Texas Republicans bring redivision bill to House floor, finally reaching quorum | Texas

Texas Republicans brought a bill to the floor of the state legislature on Wednesday to remake the state’s congressional district and quickly use their recovery quorum after protests return democracy Legislator.

Democratic state represents filed a series of amendments to the bill which were voted down, but used the process to raise objects to taking up redirecting before flood relief, to house rules which requires a police escort when leaving the chamber and to the proposal itself, a mid-decade change which they argue reduces the voting power of people of color in service to Republican political gains and further gerrymanders the state at the cost of democracy.

“We’re ready to meet Trump on a dirt road, it’s on a dirt road,” Democrat Nicole Collier said. “We’re ready to get off and be dirty.”

Collier was trapped in the room after he refused to sign the pass and allowed police escorts off the floor of the house. In a zoom call with Sen. Cory Booker, Democratic New Jersey, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin, Collier said she was told she had to end the live broadcast or face felony charges and suddenly left the meeting.

This is a symbol of unusual resistance Democrats In Texas, a redistricting bill has been proposed, and the Republican-controlled Texas administration’s response to this resistance.

“The bill deliberately discriminates against Black and Hispanic Texans and other people of color by cracking and packaging ethnic communities throughout the state. Texas“This is clearly a violation of the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution,” said Chris Turner, Democratic Representative in Arlington. ”

Republican leaders rejected racial discrimination as an element of redistricting, noting that this increased the majority of Hispanic voting age from seven to eight districts. According to the 2024 vote, five congressional seats will go from Democrats to Republicans, which they believe are allowed by law, according to the new map.

“You want transparency,” said Todd Hunter, a Corpus Christi Republican who drafted the redivision bill. “The basic goal of this program is simple: to improve Republican political performance…we are allowed to draw the congressional district based on political performance, as the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed in Rucho v Common Proad. These areas mainly use political performance to guide the redrawn areas. ”

The strong assertion that the origin of redistribution is about increasing the number Republicans In Congress, not weakening the voting rights of people of color is an early defense of the expected legal challenges proposed by the Voting Rights Act proposal to that proposal.

“When you say the word ‘redistribution’, I think you know there will be legal challenges,” Hunter said.

Under the Voting Rights Act and long-term court precedent, legislators need to have a lot of knowledge of the racial composition of voters to avoid unconstitutional inclusion of them in a single area to reduce the impact on other areas, or in multiple areas (cracking their voting power) to dilute their voting power.

Texas begins talking about the mid-decade re-division, the judicial part is issued letter Describing the use of race in the state’s 2021 re-division is unconstitutional. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott grabbed this, a reason for a more favorable repetition of the district line for Republicans. Donald Trump called on Texas and other states to re-draw their boundaries for more partisan advantage, prompting California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democratic governors to start a re-division with themselves.

Democrats in the Texas House left the state last month, intending to deny quorums for legal personnel to quorum the legislature to prevent votes on the redivision bill. They abandoned exile after the California Legislature began to advance their own redistricting bill.

In a controversial discussion, Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, a Democratic state representative who re-classified the committee rankings of the Texas House of Representatives, urged Hunter to urge the motivation for the new map line and the input of Texas legislation, which could face a map that could face a voting right challenge.

This caused Hunter’s keen reaction.

Hunter said: “You’ve been away for 17 to 18 days! You might have sat with me.”

“Now you are on the microphone and saying why I’m not involved with you? Well, I’m not going to cross the state line for you! I’m here… you have a strike. You say you did. But you didn’t get into this body and say we don’t include you. You’ve left us for 18 days.”