Democrats say a GOP plan to redraw House districts in Texas harms Black and Hispanic voters

Yahoo

5 days ago

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrats argued Friday that a Republican plan for redrawing districts in Texas to create more winnable U.S. House seats for the GOP is not only a power grab by President Donald Trump but also an attack on Black and Hispanic voters that violates the landmark federal Voting Rights Act.
The plan's Republican author acknowledged during a state House committee hearing that his proposed map is designed to help the GOP pick up five seats in Texas, something Trump is pushing to preserve the party's now-slim House majority. The Texas House committee expected to vote on the plan by Saturday, allowing the full House to vote as early as Tuesday, before going to the Senate.
Democrats have few options for thwarting the Republican plan during a 30-day special session called by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, and calls for offsetting efforts in Democratic states intensified among Democrats outside Texas. Democratic legislators in Texas can walk out, go to another state and prevent either chamber from conducting but would face fines — and also block relief for victims of deadly flash flooding last month in the state's Hill Country.
Republicans disputed that their plan dilutes the power of Black and Hispanic voters to elect candidates of their choosing and said it could give them better representation by uniting some communities that previously have been split.
But the new lines likely would make it harder for four Hispanic incumbents and two Black incumbents to retain their seats in 2026. The Texas delegation would go from a 25-13 split in the GOP's favor to a 30-8 advantage.
'I've never seen anything this brazen, this broken and this spineless,' said former Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who's running for the U.S. Senate. 'If you do this, we'll see you in court and at the ballot box.'
Defending the map and partisan motivations
Texas once was required by the 1965 Voting Rights Act to submit its redistricting plans to the federal government for review because of its past history of discrimination, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 2013 that the requirement was outdated and unconstitutional. The act requires states to have the number of districts in which minority voters can elect a candidate reflect their percentage of the population.
The GOP plan creates five new districts without any incumbents, and sponsoring Republican state Rep. Todd Hunter noted that in four of them, at least half of the voting-age U.S. citizens are minorities, and there would be 10 Hispanic-majority districts, rather than the current nine.
'It's a good plan for Texas,' Hunter said.
Hunter acknowledged that the lines were being redrawn 'for partisan purposes,' which he said is allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court. He said a law firm was consulted as the map was being drawn.
Other Republicans testified in favor of the plan for other reasons, many of them mayors or local party chairs. Melinda Preston, Denton County's GOP chair, said the new maps will reflect the booming population in the state of 30 million.
The redistricting push could move to other states
Democrats argued that if Republicans succeed in redrawing the districts in Texas, Trump will push other states to redraw theirs before they'd normally do so, which would be in 2031 or 2032, after the next nationwide census. States are required to adjust the lines at least once every 10 years to keep the districts as equal in population as possible after population shifts.
That's led Democrats in California and New York to consider redrawing their states' lines to help Democrats, though each state has an independent commission for drawing the lines.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, chair of the Democratic Governors Association, also said Democratic governors should retaliate, if they can.
'We need to respond in kind, which I think we do to protect the American people,' Kelly said Friday at news conference during a DGA meeting in Madison, Wisconsin. 'I hate the fact that we're here, that we even have to consider something this drastic.'
Why walking out is hard for Democrats
Texas is unusual in requiring two-thirds of members to be present for the House or Senate to conduct business. That rule would allow Democrats, particularly in the House, where they hold 62 of 150 seats, to shut the chamber.
But Democrats haven't publicly promised to do that, though they've used the tactic in the past.
House members now face a fine of $500 each day they're absent, and the chamber's rules prohibit lawmakers from tapping campaign funds to pay them.
In addition, the chamber also couldn't consider flood relief proposals — which Democrats have insisted should be the focus of the special session. Democratic state Rep. Rhetta Bowers accused Abbott and his fellow Republicans of holding that relief hostage so they could 'slice up Black and Latino communities just to please Donald Trump."
'Let me be clear: We will not allow flood relief to be used as a bargaining chip for racially rigged maps,' Bowers said during a briefing for reporters and others.
How the map could change the partisan balance
Under the exiting lines, which were in place for the 2022 and 2024 elections, Republicans won all of their seats in districts carried by Trump by at least 10 percentage points.
Democrats won all 11 districts carried by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vincente Gonzalez won reelection in districts that Trump won by less than 10 points.
If the GOP's proposed map had been in place in 2024, Harris would have won eight districts, and Trump would have won the other 30 by at least 10%.
In San Antonio, Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro would be drawn out of a safe blue district into one that Trump would have won by nearly 22 points.
And in Houston, Democratic Rep. Al Green would live in a majority-Hispanic district — but 72% of the Black voters he now represents would not. He would go from being in a district that Harris carried by 44 percentage points to one Trump would have carried by 15 points — with a GOP incumbent.
'This is not democracy,' Amanda McLaughlin, a North Texas resident, said. 'Is it worth destroying Texas to give the president five more seats?'
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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. Also contributing were videojournalist Lekan Oyekanmi in Austin; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Brian Witte, in Annapolis, Maryland.