U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) testified Friday that there is a strong likelihood she will lose her seat in Congress if the Texas legislature gives final approval to a redraw of the state’s congressional maps, which is likely.
Democrat lawmakers, activists and others opposed to Texas’ plan to draw out five majority-Democrat districts testified Friday in Austin as lawmakers voted to advance the new map out of committee. The proposed map was ultimately passed along party lines and can be fully considered by the legislature as early as Tuesday.
Crockett, who represents a heavily Democrat-leaning district in the Houston area, testified that there are multiple “red flags” with the new plan that could lead to her re-election.
“I know that this legislature did ask us as members of Congress to confirm our addresses. I don’t know how many of us actually still reside in the districts that we represent. I do not currently reside in my district based upon the plan that has been drawn,” she said. “Which is another red flag, in addition to courts consistently looking at how many people have been moved.”
The map currently proposed by Texas Republicans will add three new “safe” Republican districts and push two others into strong lean territory. This will be accomplished by drawing out one seat in the major metro areas of Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston.
“They are supposed to take that into consideration, and these are some of the things that the court will look at when they’re trying to determine whether or not there were problems with creating the maps,” said Crockett. “It’s really awful.”
The primarily functions by diluting majority-Hispanic districts, a move that could be expedited and expanded if the U.S. Supreme Court opts to outlaw intentionally race-based congressional districts,. The high court has hinted at such a move and announced Friday that it will be hearing arguments in a new Voting Rights Act case that could substantially impact redistricting.
Crockett fears that redistricting could make her district less safe and leave her more open to primary challenges. “It is a hot mess, and it is so sad that these people have no integrity and could care less about doing what’s right,” Crockett, who has previously accused the GOP of intentionally disenfranchising black voters, testified Friday.
Before the redrawn map is officially passed by law, the Texas legislature will next hold a hearing in Austin for the public to share their opinions. Crockett is urging her supporters to attend the public comment session in an effort to delay the redraw. “They want to exhaust us, and I want us to dig deep and show them even more energy than they could have ever imagined coming from us, us being we, the people,” she said.
The redraw comes after the Trump Administration raised “serious concerns” about the legality of four congressional districts in the Lonestar State. “As stated below, Congressional Districts TX-09, TX-18, TX-29 and TX-33 currently constitute unconstitutional ‘coalition districts’ and we urge the State of Texas to rectify these race-based considerations from these specific districts,” the DOJ’s civil rights division wrote in a letter addressed to Governor Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The letter cited Allen v. Milligan, a case focusing on redistricting in Alabama that went before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023, which dealt with racial gerrymandering and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The court ruled in a 5-3 decision, with Justices John Roberts and Bret Kavanaugh joining the courts three liberals, that Alabama “likely violated” Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by failing to provide minority voters “equal opportunity” to elect candidates of their choosing.
In its letter to Texas, the DOJ pointed to Justice Kavanaugh’s opinion, which noted that “even if Congress in 1982 could constitutionally authorize race-based redistricting under § 2 for some period of time, the authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future.”