In House Map, an Emerging Majority Gets Submerged

Texas AFL-CIO President Rick Levy posted this statement on the newly released proposed redistricting of the Texas House:

“As working families struggle for good jobs, decent wages and benefits, health coverage, an energy grid that protects us from freezing in our homes, and better public schools, political line-drawing again threatens to skew representation toward protecting the status quo.

“Only in the warped world of redistricting can an emerging majority get submerged.”

“Today House leadership issued their first map. Persons of color accounted for 19/20ths of our state’s population growth in the last decade but are now being asked to surrender power on every Republican-proposed political map.”

“Incredibly, the House map-drawers found a way to raise the number of Anglo-majority districts from 83 to 89, while reducing the number of Latino-majority districts from 33 to 30 and Black-majority districts from seven to four.”

“Too much is at stake. The Texas AFL-CIO will fight every attempt to minimize the voices of Texans who have fueled the growth of this state and who need more than demagoguery and fake wedge issues from their government.”