U.S. Rep Julie Johnson, D-Texas. – Photo: Facebook
U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, one of several Democrats targeted in Texas’s latest gerrymander, says she will seek reelection after a federal three-judge panel blocked a Republican-backed congressional map that would have drawn her out of her Dallas-area district for 2026.
The lesbian congresswoman is one of five Texas Democrats whose districts were reshaped to give Republicans a 2026 edge, and among several Democrats who were effectively drawn out of the seats they currently represent.
In Johnson’s case, the proposed map would have stretched her Dallas-based 32nd District into Republican-leaning Rockwall County and rural East Texas, while shifting her hometown of Farmers Branch into GOP Rep. Beth Van Duyne’s 24th District, a seat Trump won by 16 points in 2024.
“I totally agree with the court,” Johnson told CBS News Texas. “What the Republicans and Greg Abbott did in Texas, seeking to disenfranchise voters of color was egregious. And the court clearly agreed with that. This opinion is sharp, and it is clear, and it is concise, that Greg Abbott and Texas Republicans clearly engaged in racial discrimination.”
Johnson confirmed she will run for reelection in the 32nd District as it currently stands.
“I’ve heard from so many of my constituents who are so excited that they will have a chance to vote for me again,” she said. “And hope I will win again — which I’m confident that I will — and continue to serve the constituents of the 32nd Congressional District.”
Had she been forced into the proposed map, Johnson would have been a massive underdog. The newly proposed 32nd District would have shifted from a district with no clear racial majority that favored Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris by a margin of 23.6 percentage points to a white-majority district that favored Trump by 17.7 percentage points.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and state officials have filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to block the ruling and let the map take effect.
“Any claim that these maps are discriminatory is absurd and unsupported by the testimony offered during ten days of hearings,” Abbott said in a statement, according to Axios. “This ruling is clearly erroneous and undermines the authority the U.S. Constitution assigns to the Texas Legislature by imposing a different map by judicial edict.”
Republican lawmakers advanced the gerrymandered map at the urging of President Donald Trump, who pressed for a mid-decade redraw to create five “safe” GOP seats that could withstand a potential pro-Democratic surge in 2026.
If implemented, the maps would have helped Republicans lock down control of the U.S. House and severely limit potential oversight of the Trump administration.
In a 2-1 decision, the three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas sided with a coalition of civil rights groups that had sued — as one of several lawsuits challenging the map — to invalidate the map as unconstitutional. The majority found that there is “substantial evidence” that the Republican-backed map constituted a racial gerrymander. The court also directed Texas to use its 2021 congressional map for the 2026 elections.
Texas’s filing deadline for the 2026 elections is Dec. 8, leaving candidates little time to make final decisions. The state’s primaries are set for March 3.
The Liberty Hotel, a luxury property in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood, has publicly apologized for ejecting a lesbian couple after a security guard mistook one of the women for a man and objected to her presence in the women's restroom.
The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) announced that the hotel agreed to settle a discrimination complaint stemming from the incident. Under the settlement, the Liberty must make a $10,000 charitable donation to an LGBTQ organization, update its nondiscrimination policies and management training, post a nondiscrimination statement in its lobby, and formally apologize to Ansley Baker and her girlfriend, Liz Victor, reports GO Magazine.
An irate customer at a Florida Starbucks was arrested after throwing a tantrum over a Pride flag hanging on the wall.
Police say Tucker Alden Kemp, 31, of Clearwater, entered a Starbucks in St. Petersburg around 9:16 a.m. on October 22. Once inside, he took offense at a Pride flag and asked to speak with the manager, insisting it was offensive and should be replaced with an American flag.
When the manager refused, citing store policy, Kemp allegedly "decided to take matters into his own hands," according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The Smoking Gun.
A gay-owned ice cream shop displaying a large Pride flag outside was attacked twice in 24 hours by a man who hurled Molotov cocktails at the business.
Jason Fletcher, owner of Fletcher's Ice Cream & Café in Minneapolis, told NBC affiliate KTTC that employees had left just six minutes before the first attack, around 10:45 p.m. on Sunday, October 19. The suspect hurled a Molotov cocktail, shattering a window and igniting several chairs. Patrons at nearby Mac's Industrial Sports Bar helped extinguish the flames.
The second attack came just over 14 hours later, around 12:52 p.m. on Monday, when the shop was closed. This time, the Molotov cocktail created a larger hole in the window, but its wick fell out before the flames could reach inside. The fire scorched the sidewalk outside, leaving burn marks near several tables and chairs.
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