President Joe Biden‘s Justice Department is fighting to save Galveston County’s only minority-majority precinct in a high-stakes redistricting case that could alter how the Voting Rights Act is interpreted and may imperil South Texas Democrats — and Democrats nationwide.

The Galveston County Commissioners Court, the local governing body that drew the new map in 2021, contends that a minority-majority area cannot legally be achieved by merely creating a coalition of Hispanic and black voters. While no single racial minority group made up the majority of voters in the county’s old Precinct 3, black and Hispanic voters collectively made up 58% of the precinct’s population in 2020.