Testimony on SB 375 for Texas House Redistricting Committee

Testifying in the John H. Reagan Building

My public testimony on Senate Bill 375 for the House Redistricting Committee on April 27, 2023

Thank you chairman Darby and members of the committee.

I am against SB 375 because it reaffirms the blatantly gerrymandered and unrepresentative Senate Districts that were passed in the last special session in 2021.

The current map has 19 seats occupied by Republicans and 12 by Democrats, a 7 seat difference. Based on the most recent gubernatorial election, with the Republicans at about 54% of the vote, they should have 17 seats and Democrats should have 14. This represents only a 3 seat spread compared to the current map’s spread of 7. The artificial advantage of four extra seats given by this map represents around 3,760,000 people

Without even looking at the map, these numbers alone can tell us that this map is unfair. The map itself shows communities of interest ripped apart and combined with areas that have very different needs when it comes to representation. It should be obvious why people living in big cities generally have different needs and values than those who live in rural areas, so why take a chunk out of a city and add it to a large rural district, such as district 24 or district 10? 

Let’s use district 24 as an example and highlight what’s wrong with it. It encompasses a large rural area stretching from Bell county all the way down south of San Antonio and west along I-10 to Sutton County. From this, it looks like it would be a fair district, until you see that it juts out and takes a slice of the Austin metro area with it. The area from Austin that it takes would be much better represented if it was together with the rest of its community in Austin, however there are two other districts that take away a bit of the Austin area and shove it in with far away rural areas. There is only one district that solely represents the Austin area, even though based on the area's population of over 2 million, there should be two districts to encompass this large community. Instead there are four. Three of which include huge swaths of rural areas. Ripping these communities apart not only diminishes the voice of the residents that live there, but also makes it harder for our State Senators to best represent all of their constituents.

There are many other obvious attempts at taking away voters’ voices that I’m sure will be brought up in this hearing, but looking at these basic statistics and examples alone should be a sign to you that this map does not represent Texas’ values, nor is it something that should be allowed to exist in the greatest State, in the greatest democracy on Earth. 

Thank you.