Texas Redistricting Law Approved by House, Heads to Senate

CNN
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The Texas House of Representatives approved a draft redistribution law of electoral districts, racing the way for the maps elaborated by the Republicans, who could add to the Republican Party up to five seats in the House of Representatives of the United States, are finalized in the next few days.

The vote occurred after a confrontation of more than two weeks with the state democrats, who prevented the bill from advancing in the first special session before returning to the State on Monday with the second special session in progress.

Republicans are promoting maps in an effort backed by President Donald Trump.

The bill will now pass to the Senate. Once approved by the Senate, the bill will be addressed to the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, who will promulgate the measure as law.

The vote occurred after a long line of Democrats attacked against the bill, describing it as a partisan power that will dilute the influence of non -white voters.

State representative Gene Wu, a democratic leader of the Chamber, said that the “voter problems begin right here.”

“You may not understand the manipulation of constituencies. You may not understand the redistribution of districts,” said Wu. “But I hope you understand lies, deception and theft. Because this is what people do, people like Donald Trump. People like the Texas Republican Party. When they can’t win, they cheat.”

The only Republican in speaking was state representative Todd Hunter, sponsor of the new congressional maps. He reprimanded the Democrats for leaving the State and said he supported the new maps in partly for partisan reasons, “to give Republicans an opportunity where they have not had it in the past.”

Relegated to the minority, the Democrats do not have a viable way to stop the approval of the maps, but have continued to protest the tactics of the Republican party to prevent them from abandoning the State again.

The president of the Chamber, Dustin Burrows, demanded that the Democrats who broke the quorum were put under the supervision of twenty -four hours on the day of the Department of Public Security to be allowed to leave the plenary of the Chamber. However, state representative Nicole Collier has refused to do so and has remained confined in the Chamber. Other Democrats Tuesday night broke the written agreements that allowed them to get out of the camera and spent the night in the plenary of the camera.

This Wednesday, Collier – while he was in a press call from a women’s bathroom outside the camera’s plenary before the expected vote – told the listeners that he had to leave because “they said it is a serious crime for me to do this.”

The Democrats had hoped to put the Republicans in a politically difficult situation with a vote on an amendment that would block the entry into force of the proposed congressional maps of Texas until all the files related to Jeffrey Epstein are published.

However, Burrows announced on Wednesday afternoon that the amendment required by the publication of Epstein archives is not pertinent to the bill and, therefore, is out of place.

Burrows imposed an unusual requirement to the Democrats who finished their 15 -day boycott and returned to the Capitol on Monday: they would be released from the Plenary of the Chamber under the custody of an agent of the Public Security Department that would ensure his return this Wednesday.

The measure occurred after the orders of civil arrest that Burrows signed shortly after the Democrats flee from the State were inapplicable outside Texas.

The majority of the Democrats complied with the police escort, showing the reporters what they called “permits” they received to get out of the camera’s plenary and pointing to the agents that escorted them by the Capitol.

However, some Democrats protested. Collier refused to leave the camera’s plenary, sleeping there Monday night and planning to do it again on Tuesday. WU and representative Vince Pérez, who signed the “permits” to dating a police escort, stayed with Collier on Monday night.

Other Democrats joined Collier and Wu on Tuesday night.

State representative Penny Morales Shaw said that, after returning to the Houston area under police escort, he realized that it was a mistake to sign the agreement, arguing that he is now “correcting the course.”

“Yesterday, I left in custody and returned in custody, because I support Nicole Collier and Gene Wu,” she said. “This is illegitimate, this is an improper use of power, and I will not approve it, and I do not want to be part of establishing a very bad and low precedent for future legislators.”

The former president Barack Obama said Tuesday that he supported a proposal by the California Democrats to redraw the congressional lines in response to the impulse led by Republicans in Texas to obtain additional seats in the US House of Representatives of the United States, but expressed concern with the broadest effects of the manipulation of electoral circumscriptions or gerrymandering.

“On this issue of California, I want to see as a long -term objective that we do not have gerrymandering politician in the United States. That would be my preference, ”Obama said in an event on Tuesday night for the National Democratic Committee of Redistribution of Districts, a liberal organization focused on the fight for the lines of the congressional districts, according to extracts of their comments shared with CNN.

He continued: “But I want to be very clear. Since Texas is receiving instructions from a partisan white house that is effectively saying: do gerrymandering For partisan purposes so that we can keep the camera despite our unpopular policies, they redistribute right in the middle of a decade between censuses, which is not as the system was designed; I have tremendous respect for how Governor Newsom has approached this. ”

When will California democrats vote?

The California Senate Assignments Committee voted 5-2 this Wednesday to advance new maps designed to give the Democrats five additional seats in the middle of the period of next year.

The measure, known as AB604, now goes to the legislature in full for a vote, where you need the support of two thirds of each camera to immediately enter into force. The final approval is expected on Thursday and Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to sign the bill later that day.

Many Republicans from California have recognized that their best opportunity to block new maps is to defeat them in November. But that has not prevented Republican legislators trying to prevent the proposed constitutional amendment from reaching the electoral ballot.

The Republicans of California filed a lawsuit before the State Supreme Court on Tuesday requesting an emergency court order to stop the redistribution effort of districts, arguing that the legislature did not give voters enough notice.

The state representative Carl Demaio, a Republican from San Diego, also presented a proposal for citizen initiative that would retroactively prohibit legislators who approve the constitutional amendment to run in one of the new districts.

The proposal reflects a rule that prohibits the members of the Independent Commission for the Redistribution of Districts to apply for the maps they developed. It is also a criticism of Democratic Democrats of Demaio, including Mike McGuare, the president for the time of the Senate. McGuare, who has a mandate limit, is seen as a probable candidate to run in a red -struck district in northern California under the new maps. If demanded and their allies gathered enough signatures, the measure would not appear before the voters until 2026.

Republicans have also questioned the Democrats about the origin of the maps, which led to tense exchanges during the meeting of the Electoral Committee of the Assembly on Tuesday.

“Who drew the maps? It is a very simple question,” said state assemblyman Alexandra Macedo, republican vice president of the committee, during the panel meeting on Tuesday.

“The assembly did it,” said Aguiar-Curry.

“I am in the assembly, and I did not draw these maps,” Macedo replied.

The president of the Electoral Committee of the Assembly, Gail Pellerin, also refused to say who drew the maps during an informal meeting with reporters on Tuesday. Pellerin said it was a “collaboration” with several people.

A reporter asked: “When you consume something, don’t you want to know who does it?”

“When I go to a restaurant, I don’t need to meet the chef,” said Pellerin. “I just enjoy food.”