AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democratic lawmakers tried to build a case Friday that Republicans in Texas have engineered a rushed and unfair process for redrawing the state’s congressional districts in response to a push by President Donald Trump to win more GOP seats that Democrats fear will spread to other states.
Democrats in the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature delayed the start of public testimony during a hearing of a state House Committee on Redistricting by peppering its chair with pointed questions about how quickly GOP lawmakers planned to move and whether the public is getting enough of an opportunity to weigh in. The Republican proposal would give the GOP five more winnable seats in next year’s elections, which would make it easier for the party to keep its slim U.S. House majority.
Chair Cody Vasut told the committee that he expected it to vote later Friday or Saturday on the bill, which Republicans unveiled Wednesday. He said he expected the full state House to debate the measure Tuesday.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called the Legislature into a 30-day special session and put congressional redistricting on the agenda after Donald Trump called for Texas to redraw lines that Republicans approved in 2021. Republicans hold 25 of the state’s seats, to 13 for Democrats, and the plan would create 30 districts that Trump would have carried by at least 10 percentage points had they been in place in 2024.
Democratic state Rep. Jon Rosenthal called the public redistricting hearings “a sham.” The committee quietly released the plan after several public hearings that drew hours of public testimony and scrutiny from residents concerned about new maps they hadn’t seen.
“Does the leadership of the state truly think the people of Texas are that stupid?” Rosenthal asked, to which Vasut did not reply.
GOP author acknowledges partisan motives
Democrats appear to have few ways to stop the GOP’s plans. Some have talked about boycotting the special session to prevent either chamber or both from having a quorum to take action until the special session ends. But Abbott could call another.
Republican state Rep. Todd Hunter, the bill’s author, dismissed concerns about how quickly lawmakers are moving. He said they’ve have been discussing the possibility for months.
“Don’t be surprised,” he said. “The topic has been there.”
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.
“I’m telling you,” he said. “I’m not beating around the bush.”
Democrats argue 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.
Texas might have no competitive districts
Under the exiting lines, which were in place for the 2022 and 2024 elections, Republicans won all of the seats in districts carried by Trump by at least 10 percentage points, and Democrats won all 11 districts carried by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. In the other two districts, Trump won by less than 10 percentage points, but Democrats won the House seats. Under the new map, there would be no districts won by Trump by less than 10 points.
In Austin, a liberal bastion, parts of two districts represented by Democrats would be combined into one that favored Democrats even more strongly. One of the three other districts would include a slice of the city and extend 340 miles (547 kilometers) to the west, to take in the oil city of Midland.
Vault refused to recognize Democrats so they could force the committee to vote on adding more public hearings in cities affected by the new maps. Data compiled by the Legislature shows that the proposed map would pack more Democratic voters into fewer districts while spreading Republicans out a bit more.
Hunter said there’s no requirement to do redistricting at a certain time.
“Some people like it, and some people don’t, and that’s the nature of redistricting,” Hunter said.
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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.
