Because the political standoff continues over the Republican scheme to redraw Texas’ congressional map, Democratic state legislators are talking out about their resistance. One legislator particularly has damaged down the battle and its stakes in a latest media look.
Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones not too long ago appeared in a viral clip with different Democrats who left the state in an effort to block the Republicans from redrawing the state’s congressional district traces in a particular session of the Texas legislature. As Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has threatened to arrest the Democrats, Jones is asking his bluff. In remarks circulating on social media, Jones, a lawyer, defined that “there is no such thing as a felony within the Texas penal code for what he says. Respectfully, he’s making up some s**t.” She additionally defined that “subpoenas from Texas don’t work in New York,” the place a lot of the Texas Democrats had gone, or in Chicago, the place lots of them are at the moment being hosted by Illinois Democrats.
Jones calls out Republicans for ‘sham’ course of
Jones, who stated that she sat on the Texas redistricting committee, shed some gentle on the method that led to this standoff. “We had three sham hearings final, with no maps,” Jones defined, as Republicans feigned ignorance of their plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts so as to add as much as 5 Republican-friendly seats to the U.S. Congress forward of subsequent yr’s midterm elections. “So that you peein’ on me, and also you’re telling me it’s raining, and also you anticipating me to imagine it,” Jones stated about Republicans’ denials that that they had seen the gerrymandered map forward of time.
Republicans focusing on Black members of Congress
Jones defined that the Republican plan shouldn’t be solely blatantly partisan but additionally racialized as effectively. “Let me be clear: the districts which are focused, overwhelmingly, are Black districts.” The brand new map will mix districts represented by Black members of Congress. “They’re pitting Jasmine Crockett towards Marc Veasey and they’re pitting Al Inexperienced towards CD-18,” a district that has been represented by outstanding Black Democrats, together with Barbara Jordan and Sheila Jackson Lee; it at the moment stays open after the dying of Rep. Sylvester Turner, with Jones within the race to switch him.
By leaving Texas and blocking the power of the state’s legislature to approve the brand new map, Texas state legislators are hoping to guard their Democratic counterparts within the U.S. Congress. Regardless of threats from the GOP institution in Texas, Jones and others seem able to name their Republican colleagues’ bluff.
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