The state House has scheduled redistricting hearings in Austin, Houston and Arlington, signaling a fast start to the Republican-backed effort to redraw the boundary lines for Texas congressional districts in the special legislative session that started Monday.
The first hearing will be Thursday afternoon in the Texas Capitol. From there, the House Redistricting Committee will head to Houston on Saturday for an 11 a.m. hearing at University of Houston’s Main Campus. And on Monday, the panel will convene at 5 p.m. Monday on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington.
The hearings, at which anyone can sign up to offer testimony, will take public’s pulse on what is shaping up as a fierce partisan fight heading in the 2026 midterm elections. They also indicate areas Republicans may be targeting as they seek to redraw the maps to create five winnable U.S. House seats, a number President Donald Trump has told reporters he wants.
The hearing schedule was posted despite a call from outnumbered House Democrats that the any action to redraw the districts take second place to flood relief, which Gov. Greg Abbott also added to the special agenda. The deadly July 4 flooding in the Texas Hill Country claimed more than 100 lives, and Abbott asked lawmakers to take up legislation related to flood warning systems, flood emergency communications, relief funding for the July 4 floods and disaster preparedness and recovery more broadly.
“There is no greater purpose of the government at this time,” said a letter to Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows signed by 48 of the 62 Democrats in the chamber. “Texas families are grieving their dead and Texas communities are hurting. We cannot bring back those lost, but we can stand with these families and shield our children and neighbors from future devastation — if we act with a singular purpose to protect life.”
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On the Senate side, Republicans impaneled a special redistricting committee led by Weatherford Republican Phil King. During floor debate Monday, he said Texas Republicans should have more clout in Congress because the party is better aligned with state residents on issues ranging from border security to the economy.
He said he is not setting out with a preconceived notion on what the new districts should look like.
“I do not have a map,” he told senators.
He said what emerges will come after what he described as “open and transparent” public hearings that will be streamed to allow Texans to testify remotely. He also said that, so far, the White House has exerted no influence on him regarding restricting.
“I’ve had no contact with anyone from the Trump administration,” King said.
Taking questions from Senate Democrats, King acknowledged that he has seen no new demographic data that would compel scrapping the Republican-drawn congressional map that was adopted in 2021 based on findings of the U.S. Census the year before.
King also said he was unfamiliar with the how the U.S. Department of Justice determined that as many as four of the state’s current congressional districts were drawn with an improper emphasis on race. Asked why then was the Legislature taking up redistricting at all, King simply said it was because Abbott had included the issue on the session’s agenda.
It should be noted that the map that was posted over the weekend was drawn by a private citizen – you too could draw and submit a map if you’d like – and so is not in any way “official”. But whatever the “official” map is, it’s still going to be ugly. Greg Abbott is just here to do what Donald Trump tells him to do. What Dems do in response still remains to be seen, with the order of operations likely being a factor in their thinking. When we see an “official” map, we’ll know more.
Watched it today on YouTube, if they post it up you should watch it if you get a chance. Very illuminating. It was clear from the hearing there is no map yet. It also became clear from the hearing that the letter from the DOJ was oddly amateurish and probably illegal. The livestream I was watching suddenly cut off at 7 pm, but up until that time not one person spoke in favor of redistricting. The Republicans present did not offer many comments except for one guy who questioned an amazing LULAC lawyer at length. He did not get the answer he was hoping for, that a recent court ruling meant that coalition districts are illegal. Again, well worth your time if you have the time or plan to attend one of the hearings. Many strong arguments were made by learned persons against the proposed redistricting.