Texas Senate Approves GOP Congressional Map, Sends Bill To Governor

The Texas Senate early Saturday morning approved a new congressional map gerrymandered to maximize Republican representation, sending the plan to the governor’s desk after weeks of intense partisan clashing.

Republican lawmakers pushed the plan through over fierce Democratic opposition, launching a national redistricting war from Albany to Sacramento while positioning the GOP to net up to five additional seats in Texas.

The Senate adopted the new lines on a party-line vote, 18 to 11, just after 12:30 a.m. Saturday following more than eight hours of at times tense debate.

Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, had planned to filibuster the map well into Saturday as a last stand against the effort, but a rare procedural motion by Senate Republicans just after midnight ended the debate and killed the filibuster, moving the chamber straight on to the final vote. Some observers in the gallery were removed for shouting “shame,” and “fascist,” shortly after the vote.

The map, demanded by President Donald Trump to fortify the GOP’s U.S. House majority in next year’s midterm election, hands up to five additional U.S. House seats to Republicans by dismantling Democratic bastions around Austin, Dallas and Houston, and by making two Democrat-held seats in South Texas redder. The new lines also keep all 25 seats already held by Republicans safely red.

The plan “meets the critically important goals of legality, of political performance for Republicans and of improved compactness,” said Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford and House Bill 4’s sponsor, while repeatedly insisting under questioning from Democrats that he did not consider racial population data in his role shepherding the map through the upper chamber.