its commissioner precincts, with maps drawn by Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust; Tarrant Commissioner Alisa Simmons, a Democrat whose seat is at risk under all five proposed maps, cited the firm’s Galveston work in alleging intentional racial discrimination. Galveston’s own brief in the Texas Supreme Court relies on Jackson v. Tarrant County, 158 F.4th 471 (5th Cir. 2025), for the proposition that legislative bodies have discretion over when to redistrict and that mid-cycle redistricting combined with staggered terms does not violate equal protection.
What remains undecided
Four questions are open: 1) whether the Texas Election Code permits a county to change precinct boundaries for offices on the November ballot after the March primary. No court has ruled on the merits, and the state courts denied relief on the mandamus standard; 2) whether the 2021 map was adopted with discriminatory intent or constitutes a racial gerrymander remains pending before Judge Brown on remand, and those claims were the original subject of the July 28 hearing; 3) whether the plaintiffs will obtain relief under Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act, which permits a court finding intentional constitutional violations to place a jurisdiction under preclearance, is a request they told the court they intend to raise in a supplemental complaint; and 4) whether the 2026 map itself will face a federal challenge remains open; plaintiffs told Brown they are not currently seeking relief against it in this case. The United States remains a party and, at the July 28 hearing, addressed only Purcell v. Gonzalez, the doctrine counseling against judicial changes to election rules close to an election. Brown said Purcell was “the word in my mind.”
Galveston County Redistricting Litigation Timeline
2011–2012 Galveston County seeks federal approval to redraw its precincts and cut the number of justice of the peace and constable offices. The Justice Department refuses, finding the changes would harm Black and Latino voters.
2013 The U.S. Supreme Court ends the federal approval requirement in Shelby County v. Holder. Two months later, the county cuts its justice of the peace and constable precincts from eight to four, eliminating two where minority candidates had won.
November 2021 The county adopts a new commissioner map, its first without federal review, eliminating the only precinct where Black and Hispanic residents together formed a majority.
2022–2023 Three lawsuits are combined into Petteway v. Galveston County. In October 2023, the federal district court strikes down the map under the Voting Rights Act.
August 2024 The full Fifth Circuit reverses, ruling the Voting Rights Act does not allow claims brought jointly by two minority groups. Constitutional claims return to the district court, where they remain pending.
November 2024 Commissioner Stephen Holmes loses the redrawn Precinct 3, leaving an all-Republican commissioners court.
June 2026 Two months after Louisiana v. Callais further limits race-based redistricting claims, and four months after the March primary, the county adopts a new map merging all three sets of precincts. The next day it asks the federal court to dismiss the case as moot.
August 2026 The district court refuses to dismiss the federal case. Separately, three county residents ask the Texas Supreme Court to block the new map for November; that court sends them to a lower court first, and the court of appeals then denies relief. Neither state court rules on whether the map is legal.
Now A renewed petition is pending before the Texas Supreme Court, and the federal claims await a ruling. Election day is November 3.
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