| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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anniversary, Saturday, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern on American History TV on C-SPAN 2. | |
| The Texas Senate Select Committee on Redistricting met to discuss a newly proposed congressional map. | ||
| House Democrats have left the state to prevent a quorum in the chamber, and the Democratic members invited to testify did not show up at the meeting. | ||
| Paying attention. | ||
| The Special Committee on Congressional Redistricting will come to order. | ||
| The clerk will please call the roll. | ||
|
unidentified
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Senator King? | |
| Here. | ||
|
unidentified
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Senator Creighton? | |
| Here. | ||
|
unidentified
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Senator Alvarado. | |
| Senator Hinojosa? | ||
| Present. | ||
| Senator Hughes. | ||
| Senator Miles. | ||
|
unidentified
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Senator Parker? | |
| Here. | ||
| Senator Paxson? | ||
| Present. | ||
| Senator Sparks? | ||
| Here. | ||
| Six, six, yes, ma'am. | ||
| So there being six present, a quorum has been established, and Senator Hughes is in route. | ||
| He had a family matter come up, it turns out, and he's just has a short ETA, but we're going to go ahead and get started. | ||
| Just housekeeping, members, and this is very important. | ||
| On Monday, an email was sent to your staff stating a deadline for submitting committee amendments by 9 a.m. Thursday morning, August 7th. | ||
| So tomorrow. | ||
| Yesterday, a follow-up email was sent to your staff with more detail on how to request or submit committee amendments. | ||
| Again, the amendments are due by 9 a.m. tomorrow, August 7th. | ||
| The amendments will be published publicly on District Viewer, so we can discuss them at the hearing tomorrow and documents will be shared in the committee drop box. | ||
| Any questions, anybody, on that? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So the purpose of today's hearing is to hear testimony from invited witnesses on Congressional plan C like Charlie 2308. | ||
| The plan is available for the public to view it at dvr.capital.texas.gov forward slash Congress forward slash 73 forward slash plan C2308. | ||
| Let me say that one more time. | ||
| And again, it's actually easier to find if you just go to the Ledge Council website and type in Plan C 2308, you'll be able to find it. | ||
| But it's dvr.capital.texas.gov forward slash Congress, the number seven and the number three forward slash plan C 2308. | ||
| The plan is also presented on the posters on the sides of this committee room and there are also handouts of the map at the back of the committee room. | ||
| Now today the plan was to only be taking testimony from invited witnesses. | ||
| However, any members of the public may submit written comments through the public input portal. | ||
| And as we've mentioned in all the prior hearings, at the beginning of the session, actually I think before it, we opened up the committee's portal, which you can find on the committee website. | ||
| And any member of the public can submit written comments there. | ||
| They can also upload documents and those are all made available to the committee and ultimately to all the senators and to the public. | ||
| And they'll stay in that portal indefinitely. | ||
| Now, I wanted to discuss the purpose for holding invited testimony today. | ||
| And we'll have a hearing for public testimony tomorrow. | ||
| So members, as you recall, and anyone who was watching the hearings, the public hearings we had, the regional hearings, that we had invited testimony at the regional hearings. | ||
| And I had requested the Democrat caucus to submit the names of anyone that they wanted to bring in as invited testimony. | ||
| And we formally invited all of those. | ||
| Quite a number testified, and many mentioned that they had difficulty testifying without knowing what the map looked like that we would ultimately be considering. | ||
| Now, they all gave very valuable testimony on the process itself of redistricting. | ||
| But since they had so many of them had commented, we really want to give testimony on the precise map that the committee will be considering. | ||
| Because of that, we decided to hold a separate committee hearing just for the purpose of allowing those invited members, which by the way includes all the Democrat congressional members. | ||
| We wanted to give them their own special day to simply come back now that we have a bill filed and give us specific testimony on that bill. | ||
| So that was the purpose for having this invited testimony hearing, is to allow those that had been invited testimony at the request of our Democrat members who had said we want to testify specifically on a bill, we wanted to give them a specific time and opportunity to come back and do that. | ||
| And that's what today is about. | ||
| Now, normally you will see in a committee hearing invited testimony and then you open it up that same day for testimony from the general public. | ||
| However, we decided to bifurcate to split those into two different committee days. | ||
| So we'll be taking public testimony tomorrow. | ||
| The reason we decided to do that was simply as a courtesy to the public because we may have a large number of citizens show up to testify tomorrow. | ||
| And what we saw in the House committee, and it wasn't their fault, it's just the way it worked out, was they had public testimony and invited testimony on the same day. | ||
| Well, the invited testimony went first, and it ended up lasting for a long period of time. | ||
