Texas Scorecard by Travis Morgan October 4, 2025
Court proceedings continued Saturday, as the fourth day of Texas’ 2025 federal redistricting trial saw Plaintiffs finally present a witness who provided evidence directly addressing the heart of their racial gerrymandering claims.
The latest congressional map creates five new GOP-opportunity districts. Plaintiffs suing over the map include the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC).
Dr. Matt Barreto, a UCLA professor and mapping expert—who is also known for mentoring Dr. Loren Collingwood, a previously scrutinized expert witness in the case—delivered key testimony for the Plaintiffs.
However, in March, during North Carolina’s redistricting litigation, U.S. District Judge James Dever III found Barreto’s credibility lacking after errors were discovered in his data. Dr. Collingwood replaced Barreto as the case’s “expert,” until he was also criticized and subsequently removed.
Barreto’s Testimony and ConclusionsFor Texas’ case, Barreto ran projections intending to illustrate that it would be statistically impossible to draw 30 congressional districts “blind to race” that contain any majority-black Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP) district and more than four majority-Hispanic CVAP districts, which also favor President Donald Trump with a 55 percent vote share.
In contrast, the enacted 2025 Texas congressional map contains two majority-black and six majority-Hispanic CVAP districts. Based on this discrepancy, Barreto asserted that race must have been considered during the map-drawing process.
He alleged that, in some areas, the State drew district lines to concentrate minority voters. For example, Barreto contends the State chose to incorporate Democrat-leaning Hispanic neighborhoods from Baytown into a Trump-favoring district at the cost of Republican-leaning white communities in Liberty County.
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/state/redistricting-trial-day-4-democrats-present-first-witness-directly-supporting-racial-gerrymandering-claims/
