A Texas Republican state lawmaker on the fight for redistricting

The fight over redistricting in Texas drags on as Democrats continue to deny state Republicans a quorum for a vote.

On Sunday, Texas democrats fled the state to avoid giving state Republicans a quorum for a special session. They want to avoid voting on a new congressional map drawn by Republicans, which they say disenfranchises voters.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called for the arrest of these Democrats, and is asking the state Supreme Court to remove Gene Wu, the chair of the state’s Democratic caucus.

Meanwhile, Democrats have vowed to stay out of the state of Texas until late August — when the special session ends.

So what’s comes next in this redistricting standoff? And how might Texas Republicans move forward?

State representative Tom Oliverson, chair of the Texas House Republican Caucus, joined All Things Considered host Ailsa Chang to share his thoughts on the next step of this battle.

Some answers have been edited for been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Interview Highlights

Ailsa Chang: This congressional map is being redrawn after your party already drew it in 2021. And one of the main objections to what you all are doing is that Texas Republicans are doing this only because President Trump asked you to do so. So let me just ask you directly, is that true?

Tom Oliverson: No, we are not. And in fact, the first conversations that I heard about and had myself regarding redistricting began before the legislative session in January as a result of the court case where a federal appeals court basically rejected the idea of the coalition on districts as being consistent with the Voting Rights Act.

Chang: That said, President Trump does say that Republicans are, “entitled to five more seats in Texas.” Do you agree with that, that you are entitled to five more seats?

Oliverson: I think what I would say is that we certainly have the right to look at the maps and make changes. I think the courts have consistently held that redistricting for purposes of political performance by either party is acceptable. Other states have done that.

Much has been said about the state of Illinois, where a lot of my Democratic colleagues have taken refuge as being essentially a state that overperforms for the Democrat Party by more than 30 points.

Chang: Democrats are saying that this proposed map from your party will disenfranchise Texas voters, especially voters of color. What’s your response to that?

Oliverson: The state of Texas, for those that have kind of been keeping up with current events, minorities are trending towards Republicans.

There’s this false sense of equivalency that I think a lot of my Democratic colleagues have created. We heard this in one of the redistricting hearings, that a district that was less African-American would take a Democrat vote away. And the reality is, is that African-Americans, as well as Hispanics, particularly in South Texas, have trended towards Republicans.

Chang: Governor Abbott is telling state Democrats that have fled that he is calling for their arrest. He’s also saying that he, as the governor, has the power to remove someone from state office if they do not return to Texas. How would that work?

Oliverson: I’m not an attorney, so I’m not going to try to be a legal expert and say what I think law enforcement can or would do in terms of returning people who are outside the state to the state.

I do believe at some point they will have to come back. And when they do come back, we are going to pass the maps. And this is what happened last time. You know, a lot of us lived through this in 2021. And the real problem here is that they run away because they don’t want to vote on a bill. They have no plan and no strategic outlook on this.

So I don’t even know that they need to be arrested, per se. And I guess I would also point out that we’re really at this point only a handful of votes short of making quorum anyway. The person at the center of this that you mentioned, Governor Greg Abbott is an attorney, a former judge, and is the former attorney general of our state. And he believes that there is a mechanism, as does our current attorney general of our state, that there is a valid legal mechanism to declare that these individuals have abandoned their district and the seat that should be vacated.

Chang: Meanwhile, this lack of quorum means that there cannot be votes on things like relief and new warning systems after the devastating floods in Texas last month. What is the status of all of that business? Is all of that business stalled essentially?

Oliverson: Well, it is to a certain extent. Now, committees are still having hearings. There was a hearing yesterday in the Texas House on five separate pieces of legislation that had to do with our emergency preparedness emergency activation system.

I think everybody knows that we had a tremendous tragedy last month in central Texas. And our emergency response system was not up to the task, especially not in the wee hours of the morning in areas where cell phone reception is historically very poor because of the rocky terrain.