| And so what happened was all the citizens who had come to testify ended up waiting hours and hours before they could testify. | ||
| So we, as convenience to the citizens, didn't want them to have to wait until the invited testimony was over before they could begin the work they came here to do. | ||
| So that's why we've divided this into two days. | ||
| So we're going to meet back here tomorrow. | ||
| We've already posted that at 9 o'clock in the morning, and we'll take public testimony at that time. | ||
| But again, today is just for the invited witnesses. | ||
| Now, for today's hearing, we had invited the following people. | ||
| And I'm going to go through and I'll mention the response that we received so everybody knows where we're at. | ||
| For the following two people that we invited, we received no response back. | ||
| That was Leah Aden, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Tanya Chavez. | ||
| La Union Del Pueblo and Tero both were invited but did not respond to the invitations to appear today. | ||
| The following, we received a response that they were unable to attend or did not wish to attend today. | ||
| Niyadi Shaw, Asian Americans Advancing Justice. | ||
| Luis Figueroa, every Texan. | ||
| Roman R. Palomares with Lulak. | ||
| Gary Bledsoe with the Texas NAACP. | ||
| Michael Lee, Brennan Center for Justice. | ||
| Ellen D. Katz, University of Michigan Law School. | ||
| And Nina Perales with MALDEF. | ||
| Now, again, these were folks that had been invited witnesses, many of whom testified in our regional hearings. | ||
| They had, many had expressed that they would prefer to come back and testify or that they were disappointed that at that time they could not testify on the bill specifically. | ||
| So we invited them back today. | ||
| Now that there is a bill, there wasn't at the time, now that there is a map, there wasn't at the time. | ||
| We invited them back for today so that they could have that opportunity to testify on this map. | ||
| Now, additionally, all 12 Democrat U.S. congressional members were invited to personally testify today. | ||
| Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher, we communicated multiple times with her staff. | ||
| There was no definite response given. | ||
| Congressman Al Green, we did not hear back from his office. | ||
| Congresswoman Veronica Escobar didn't hear back from her office. | ||
| Congressman Joaquin Castro, we did not hear a response from his office. | ||
| Congressman Henry Quear, we did not receive a response back from his office. | ||
| Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, originally we were told she was going to attend. | ||
| We were told just a little bit ago when we called back to her office to double check because we didn't see her in the committee room that she will not be with us today. | ||
| Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, we received no response to our invitation from her. | ||
| Congresswoman Julie Johnson, we received no response to our invitation from her. | ||
| Congresswoman or Congressman Mark Veace, we corresponded with his staff. | ||
| He did respond with written testimony, which has will be made available to the committee members, but there was no response as to whether or not he would be here today, and I do not see him in the audience. | ||
| Congressman Pacente Gonzalez, we received no response from his office. | ||
| Congressman Greg Cesar, we received no response from him. | ||
| And Congressman Lloyd Doggett, we received no response to our invitation from Congressman Doggett either. | ||
| So we did want to wait a little while to see if anybody just showed up. | ||
| We have had no one register to testify today, no one that had been invited. | ||
| Additionally, at the request of the Democrat caucus, the committee had sent invitations to appear before the committee at any time to Harmie Dillon, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, and Mr. Adam Kid K. | ||
| Now, those were letters that were sent, Mr. Ken Cage in particular, but both were sent letters of invitation if they wished to testify. | ||
| However, the committee also considered motions to subpoena their attendance and the committee voted those motions down. | ||
| we declined to subpoena them to testify. | ||
| Members, just a personal comment here for the nearly two dozen witnesses who did not appear today, invited witnesses. | ||
| who I think were very important to the process. | ||
| We invited them because we trusted that if they had legal or constitutional concerns about the map, that they would come and share those concerns with us in this forum. | ||
| And again, many of them had testified, a number of them had testified in our regional hearings and had said that they were having difficulty testifying with specifics beyond just the redistricting in general. | ||
| They were having difficulty testifying on specifics because there wasn't a map available at that time. | ||
| I had not filed a bill. | ||
| That map has been filed. | ||
| It is the same map that the House passed out of committee last week. | ||
| This is filed as a companion bill, and it has been before us for a number of days. | ||
| And I had presumed, based on their earlier testimony, that if they have any concerns over legality regarding this map, that they would come today and provide testimony regarding their concerns. | ||
| Because as we all know in redistricting, now is the time to share such concerns if they exist. | ||
| And apparently these witnesses have chose not to do that and in almost all the cases chose not even to respond to our committee invitations. | ||
| Members, would anyone like to make any comments? | ||
