… Meanwhile, voting rights advocates are gearing up to to fight the new map

• Voting rights advocates — including the League of United Latin American Citizens — who are already challenging Texas’ existing congressional map as a racial gerrymander now say they will also fight the soon-to-be-enacted 2025 redistricting plan. They’re calling it “egregiously unconstitutional” and demanding it be blocked immediately.
  
  
• In a motion filed Monday, the plaintiffs challenging the 2021 map asked to schedule a hearing in September at which they will argue that the court should block the new redistricting plan, which is currently being considered by lawmakers.

… Also in Texas: Republicans won’t let this Democrat leave the state Capitol without a police escort

• Texas State Rep. Nicole Collier — one of the Democrats who left the state and returned to Austin yesterday — is still on the House floor after refusing a Republican demand to be assigned a 24-hour police escort. She was locked in the chamber overnight.

• Ever since the Texas Democrats who fled the state to break quorum returned, their GOP colleagues demanded they have ‘round-the-clock security escorts to ensure they won’t flee the state again until the House reconvenes Wednesday. Collier refused to comply with the demand.

• Collier filed a state court application for a writ of habeas corpus Tuesday, claiming that “the restraint on her liberty is illegal.”

GOP lawmakers sue to block California redistricting plan

• Four Republican state lawmakers filed a lawsuit in the California Supreme Court against Secretary of State Shirley Weber (D) and other state officials, seeking to block Governor Gavin Newsom’s redistricting plan.
  
  
• The plaintiffs argue that the state constitution prohibits the legislature from acting on the redistricting bills because new legislation requires a 30-day public review period. They are asking the court to halt any further action on the bills until the full 30-day review period has passed, on Sept. 18.

Some good news: Federal court orders Mississippi to redraw state Supreme Court district map to comply with Voting Rights Act 

• In a victory for voters, a federal court ruled in favor of Black Mississippians, finding that the map used to elect justices to the state’s nine-member Supreme Court violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting strength.

• Mississippi must draw a new judicial district map that complies with Section 2. The court will give the Mississippi Legislature the first opportunity to enact a compliant plan before intervening.

Rep. LaMonica McIver moves to dismiss federal charges against her, citing Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons 

• Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) is moving to dismiss federal charges against her for allegedly obstructing officers outside an ICE facility, citing “differential treatment” from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as it dismissed cases against over 160 January 6th rioters for the same crime.

• A grand jury indicted McIver in June on a three-count charge of “forcibly impeding” officers during a chaotic confrontation between federal agents and elected officials outside an ICE facility in Newark earlier this year. The charge is a felony, and the three counts carry a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison.
  
  
• “There is a simple difference between this prosecution of Congresswoman McIver and the 160 cases involving assault against federal officers on January 6 that DOJ has dismissed: it is all about politics and partisanship,” one of her dismissal motions reads.

Voters sue to overturn New Hampshire’s extreme mail voting law

• A group of voters in New Hampshire, already one of the most difficult states in which to vote by mail, filed a lawsuit challenging SB 287 — a new law that imposes strict identity verification requirements on mail voting.
  
  
• Seniors and voters with disabilities — who don’t have ready access to the required documents and who can’t get to the polls easily — are at risk of being disenfranchised by this law, the suit argues, as well as overseas, military and student voters living away from home.