(AURN News) — Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee — the youngest and first African American to hold the county’s top civil legal post — is warning that a Republican-backed congressional map under consideration would dismantle minority districts and weaken Black and Latino political power.
“This map, this power grab. President Donald Trump knows that his policies are unpopular. He knows that cutting Medicaid and cutting SNAP benefits is going to harm him with independent and with middle of the road voters, and so he has instructed Texas Governor Greg Abbott to go find him five seats, and he specifically targeted Black and Brown [communities] in the state of Texas,” Menefee said to AURN News.
Menefee said the proposal would “blow up a historically Black congressional district here in the Houston area,” make similar changes in Dallas, “pit two Democrats against each other in Austin and then steal seats out in South Texas.”
Texas Senate Republicans passed the plan this week in a rare mid-decade redistricting move. In the House, Democrats left the state earlier this month, breaking quorum to delay the vote.
“I’m glad that our Texas Democratic House caucus broke quorum and nationalized this conversation, because what’s happening in Texas is not going to happen in a silo,” Menefee said.
“If Republicans are going to try to steal seats in Texas because their president is unpopular and he doesn’t want the House to go back to the Democratic Party, then Democratic leaders in other states need to be prepared to redistrict mid decade in the same way that’s happening in Texas to make sure that this is a wash for members of the Republican Party.”
Menefee warned that voters are accustomed to map changes every 10 years, after the census, and that shifting boundaries mid-decade would “greatly confuse people.”
“It’s going to combine some districts … and it’s going to have a greatly confusing effect on the people who are going to the polls and just trying to participate in our democracy,” he said.
“It’s going to … potentially have some communities … now going to be forced to send to Congress someone who is a member of the Republican Party who would vote to cut SNAP benefits.”
The House remains stalled as the quorum break continues, leaving the fate of the map — and the representation of Black Texans — unresolved.
Click play to listen to the AURN News report from Jamie Jackson:
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