BUILDING A BETTER TEXAS TOGETHER!

REP. VINCE PEREZ DELIVERS FLOOR REMARKS OPPOSING HB 4, TEXAS HOUSE REDISTRICTING PROPOSAL

AUSTIN, TX — Today, the Texas House of Representatives took up House Bill 4, the chamber’s redistricting proposal, for full debate. State Representative Vince Perez delivered remarks on the House floor opposing the measure, warning that the plan entrenches racial disparities in representation while denying fair political power to millions of Texans.

A full video clip of Rep. Perez’s remarks on the House floor can be accessed here.

The full text of Rep. Perez's remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:

Let me begin by saying, Representative Hunter, that I have tremendous respect and admiration for you and for your years of service in this chamber. But with equal candor, I must also say that I am deeply disappointed. I am disappointed in the willingness to mask the racial realities of this map under the guise of partisanship. Courts have made clear: partisanship is not a license to engage in racial discrimination.

It was not until today that I more fully appreciated what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in 1963, while sitting in a Birmingham jail, expressing his frustration with the moderates of his time. He said, “Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

Representative Hunter, you have criticized my colleagues and me for breaking quorum—to protest and to draw attention to these maps, maps that deliberately sideline minorities from the political process. But as Dr. King reminded us, there are those who are more devoted to order than to justice, who prefer the absence of tension to the presence of truth. I took time away not to avoid my duty, but to better understand the real implications of these maps—on the people I serve in a majority-Hispanic district, and on the more than 11 million Texans who look just like them. Their voices deserve to be heard and deserve to count the same as anyone else’s.

There are enough Hispanic Texans in this state that every single one of us—all 150 members—could represent a district that is at least 40% Hispanic. In fact, some of your own Republican colleagues already do. Representatives Landgraf, McLaughlin, Guillen, and yes, you, Representative Hunter, know firsthand what it means to represent large Latino constituencies. But those few exceptions only underscore the larger truth: 82% of your caucus does not represent a Hispanic population that reflects the reality of this state. And as one of the former slaveholding states with a long and painful record of denying representation, Texas should be breaking from that past—not resurrecting it with these maps.

Now, let’s focus on the congressional districts before us. It was said that the goal was simply to improve Republican performance, and that lawyers drew the lines. But any fair reading of this map shows what it actually does: it systematically dilutes Latino and Black voting strength while cementing and increasing Anglo control. Any claim otherwise is either a misunderstanding of the racial realities of this map—or a deliberate misrepresentation of the truth. Neither approach is worthy of this chamber.

We have not seen a map so deliberately engineered by skin color since the days when Americans marched from Selma to Montgomery to protest laws designed to silence Black voters—marches that led to the Voting Rights Act just months later.

Today, Hispanic and white Texans each make up about 40% of our state’s population. Equal in number. Yet under this proposed map, 26 of the 38 congressional districts—70% of our delegation—will be controlled by white-majority districts. You cannot claim that one group making up 40% of our population should hold 70% of political control in this state and call those disparities “coincidental.”

Forty-five years ago, Anglo Texans made up 66% of our state’s population. Today, they are 40%. Yet your map freezes white political control as though nothing has changed in 50 years. And somehow, in the ten hours it takes to drive from my district in El Paso to yours on the coast, your lawyers drew “nonracial” lines that result in your party representing 90% of one race. And, Representative Hunter, in case your lawyers did not advise you—it is not Hispanics or Blacks.

Why does your party want to represent 90% of white Texans, but not 90% of Texas Hispanics or Blacks? Because this map carves and segregates those populations to ensure they cannot influence elections in those 26 white-controlled districts.

Here is the cold, hard truth under this map: white Texans receive one member of Congress for every 445,000 residents, for Hispanics, it takes 1.4 million residents, for Blacks, 2 million. That means one Hispanic Texan has one-third the political value of a white Texan, and one Black Texan one-fifth. It would take three Hispanics to equal the representation of one white Texan—and five Black Texans to equal the same.

Under these lines, Texas Hispanics will be the most underrepresented population group in all 50 states. This level of underrepresentation exceeds what even conservative courts have struck down in Louisiana, Alabama, and just yesterday, Mississippi. And yet, when confronted with these facts, proponents of this map point fingers at California or Illinois. But no map in those states systematically erases representation for a population that makes up 60% of its people. This map is an abomination. It is shameful.

What kind of society will future generations of Hispanic and Black children in Texas grow up in if their government feels no accountability to them—if the lines are drawn to ensure accountability only to another group, based solely on race? All Americans—all Texans—Republican, Democrat, Black, white, Hispanic—should be appalled. Because what this government is saying is that it wants a map that answers not to the majority of its residents, but to those it hand-selects. And in this case, by race.

Mr. Speaker, I voted for you. Despite our vast political differences, I know you care about this institution and the way we serve the people of Texas with fairness. But we all took an oath to uphold the Constitution—not to flagrantly violate it or test its limits.

What is happening here is shameful. And with this map, Mr. Speaker, I can no longer, in good conscience, support you.

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Vince Perez is State Representative for House District 77 in El Paso. He serves on the influential House Ways and Means Committee as well the committees on Higher Education and Local, Consent, and Resolutions Calendars. He is the former El Paso County Commissioner for Precinct 3 and was named the 2016 County Leader of the Year by American City & County Magazine. He is a lifelong resident of El Paso's Mission Valley, where he lives with his dogs Whiskey, Lady, and Manchas.