LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The gloves are off in the widening, redistricting fight between Republicans and Democrats in Texas. New York Governor Kathy Hochul weighed in on Sunday.
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KATHY HOCHUL: This is a war. We are at war.
FADEL: Hochul is among several Democratic governors who have vowed to fight back by drawing new lines in their own states if Texas redraws the congressional map there. And yesterday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott - a Republican - asked the state Supreme Court to remove from office the Democrat who called for members of his party to flee the state so that there would be no quorum.
If Republicans succeed in carving out five new potentially GOP-leaning congressional districts, it would reshape the Austin area district that Democratic Congressman Greg Casar represents, and he joins me now from Austin. Good morning, Congressman.
GREG CASAR: Good morning.
FADEL: If this new map goes into effect, could this mean you lose your seat?
CASAR: This redistricting plan is about more than any particular member of Congress. It's a threat to millions of Texans' voting rights. But here in Austin, I do represent a heavily Latino and heavily working-class seat. That means when Donald Trump sends his horrible ICE raids to separate families, I speak out. When billionaires are screwing over working-class people, I speak out. And Donald Trump doesn't want voices like mine in Congress. And so by merging my district here in the Austin area with an adjoining district, Trump and Texas Republicans are trying to silence the voices of my constituents and get folks like me out of Congress. But it's not just about me. It's a violation of the Voting Rights Act. That's trying to dilute the voices of voters of color. And if Trump is able to do that here in Austin, it's a threat all across America.
FADEL: I want to ask you about that. And you've - as you just said, have described this as a illegal voter suppression and a violation of the Voting Rights Act. The Republicans are saying, no, this is about partisanship, politics. The Supreme Court has specifically said it's actually legal to redraw this - the map based on this type of partisanship. So if you could explain in what way it violates the law.
CASAR: Just take a look at the way that Republicans under Donald Trump's leadership are trying to change this map in Texas. They're moving 10 million people to new districts in the middle of a decade, at a time you normally would never do this. And of those 10 million people, two-thirds of them are people of color. They are therefore getting rid of Hispanic opportunity districts in the Houston area. There will be no more Hispanic opportunity district in all of Dallas, Fort Worth or in the Austin area, in a state where the biggest racial group are Latinos.
Ultimately, what we are seeing is that Donald Trump wants to be held - have no chance for accountability from the House of Representatives. He has no plan for winning the upcoming midterm elections, so he wants to rig those before anybody gets a chance to cast a ballot. And the way that he's doing it is in violation of the Voting Rights Act, in violation of what Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement marched for here in Texas and across the South.
FADEL: Now, you've just laid out the ways that you see this as illegal, as a threat to democracy. But Democratic governors are warning if Texas does this - and it's likely they will pass this congressional map because it doesn't look like the Democrats will be able to stop it - then they're going to do it, too. I mean, if this really is a threat to democracy, and this is about - and the country's about to enter a redistricting war between the two parties, won't the Democrats then be part of hurting American democracy and further dividing this country?
CASAR: Let's be clear - gerrymandering is terrible and should be banned, and every Democrat in Congress right now is a sponsor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to ban gerrymandering nationwide. But what we need to be really concerned about, and what I'm sick and tired of is Democrats playing by one set of rules, and then Republicans gerrymandering however it is they want. That's why I think it's right that Governor Kathy Hochul, Governor Gavin Newsom and others are saying that they could redistrict in retaliation. That way Republican governors like Abbott can know that there will be an actual cost for them breaking the rules. I think California should have independent redistricting when Texas does. Florida should pass independent redistricting. That way, we can have it in New York. We should have national independent redistricting and ban gerrymandering. Not allow governors like Greg Abbott to break all the rules while Democrats play Boy Scout and Girl Scout.
FADEL: I wonder, too, though, how what Texas is doing is different than what's been done in other places, including in several states that are Democratic states. And there's been some pretty aggressive partisan gerrymandering in places like Maryland, for example. I mean, how is what is happening in Texas different?
CASAR: What's happening in Texas is so different because this map was not drawn by anyone in Texas. There's not a Texas Republican that I have found in Congress that is for this. This is a map directly from Mar-a-Lago. This is not a Texas map. It's a Trump map.
FADEL: Oh, so you're saying the president himself drew this map?
CASAR: This map was drawn by the president's aides and delivered to Texas Republicans to be shoved down everyone's throats here. At the end of the day, voters should get to pick their elected officials. No president should be allowed to pick your member of Congress.
FADEL: And we'll reach out to the White House about that. That's Democratic Congressman Greg Casar of Texas. Thank you for your time.
CASAR: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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