At a Texas House of Representatives hearing on Wednesday, Democratic State Rep. Chris Turner discussed how racial minority groups’ voting power may change under redistricted maps.
00:00Thank you, Representative Turner. I've heard you say a couple of times that black and Latino voters in North Texas would lose the ability to vote for the person of their choosing. Could you explain that, please?
00:16Well, what I said was they would lose the ability to elect the candidate of their choice.
00:20Okay. And explain that to me. What is the candidate of their choice?
00:25Well, I think if you look at, if you want to use Congressional District 33 as an example, can we use...
00:31You can use any district. I'm trying to figure out what a candidate of choice is, because my view is people elect someone who represents their values, and so I'm trying to figure out what the definition you're using when you say reflects their choice.
00:46I agree. I think someone who represents their values is an important reason voters make choices about who they're going to vote for, who's going to represent their issue priorities, who is going to be responsive to the needs of their community, their neighborhood, their city, their school district, whatever the case may be.
01:07I think voters make decisions based on all of those factors, so I agree with that.
01:11So then what are they losing?
01:13What are they losing?
01:14I'm sorry, can you be more specific?
01:18You're claiming these voters are losing an ability to elect a candidate, so I'm trying to figure out what they're losing.
01:26Sure. So very simply, when map drawers crack minority communities and splinter them between multiple districts, and then also pack minority voters into already performing minority districts,
01:43you are diluting their overall voting power and their ability to send elected officials to Washington, in this case, to represent those values that we just talked about.
01:56I'm trying to figure out what values specifically you're speaking to, because the map, which you've been in the committee hearings, you've seen the maps, they are more compact, and when you're talking about packing, are you saying 50.4% is packing?
02:13So I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a voting rights expert, but my lay understanding is that the Supreme Court and other courts have ruled that once you can determine, by looking at data,
02:31that minority voters, that minority voters have the ability to elect the candidate of their choice in a certain area, a certain threshold like that isn't absolutely necessary.
02:41But the fact is, if you want to look at Congressional District 30, just to stay in our region of the state, in the DFW area, that is a district where, since it was created back in the early 1990s,
02:56black voters have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to elect the candidate of their choice.
03:01And therefore, an argument to say we need to pack more voters into that district, I think, falls flat, because they already have the ability to do that.
03:14And so, are you then saying that you're more talking about politically affiliated candidates?
03:23No, I'm not.
03:24So, you're saying they're losing the ability to elect the candidate of their choice.
03:33Yes.
03:33And I'm trying to understand where that's coming from, because before, when you say that, it sounds like they're just losing their ability for representation,
03:41because no one loses their ability for representation in the state. Is that correct?
03:45Well, I would agree that everyone will be in some congressional district, and every district usually would have a member of Congress,
03:55with the very important exception right now in CD18 in Houston, which has been without a member of Congress since our former colleague Sylvester Turner passed away,
04:06and Governor Abbott has refused to call a special election to fill that seat.
04:09So, actually, those voters in CD18 don't have a voice.
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