Dear friends,

Republicans hope you’re too busy going about your life to notice that they’re in the process of making your vote irrelevant. Redistricting isn’t glamorous, but there’s nothing happening right now that will have a more direct impact on the policies that affect you and your family over the next decade.

If allowed to stand, the gerrymandered Republican maps will ensure that no matter how you vote, they’ll maintain control of our state’s legislative and congressional seats. For example, a Democrat running statewide could win with 50.1% of the vote and we would still only win 33% of congressional districts and 37% of state house districts. That’s not just unfair, it’s unconstitutional, it violates the Voting Rights Act and it’s a slap in the face to everyone who ever fought to ensure that every American is able to cast a vote that matters.

This isn’t about candidates and political parties jockeying for position – this is about competing ideologies and priorities. You saw in this last legislative session what Republican priorities are. They slashed $4 billion from public education, laid off tens of thousands of teachers and cut billions from basic state services. If Republicans win this redistricting battle, you’ll get ten more years of those kinds of misplaced priorities. Texas families and schools will suffer while corporations and special interests sit on fat pocketbooks and enjoy tax loopholes.

Your Texas Democratic Party is determined to keep that from happening, but we need your help.

The redistricting trial will begin Tuesday in San Antonio. Our General Counsel, Chad Dunn, amazingly, volunteers his services. Regardless, we incur all kinds of expenses related to this case and the people we’re fighting have virtually unlimited budgets, which incidentally, are your tax dollars.

I literally cannot overstate how important this fight is to the future of our state. Any contribution you can make to support our efforts will be extremely helpful in our effort to reverse this blatant power grab.

You can also help by raising awareness of the critical issue. We’ll be providing updates throughout the trial on our Party Insider blog and on Facebook and Twitter.

We’ll also send frequent updates via email to any of you who are particularly interested in this topic. You can opt-in to receive those updates by clicking here.

We thank you for your support and we promise to keep up the fight until we’ve exhausted every option available to ensure that our elected representatives to our state and federal government are chosen by voters, not Republican mapmakers.

Sincerely,

Boyd L. Richie
Chairman
on behalf of Your Texas Democratic Party

Dear fellow Democrat,

I’m writing today with an important update on the congressional redistricting process. We all remember the 2003 shenanigans from Tom DeLay in which Republicans tried to pass a map in the dark of night. Well, if Republicans want to pass a new congressional map this session, they will have to again expedite the process and drastically limit public input. Otherwise, the plan will be drawn in a special session or by the courts.

With the clock ticking, the Republican Committee Chair scheduled a hearing and then canceled it abruptly. He has yet to reveal a map and as of this writing, no hearing is scheduled to take public testimony. However, you can still make your voice heard.

Here are links to contact Committee members via phone, email or regular mail to let them know that we demand not only a fair map, but a fair process that allows citizens to have input.

• House Redistricting Committee
• Senate Redistricting Committee

When contacting lawmakers about the map, we must demand:

• An opportunity for the public to view the maps and provide input and for members to offer amendments. A fair process will not force a plan through both Houses of the Legislature between now and next Tuesday, which is the deadline for House consideration of a Senate Bill. Texans should not be shut out of a secret, hurried Republican map-making process.
• A plan that provides proper representation for those responsible for Texas’ four additional congressional seats. Given that 89% of the state’s population growth between 2000 and 2010 was non-Anglo, a fair and legal plan must create as many additional effective minority opportunity districts as required by the Voting Rights Act. Those districts cannot be loaded with high-turnout Anglo precincts that would control so-called Hispanic districts by allowing Anglo voters to elect Republicans who are not the minority voters’ candidate of choice.
• A plan that does not tear communities apart for partisan purposes. For example, the current congressional map “exports” Tarrant County African Americans to Denton County. In the proposed Senate plan, that same community is shipped out to a rural district. In many proposed plans, Travis County is split four ways to deny effective representation to the state’s fifth-largest county solely for Republican gain.

We will provide additional information when a plan is made public and a public hearing is scheduled.

Your fellow Democrat,

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