| Senator Hinojosa. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Many of these witnesses that we invited to testify today, many of them testified during the regional hearings, correct? | ||
| A number of them did, yes. | ||
| They all were invited. | ||
|
unidentified
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And there they expressed some of the concerns with the potential maps that are being considered as it relates to violations of the Voting Rights Act and the United States Constitution. | |
| I can't remember the specifics of each one's testimony, but in general, as I recall, they testified about the topic of redistricting, but many, as well as many of the citizens who testified, I think we had 205 citizens testify, but many specifically said it's hard to testify because I don't have the map in front of me to point out specific concerns about the map. | ||
| And we just didn't have one at that time. | ||
| So going back to my original point, and I understand completely what you're saying, many of them did express concerns about redistricting in general, but we wanted to give them the opportunity to come and have the map before them and tell us of any concerns they had with regard to the map that the committee is now considering. | ||
|
unidentified
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But from my recollection, many of those invited witnesses were very specific expressing their concerns and their allegations of violations of the Water Rights Act and the United States Constitution. | |
| They expressed those concerns, and yes, they did have a map in front of them, but as it relates to their concerns and as it relates to redistricting, they were pretty expressive of their main concerns with the proposed redistricting. | ||
| I would encourage everyone to go back and listen to their testimony again. | ||
| Again, they did express strong concerns, strong feelings about redistricting in general. | ||
| We did not have a map for them to look at at that time, one had not been prepared or filed. | ||
| And because a number had expressed the, had expressed a desire to see the map and, I believe, testify on that map. | ||
| That's why we wanted to invite them back and give them another shot at telling us their concerns, if they had any. | ||
|
unidentified
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And I agree with that. | |
| But specifically, there was a professor that testified and was very detailed as to the different case law, in effect, and the Water Rights Act and the constitutional amendments that are related to redistricting. | ||
| But now... | ||
| Yeah, I think that was Ellen Katz, as I recall. | ||
|
unidentified
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Correct. | |
| So now that we have a plan, redistricting plan before us, this invited witnesses will not be precluded from showing up, let's say, tomorrow and testifying on the map itself. | ||
| They certainly can because it's open to the public, but and the congressional members can as well. | ||
| But out of courtesy to the public, since we had set this day aside for the Congress, congressional members and for the invited experts or invited witnesses, out of courtesy to the public that will be testifying, I'm going to hold them to the same time restrictions that the general public would be held to. | ||
|
unidentified
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Except for questions that are being asked. | |
| Except for questions. | ||
| Any senator can ask as many questions for as long as they want of any one that registers and appears to testify tomorrow. | ||
|
unidentified
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So tomorrow we don't have any specific witnesses that have been invited other than just public testimony. | |
| That is correct, sir. | ||
| Tomorrow is reserved for the general public to give testimony on the map. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, Mr. Sean. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Members, any other thoughts? | ||
|
unidentified
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Okay. | |
| Members, is there any other business to come before the committee today? | ||
| Hearing none, Senator Paxton moves that the committee stand in recess, subject to the call of the chair. | ||
| And I want to thank those who are here in the committee room for waiting patiently till we got started today. | ||
| And I want to thank the committee members for being here. | ||
| And with that, we'll see you all tomorrow morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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This morning, the Senate Redistricting Committee in Texas reconvenes for a second day after Republican members' new map was released last week. | |
| Many Texas House Democrats have left the state to prevent a quorum from being formed, which is required to vote on the redistricting bill. | ||
| In response, officials including Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have threatened to vacate their seats if they do not return to work by Friday. | ||
| Watch this special committee hearing from Austin live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
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|
unidentified
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C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington and across the country. | |
| Coming up this morning, we'll discuss how congressional redistricting works and the ways both political parties have used it over the years with University at Buffalo political science professor Sean Donahue and later senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Dr. Amesh Adalja, talks about recent changes made to U.S. vaccine policy by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
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