EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — State Rep. Vince Perez, D-El Paso, said his Republican colleagues want to fine him nearly $10,000 for fleeing the state along with his Democratic House colleagues to slow down a controversial GOP-sponsored redistricting plan.
The plan was eventually passed by the House last week and the state Senate early Saturday morning in what was the second special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Monday, Aug. 25, Perez said that the Texas House Committee on House Administration has sent out letters to each Democrat who left the state to protest redistricting and is assessing them nearly $10,000 in fines apiece.
Here is his statement:
“The Texas government, specifically House Republicans, are now assessing nearly $10,000 in fines and penalties to each of the representatives who protested this shameful map that re-introduces 1960s white-dominance in our legislatures. One white resident in Texas is now equal to five black residents and to three Latino residents. This is how Republicans are able make 26 of the 38 congressional districts in Texas with white majorities. The proposed map dictates that white Texans will be afforded triple the number of congressional representatives as Hispanic communities, even though the Hispanic and white populations in the state are equal.”
In response to the fines that the Republicans want to impose, Perez said he has requested a “due process hearing with counsel and outlined several procedural safeguards.”
“I will not be intimidated by a government that is only in power, not because it has consent from the governed but because it systematically silences the majority through increasing use of voter suppression tactics and now with racial engineered maps that were outlawed in 1965,” Perez added. “If I could go back in time and do it all over again, I would do so without hesitation or reservation.”
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