Texas legislators have passed a new state congressional map drawn at the behest of United States President Donald Trump to flip five Democratic-held US House seats in next year’s midterm elections, after dozens of Democratic lawmakers ended a two-week walkout that had temporarily blocked passage.
On Wednesday evening, legislators in the Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives gave initial approval to the map, though Democratic lawmakers noted during the session that the map was not made available during public hearings.
Texas Democrats on Wednesday raised multiple objections to and questions about the measure.
Representative John Bucy, a Democrat, said from the House floor before passage of the bill that the new maps were clearly intended to dilute the voting power of Black, Latino and Asian voters, and that his Republican colleagues’ bending to the will of Trump was deeply worrying.
“This is not democracy, this is authoritarianism in real time,” Bucy said. “This is Donald Trump’s map. It clearly and deliberately manufactures five more Republican seats in Congress because Trump himself knows the voters are rejecting his agenda.”
Republicans argued the map was created to improve political performance and would increase majority-Hispanic districts.
