Habemus Mappam!
(We have a map)
Every ten years, the census kicks off a process where Texas politicians choose their voters while pretending to follow the (greatly watered down) Voting Rights Act. Texas Republicans have been so good at this process that the TX Congressional delegation is almost 2/3 Republicans in a state much more evenly split in voters.
But that’s not good enough now and the era of pretending to follow Voting Rights (and many other) laws is gone. Trump needs 6 more seats to keep the House, and Texas is just the place to find them.
If you’re following our Facebook page, you know that both houses of the TX legislature have been holding hearings, where citizens across the state have had an opportunity to voice their opinions on redistricting in general, but without an actual voting map presented to comment on. Since the map itself hadn’t been filed, the many thousands who joined in-person or online to say “No!” were officially counted as neutral.
Now that the hearings have been completed, the map has been filed. (The House Committee has scheduled an additional hearing this Friday, August 1, at 10:00am in Austin. You may sign up to testify online in writing or in person. For more details, click here or read more below.)
See the pin-wheel shape over the large metropolitan areas in the map of TX above? That’s the map-drawer pulling slivers of Democratic voters into rural Republican counties. The Dallas area inset shows Julie Johnson’s district (32) as an orange sliver in Dallas that runs most of the way to the eastern Texas border! Mark Veasey is moved to district 25, drawn with a sliver through Tarrant County (see the Veasey inset map) which then runs most of the way to Abilene and north to Jack and Young counties. Crockett moves from district 30 to 33, from South Dallas to Central and East Dallas, but her seat seems to be safe.
Most of us in the Park Cities Area will retain Beth Van Duyne as our Representative (yay?), and she picks up parts of Turtle Creek and Uptown. The good news is that this becomes a slightly less safe Republican seat. Will Julie Johnson run against her? The chaos these maps will unleash are extensive.
What Can We Do?
Make Calls, Donate - It’s All Hands on Deck!
At some point cheating becomes so blatant and pervasive that we have to consider it the invention of a new game. Those of us playing by the rules of the old game can’t win if this is now a different game. This mid-decade redistricting represents a fundamental change to the rules of elections. Sadly, Republicans in Texas have become unable to say “no” to Trump and Abbott. This map, or something like it, is very likely to become law.
However, we can (and must) make this as difficult for them as possible.
Call Tan Parker’s office! Tan is on the Senate Select Committee. Tell him this is a bridge too far! 512-463-0112
Call Morgan Meyer’s office! Morgan isn’t on the House Committee, but he is running for re-election next year. Tell him that we will remember who chose to remove our voices from the voting booth! 512-463-0367
Testify at the Friday, August 1 hearing.
To submit written testimony online, click here
For information about testifying in person, click here
For information about a bus going to the hearing, click here
For suggestions about talking points, click here
And… help support the quorum break
The latest intelligence states that Republicans are planning on putting this on the voting calendar as soon as MONDAY! There are two ways we can support a quorum break to run out the special session.
Call Democrats in both the House and Senate to encourage the quorum break. A few Dems in each house are balking about breaking quorum. The Senate can’t afford to lose single member. We need to let them know Texans support this action to resist these illegal maps! Click here for a list of Democratic members and their contact phone numbers.
Donate to the Fair Maps fund to support the quorum break. The TX House imposes $500/day fines for members who voluntarily skip a session. The party intends to cover these fines, but this takes money away from other priorities. One of these other priorities will be advertising to counter the anticipated lies from Abbott and friends. Donate here.
What you may have missed this month
As you know, we had no July meeting due to our summer break. That doesn’t mean all of us have taken a break! PCA Dems turned out for the DCDP “Stop the Steal” rally at Oak Cliff on July 26, the union rally before the Arlington redistricting hearing on July 28, and at the hearing itself at UT Arlington. Here are a few fellow travelers we saw!
Next Up:
August Meeting
2026 Primary Kickoff
with Highlights of our TX Lege Special Session
New events are being added daily!!
New Info Source of the Month
Interested in a primer on the Origins of Income Inequality? Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and retired economics columnist for the New York Times has unleashed himself post-retirement on Substack. A terrific series of his essays focuses on the history of the origins of income inequality. Yes, there are charts and graphs, but it’s written in a way that even us non-economists can understand! The first four have been posted with more to come. Find them here.