From the political trenches of Texas:

Texas Republicans Ready to Redistrict Congressional Seats

The DOJ identified four districts—three in the Houston area and one in Dallas-Fort Worth—as majority-minority ‘coalition districts’ that are based on combinations of different racial groups whose main commonality is that they vote for Democrats.

A 2024 federal court ruling in a redistricting case known as Petteway v. Galveston County established that districts based on ‘coalitions’ of minority groups are not protected by the Voting Rights Act.

Governor Abbot’s new legislative session will now address redistricting the U.S. House of Representatives for the 2026 midterm elections under the new court rulings.

Given the Republican Party’s difficulties with voter turnout in midterm elections, this is an opportunity to save us from a Democrat-controlled House during the last two years of President Trump’s term.

One traditionally Democrat seat, TX-18, is vacant and targeted for redistricting. The DOJ also identified TX-09 and TX-29 in the Houston area, and TX-33 in Dallas-Fort Worth, as constitutionally suspect coalition districts.

Since a large majority of Texas legislators are Republicans, the uninformed may hope this is a slam dunk gain for MAGA.

Not so in the real world.

A huge obstacle is Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows. While he may have an “R” after his name, he’s a Democrat all the way. The establishment Republicans (that’s spelled RINOs) who wanted to keep real conservative Republicans (that’s spelled MAGA) out of power, so instead of uniting with the majority and catering to America First members, they went full Benedict Arnold in betraying the Republican Party and Republican voters and worked with the Democrats to elect Burrows earlier this year:

After a monthslong battle within the Republican party for the seat, Burrows emerged with the gavel in hand thanks in large part to Democrats. A majority of Republicans supported Cook of Mansfield. Burrows’ victory was not celebrated universally among Republicans. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who leads the Texas Senate, said Burrows was handed the speakership by Democrats.

My strong prediction is that the legislature’s commie Democrats and RINO Republicans will accomplish one of two things:

I live in one of the districts in question. I would love the chance to, finally, be represented by someone other than a hand-picked Democrat sock-puppet, but something tells me it’s a pipe dream.

Image from Grok.