The Texas Supreme Court on Friday, September 11, barred Galveston County from using precinct boundaries it adopted after the March primary in the November general election. In an unsigned opinion, the court treated a primary and its corresponding general election as a single election under the Texas Election Code, writing that “[n]either the Texas Constitution nor any statute authorizes the County to take the unusual and perhaps unprecedented step of choosing to conduct a general election using precinct lines that differ from those used in the corresponding primary election absent an overriding state or federal law obligating it to do so.” The court rejected the county’s reading of its authority to redraw precincts “from time to time,” citing the state’s requirement that elections be uniform and consistent statewide. The relators (plaintiffs) were Constable Derreck Rose and two county residents, represented with assistance from the Campaign Legal Center and the UCLA Voting Rights Project.
One week later, the commissioners court complied. On September 18, County Judge Mark Henry and Commissioners Hank Dugie and Joe Giusti voted to use the March primary maps for November, shelving the boundaries they had approved on June 29. Under that vote, the June maps take effect January 8, 2027, for future elections and county operations. County officials declined to comment after the meeting, though their attorney, Paul Ready, had earlier characterized the challenge as a “litigation-driven farce” on the ground that most races are unopposed.
The ruling is narrower than the headline suggests. It rests on state election-timing law rather than voting rights grounds, and the court’s reasoning appears to leave the county free to use the maps for the next full cycle unless a federal court rules otherwise. The decision covers all three precinct systems the county redrew; commissioner, constable, and justice of the peace. Separate pending litigation seeks to prevent the maps from being enforced at all.
The federal case remains active. On August 9, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown rejected the county’s argument that its June redraw mooted the lawsuit, citing the absence of any commitment not to reinstate the 2021 map, timing he called “highly suspicious,” and the county’s continued defense of the older map’s legality. Claims of racial gerrymandering and intentional discrimination in the 2021 map remain pending in the federal court. The full procedural history of the caes, including the Fifth Circuit’s 2024 en banc holding on coalition claims under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, can be found in our September 7 case overview.
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