{"id":78079,"date":"2025-12-06T01:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T01:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/78079\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T01:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T01:48:09","slug":"austin-rep-lloyd-doggett-will-not-run-for-reelection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/78079\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Rep. Lloyd Doggett will not run for reelection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Longtime Austin Congressman Lloyd Doggett  will not run for reelection after the U.S. Supreme Court decided that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kut.org\/politics\/2025-12-04\/supreme-court-lets-texas-use-gerrymandered-map-that-could-give-gop-5-more-house-seats\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Texas could move forward<\/a> with its newly drawn congressional map in the 2026 midterm election.<\/p>\n<p>The new map eliminates one of Travis County&#8217;s two Democrat-held seats. The redistricting would pit Doggett and Democratic Rep. Greg Casar against each other. Doggett <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kut.org\/politics\/2025-08-21\/austin-texas-redistricting-lloyd-doggett-greg-casar-2026-midterms\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">previously said if<\/a> that was the case, he would not run.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will continue working with the same urgency and determination as if next year were my last, which in public office it will be,\u201d Doggett said in a statement Friday. \u201cAfter that, I will seek new ways to join my neighbors in making a difference in the only town I have ever called home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Doggett&#8217;s announcement comes after weeks of court battles.<\/p>\n<p>In November, a Texas three-judge panel ruled the new maps were based on racial gerrymandering and ordered the state to use the maps drawn in 2021. Gov. Greg Abbott quickly appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court where Justice Samuel Alito <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/11\/21\/g-s1-98856\/supreme-court-texas-congressional-map\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">allowed the state to temporarily reinstate the map<\/a> while the court made its decision.<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/26338609-25a608-order\/\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">released its decision<\/a> on Thursday. Alito, writing for the majority, said the district court \u201chad failed to honor the presumption of legislative good faith by construing ambiguous direct and circumstantial evidence against the legislature.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The court also said the lower court \u201chad improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal balance in elections.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. Kagan, in writing the dissent, said the court\u2019s stay &#8220;ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this Court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Texas Legislature passed the new congressional map earlier this year in a special session after President Trump said he wanted five more Republican seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. This ruling increases the GOP\u2019s chance of maintaining a majority in the House of Representatives, which could help further Trump&#8217;s agenda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrump\u2019s racial gerrymandering is only his first major shenanigan designed to win next year\u2019s election and retain a House that poses no restraint to his dangerous whims and incessant drive for unlimited power,\u201d Doggett said. \u201cMore outrageous schemes will follow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Doggett has spent more than 50 years in Texas politics. He began in the 1970s when he served as state senator representing Austin. He has been a member of the U.S. House since 1994.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Longtime Austin Congressman Lloyd Doggett will not run for reelection after the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Texas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[29455,132,134,133,38463,145,37808,8236,10205,38464,38465,10206,32660],"class_list":["post-78079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-2026-midterm-elections","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-austin-politics","tag-donald-trump","tag-elena-kagan","tag-gop","tag-greg-casar","tag-house-of-representative","tag-ketanji-brown-jackson","tag-lloyd-doggett","tag-samuel-alito"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}