When Ann Zimmerman Gallant learned of a congressional redistricting map Texas Republicans introduced last month, she immediately looked to see how lawmakers had changed the district she lives in.
Zimmerman Gallant lives in a North Dallas neighborhood sandwiched between Preston Hollow and Lake Highlands. She voted for U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Dallas, in the 2024 election. But looking at the new map, the former journalist noticed Johnson’s 32nd congressional district would extend out to East Texas — near the Louisiana state line. It was a drastic revision of Johnson’s district, which currently includes much of Northeast Dallas County.
That wasn’t the only change. The new map would move Zimmerman Gallant into the district held by Republican U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne of Irving.
Zimmerman Gallant was unaware of the change until she saw a close-up version of the map. Her neighborhood is in an urban and suburban area of Dallas and, she said, “has very different needs and issues from people in East Texas.”
Political Points
“It’s totally unnecessary,” Zimmerman Gallant said in an interview at her house. “It will undermine community cohesion.”
President Donald Trump asked Texas to carve out an additional five Republican seats in its congressional delegation through redistricting. The Legislature is into its second special session, where redistricting has become the preeminent issue, overshadowing other legislation such as flood relief and more than a dozen other items.
The proposal angered Democrats enough that most Democratic House members left the state for two weeks to prevent a vote on the plan. It did not stop the Texas House from passing the map on a party-line vote Wednesday.
Related:Was the Texas House Democrats’ quorum break worth the effort?
Yet, throughout the weeks of debates and hearings, there have been few discussions on how the plan will actually impact voters in specific Texas neighborhoods.
The congressional map Republican lawmakers are pushing would insert a third congressional district into the North Texas neighborhood where Zimmerman Gallant lives. Currently, the neighborhood is divided between two congressional representatives, Johnson and Van Duyne.
However, in trying to shift Johnson’s 32nd congressional district from solidly Democratic to one that favors the GOP, map drawers assigned areas of the neighborhood to the 5th Congressional District held by Republican Rep. Lance Gooden, who lives in Terrell, a city that’s a 40-mile drive from this neighborhood.
If the new map ultimately goes into effect, residents of this North Dallas neighborhood will be able to enter three different congressional districts within a 10 minute walk.
Texans have expressed displeasure with the maps in numerous legislative hearings in the first and second special sessions. Conversations with people who live in North Dallas revealed similar disagreements. Reporters with The Dallas Morning News visited 87 houses in the neighborhood. Most people did not open their doors. Some who did were unaware redistricting was taking place.
Of 11 residents who spoke, six were against the decision to take up redistricting mid-decade and divide the neighborhood between three congressional districts. Three residents were in favor of the new map and another two did not have strong opinions.
Kathy Owens, a 70-year-old retiree and a Republican, supports the mid-decade redrawing effort.
Owens’ house, where she has lived since 1987, would remain in Van Duyne’s district. She believes that neither political party should gerrymander.
“If they’re gonna do that then we can do that,” Owens said. “It’s got to be OK for Republicans.”
Johnson’s district
House Bill 4 by Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, would achieve President Donald Trump’s goal of shifting five congressional seats to the GOP’s favor for the 2026 midterm elections.
The bill does this in part by taking Johnson’s mostly compact district that’s almost entirely in Dallas County and stretching it east almost to the Texas-Louisiana border. Some residents question what their neighborhood that is a 15-minute drive from downtown Dallas has in common with rural East Texas neighborhoods more than an hour away.
“I don’t need to be voting against my East Texas cousins,” said Shaun Dalrymple, who lives in the neighborhood and will remain in Johnson’s district. “It seems weird to be asking for local representation for people who are in rural East Texas.”
The new map shifts the district from one that supported Vice President Kamala Harris by nearly 24 percentage points to one that would’ve supported Trump by 18 points in last year’s election.
Johnson served in the Texas House for six years. She chose to run for Congress after Colin Allred gave up his seat when he challenged U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2024 Senate race. Johnson’s office did not respond to an email seeking comment on the proposed boundaries.
In the 2024 election, the Dallas County precinct that contains the North Texas neighborhood where the three districts converge voted for Johnson over her GOP challenger, Darrell Day, 58%-41%.
Sharon Stern, a 75-year-old woman who has lived here for three years, sat on her front porch and marveled at the way her street was carved up. Her house, on Royal Park Drive, remains in Johnson’s district. The houses on the opposite side are removed from Johnson’s district and put into Gooden’s.
She does not support Trump and disapproves of Republicans following his lead.
“I don’t want what he wants, so I’m not in favor of redistricting,” Stern said.
Related:Texas redistricting maps: Where do Republicans want to redraw congressional lines?Political motivations
In defending the maps, Texas Republicans in the House and Senate have said the map was drawn explicitly to give the GOP an advantage. Republicans are simply following-up on the results of the 2024 election, where Trump won the state by nearly 14 percentage points — the widest margin of victory in Texas since 2012.
“This map does perform better, by my judgment, for Republicans,” Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, said Sunday.
King is the author of Senate Bill 4, which contains a map nearly identical to the one in the House. On Wednesday, the House passed its own map on an 88-52 party-line vote.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that political gerrymandering is legal under the Constitution, deciding that federal courts don’t have the power to decide if a partisan gerrymander goes too far.
“The Constitution supplies no objective measure for assessing whether a district map treats a political party fairly,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a 5-4 decision with all liberal justices dissenting.
Residents who support the GOP’s redistricting plan think it’s fair for each party to redraw the congressional maps, even if it cuts through their neighborhood.
“It’s got to cut somewhere,” Owens said. “If it’s not this street, it’s the next street, or it’s the next.”
Debbie Messinger said she thinks the current maps don’t allocate Texas voters properly. She worries she is not represented equally in districts where a non-white racial group makes up the majority of the population. The 63-year-old Republican is in favor of redistricting, with the hope each district has an equal share of different ethnicities.
Jan Mallett poses for a photograph at her Northaven Road home in a North Dallas neighborhood that is going to be impacted by redistricting in Dallas, Texas, on Aug 14, 2025.
Jason Janik / Special Contributor
Jan Mallett, 64, is a professor who said she is skeptical of the redistricting attempts. She identified as an independent. Her house is currently in Johnson’s district but would be moved to Van Duyne’s.
She didn’t vote in the 2024 election because of her husband’s death, she said. She didn’t have any issue with potentially changing congressional representatives.
“They’re still elected officials. They still have phone lines, they still have emails,” she said. “I don’t care what party you are, if I need something, and if you are my representative, I expect you to pick up the damn phone and listen to me.”