EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Texas state Rep. Vince Perez, D-El Paso, along with four other Democratic colleagues, have arrived in California on Friday, Aug. 8 and will meet with Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California leaders about the redistricting controversy in Texas.
Perez’s office said that “Texas Republicans are attempting to pass the most racially discriminatory map Texas has since the Passage of the 1965 Rights Act in an attempt to give President Trump at least five additional Republican seats until the courts overturn their unlawful map.”
“These maps are so racially discriminatory that Latino and Black residents have only one-third and one-ffith the value of white residents in Texas,” Perez said. “At least 26 of Texas’ 38 congressional districts (70%) were racial engineered to give white residents unfair advantages over Hispanic and Black neighborhoods that were fractured to deliberately prevent them from influencing the outcome of the congressional elections in those districts.
“The remaining districts were designed to be ‘vote dumpsters’ to sideline the votes of millions of black and Hispanic Texans solely based on their race. These maps not only severely undermine Hispanic and Black Texans, the political advantage Texas is trying to get from this racially segregated map will also come at the expense of the people of California, and millions of others across the United States. That’s why we’re here — to expose the racial engineering that’s being done to give Donald Trump a temporary boost in power until the courts overturn this injustice,” Perez added.
The passage of this map would result in Texas Hispanics becoming the largest and most underrepresented racial/ethnic minority in the United States, Perez’s office said.
Perez joins fellow Texas Democrats in breaking quorum to protest and resist what he has called “the most unjust and racially engineered maps Texas has seen since the 1960’s.” The delegation is calling national attention to how the GOP-drawn maps suppress Latino and Black voting power in direct violation of democratic principles.
Perez also added: “It doesn’t matter if you’re Republican or Democratic, white, Black, Latino, or Asian — all Americans should be appalled at what Texas Republicans are proposing. What will happen when our government does not feel it is accountable to all people, but only one group that it hand picks, particularly when that is done solely on the basis of skin color? I urge all Americans to resist this attempt to take our society back to the turbulence of the 1960s and the struggle for civil rights.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit with the Texas Supreme Court to purse vacating the seats of 13 Democratic lawmakers who have fled the state to prevent a quorum and stall Republican-led redistricting efforts. None of the 13 lawmakers are from El Paso.
Perez and other Democrats will be joining Newsom for a news conference at 3 p.m. Mountain time. You can find the event on Newsom’s Facebook page by clicking here.
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