The Texas senate has given final approval to a redrawn congressional map that gives Republicans a chance to pick up as many as five congressional seats, fulfilling a brazen political request from Donald Trump to shore up the GOP’s standing before next year’s midterm elections.
It will now be sent to governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is expected to quickly sign it into law, however Democrats have vowed to challenge it in court. The Texas house of representatives approved the map on Wednesday on an 88-52 party-line vote, before the senate approved it early on Saturday.
The effort by Trump and Texas’ Republican-majority Legislature prompted state Democrats to hold a two-week walkout and kicked off a wave of redistricting efforts across the country.
Democrats had prepared for a final show of resistance, with plans to push the senate vote into the early morning hours in a last-ditch attempt to delay passage.
Senator Carol Alvarado revealed her filibuster plans to delay its final passage, in a post on social media. “Republicans think they can walk all over us. Today I’m going to kick back,” Alvarado’s post read. “I’ve submitted my intention to filibuster the new congressional maps. Going to be a long night.”
But the planned filibuster was thwarted by a procedural motion by Republicans. It now heads to the governor for final approval.
Alvarado’s delay tactics were the latest chapter in a weeks-long showdown that has roiled the Texas Legislature, marked by a Democratic walkout and threats of arrest from Republicans.
Democrats had already delayed the bill’s passage during hours of debate, pressing senator Phil King, the measure’s sponsor, on the proposal’s legality, with many alleging that the redrawn districts violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting voters’ influence based on race – an accusation King vehemently denied.
“I had two goals in mind: that all maps would be legal and would be better for Republican congressional candidates in Texas,” said King, a Republican.
“There is extreme risk the Republican majority will be lost” in the US House if the map does not pass, King said.
The vote comes after California Democrats set a special election for November in which they will ask voters to approve a new congressional map in their state. That map would add up to five seats for Democrats, a move designed to offset the new map in Texas. California governor Gavin Newsom launched that effort after Texas began its push to redraw its maps.
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Republicans currently hold 25 of Texas’s 38 congressional districts. Under the redrawn map, they would be favored in 30 districts. Abbott called a special session last month to draw new maps after Trump requested that he do so.
The new map eliminates Democratic-held districts in Austin, Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and replaces them with Republican ones. It also tweaks the lines of two districts currently held by Democrats in south Texas to make them more friendly to Republicans. Swift lawsuits are expected challenging the new districts under the Voting Rights Act amid allegations the new lines make it harder for voters of color to elect their preferred candidates.
Lawmakers passed the maps after Democrats in the Texas house of representatives left the state for two weeks, denying Republicans the necessary quorum to conduct legislative business. The Democrats returned to the state on Monday after California Democrats began moving ahead with a plan to redraw their state’s congressional map.
Even after Democrats returned to Austin, protests continued at the state capitol this week as Republicans pushed the new map through. The efforts were galvanized by Nicole Collier, a Democratic state representative from Fort Worth who refused to sign a “permission slip” necessary to leave the house floor. Collier refused and remained confined to the house floor and her office until Wednesday.
The Texas push set off an unusual mid-decade redistricting battle before next year’s midterm elections, in which Republicans are expected to lose seats in the US House. Republicans currently have a three-seat majority and the president’s party typically performs poorly in a midterm election. Republicans are also expected to redraw the maps in Florida, Ohio, Missouri and potentially Indiana.
With the Associated Press