With DOJ Deadline Looming, Texas Democrats Demand Action on Voting Map Concerns

A debate over Texas’s 2021 congressional redistricting map intensified Tuesday as Senate Democrats pushed for a public vote to subpoena Trump DOJ official Harmeet Dhillon, who earlier this year raised federal concerns about potential Voting Rights Act violations in the map approved by the GOP-controlled Legislature. Dhillon, now Assistant Attorney General, wrote to Gov. Greg Abbott in July warning of “serious concerns” about racial discrimination in the maps.

According to the Quorum Report, Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, urged Senate Redistricting Committee Chair Phil King, R-Weatherford, to hold a livestreamed vote on the subpoena, arguing that the committee has the power to issue one even if enforcement is uncertain. 

Chair King said he does not agree with the DOJ’s assessment of the map, aligning with Attorney General Ken Paxton and other Republican testimony from a recent federal trial in El Paso. “I don’t think the map that is in place for Congress today is discriminatory,” King said, “I believe the map I voted for…was a legal map. I think that testimony that I’ve seen in trial supports that. I certainly believe the testimony of Sen. Huffman supports that. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have the right to take up redistricting if we choose to do so.”

While open to a public vote, King said he is waiting on a legal opinion from the Texas Legislative Council on whether the committee has the authority to subpoena a federal official from out of state. Alvarado stressed the urgency, citing a July 7 letter from DOJ with an August 7 deadline, and called for the process to be as transparent and timely as possible.