Republicans Silence Deafening in Texas
Remap Hearings Despite Insults to Honor
Capitol Inside
July 28, 2025
Texas Republican lawmakers delivered performances that were more fitting for a silent movie than an intellectual discussion at several congressional redistricting hearings late last week when the GOP members on select committees contributed nothing to the process beyond their presence.
Given the opportunity to make a case for a new U.S. House map in special session this summer, the Republicans on select Texas House and Senate committees failed in four separate hearings to come up with a single reason for a redistricting effort six years ahead of schedule outside the fact they were told to do it.
The Republicans on the special panels refused to offer a single word in support of the first midstream remap effort in Texas in more than two full decades. Not a whisper of something constructive. No attempt to explain to the public why the GOP deserves to have more seats in the lower house of Congress.
The committees' GOP members may have thought they'd be wasting their breath at hearings where 99.9 percent of the people who testified were 100 percent against the it at least. The Republicans may have passed on the chance to justify their plans at the hearings simply because they thought that would be impossible.
But the most surprising aspect of the Republicans' deafening silence at the remap hearings may have been the fact they said or did nothing to defend their honor and integrity when it was badly impugned time and time again as witnesses portrayed them as gutless puppets and patsies who President Donald Trump has on a leash.
Let's face it. The GOP's self-gagging at the redistricting hearings as a direct reflection of their fear of Trump and the Texas governor to a lesser but significant degree. Anything the Republicans said could and would probably be used against them by an unforgiving president. And they all know that none of their colleagues would come to their defense in such an event.
To be fair, the House redistricting committee's Republicans had the nerve to face the public in person at public hearings in Austin on Thursday and Houston on Saturday. That's more than you can say for the Senate panel's GOP members who limited public testimony to Zoom at the hearings on Friday and Saturday.
State Rep. Cody Vasut - an Angleton Republican who chairs the Select Congressional Redistricting Committee in the House - did a stellar job of dodging questions and playing dumb on the purpose of the effort beyond Governor Greg Abbott's proclamation or a letter from a federal official that spawned it. Vasut said during a grilling from Democrats that he'd not taken the initiative to seek clarification from the Department of Justice official who'd objected to several Texas districts that were drawn to elect minorities. Vasut also acknowledged that he hadn't talked to the governor about the task at hand.
State Senator Phil King - a Weatherford Republican who's chairing the Senate remap panel - confessed that he hadn't tried to contact DOJ lawyer Harmeet Dhillon about the concerns she'd voiced about the current Texas map. But King and Vasut both agreed under pressure from Democrats to invite Dhillon to testify to the panels on ambiguities and inaccurate statements in the letter that Abbott used as a hook to get Trump's redistricting push off the ground in the special session without delay.
Vasut claimed that the committee did not have the authority to subpoena federal officials. There's nothing in the Texas Government Code's provisions on committee subpoenas to substantiate this assertion. King made it clear that the select Senate panel would not subpoena Dhillon in a move that would require two-thirds support.
While they won't admit it in the open, the GOP's lawmakers in Texas know exactly what they're supposed to do with the congressional map here. They're under orders from the White House to come up with five more U.S. House seats for Republicans in the Lone Star State. And they don't give a damn about the details or the potential for disaster they may be sowing with the submissive behavior..
Mike Hailey is the editor, publisher and founder of Capitol Inside. His column Hailey's Comment appears on a semi-regular basis here.
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