House GOP Poised to Pass Congress Map
after Killing Dems' Bid to Deactivate Plan
Capitol Inside
August 20, 2025
Texas House Republicans turned back an attempt by Democrats to gut a congressional redistricting bill on Wednesday in a critical test vote on a revised map that was poised to pass after a time-guzzling talkathon that was tantamount to a filibuster members of the minority party.
The Republicans shot down an amendment that would have eliminated the enacting clause in House Bill 4 on a vote of 87-50 to table it in a development that was a foregone conclusion like the legislation's eventual approval in the Texas Legislature's lower chamber.
But House Democrats who blocked a vote on the proposal for more than two weeks sought during the floor fight on the floor to sandbag the gerrymandered U.S. House plan as long as possible while establishing a record for an inevitable court challenge and and buying time for California Democrats to nullify the effort here with a plan of their own.
Democratic State Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie offered the amendment that would have effectively killed the new GOP map - arguing that the plan is a blatant example of politicians stripping the people of the right to choose their representatives in Congress.
HB 4 "is a radical, racially discriminatory mid-decade redistricting plan that surgically strips away minority representation in the U.S. Congress," Turner contended. "This is unprecedented and this is wrong."
The plan's sponsor - veteran GOP State Rep. Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi - disputed the Democrats' assertions that Republicans rushed blindly into a redistricting process that they expressed no interest in undertaking until the summer was under way. Hunter said discussions on a possible map revision effort began in April.
But Turner said the process didn't began until early July when Governor Greg Abbott cited a Department of Justice letter as the motivation for adding redistricting to the agenda of a special session that the Republicans staged for 26 days without passing a single bill because Democrats would not let them. Hunter denied that the DOJ had anything to do with support for the legislation and motivations from taking the lead on it.
The Department of Justice communique expressed concern that some Texas congressional redistricting seats were designed as coalition districts that were based on race. Republicans here have repeatedly denied the assertion from the federal agency that's controlled by President Donald Trump. Hunter repeated his position that the map in HB 4 was based on political performance without regard to race.
Fifty-five House Democrats seized control of the initial summer session with a walkout that prevented a vote on any legislation for more than two weeks. Republicans gave up in the first called session and ended it four days ahead of schedule so they could take a second shot without further delay in the current session that started 30 minutes after the first was adjourned.
Twenty-five Democrats who'd been absent returned to the chamber as promised on Monday in a move that cleared the way for the vote today on HB 4. But Speaker Dustin Burrows and the Republicans refused to let them leave the floor after the House adjourned that day without agreeing to let a Department of Public Safety official shadow them for two days and nights even though all of them had returned voluntarily.
Burrows spent the first 20 minutes of the Wednesday session dodging questions from Democrats on why House GOP leaders had relegated flooding protection and relief to a second-tier priority, whether they would agree to consider it before the remap plan and whether the U.S. Constitution trumped the House rules on which they'd based the novel state police escort scheme.
Burrows, a first-term speaker who Democrats lifted to victory in the race for the gavel in January, ruled that the questions were improper parliamentary inquiries that he did not have to anwer.
HB 4 is designed to create five additional U.S. House districts that trend Republican. The current Texas map has 38 districts including 25 that are controlled by Republicans.
more to come ...
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