The White House is driving the showdown between Texas Democrats and Republicans over a gerrymandering scheme to protect President Donald Trump from getting impeached for a third time, according to a reporter from a conservative publication.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has asked the state Supreme Court to remove state Rep. Gene Wu from office as the so-called “ringleader” of the Democrats who fled the state to deprive the Republican-led legislature of a quorum needed to pass a controversial redistricting plan, and National Review correspondent Audrey Fahlberg told “CNN This Morning” why the president’s team was pushing the move.
“The White House is driving this because clearly they are worried about losing the midterms,” Fahlberg said. “They’re convinced that if House Democrats flip the House, that Trump is going to get impeached again, right. The ‘big beautiful bill’ is not polling super well right now, so they’re going on offense here. They’re driving this into motion in Texas. They’re looking at other states, as well. We may see this continue in states like Florida, Indiana. Vice President [JD] Vance is meeting with state legislators there and their Republican governor.”
Redistricting is typically done after each 10-year census, so the Texas legislature’s mid-decade redraw of the congressional map to favor Republicans is unusual, and so is the impetus behind the plan.
“This is unusual,” said CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere. “I would say try to find an eighth-grader who’s finished their government and civics class and explain to them that this is what’s going on – it would be impossible. We have a president who has said explicitly that this is not about some problem with the map, other than he wants more seats that would be Republican-leaning and has told the governor of Texas to do this and the Republican legislators in Texas to do this, and they have just said, sure. The time between when he asked for it and when they called the special sessions [was] a couple of weeks, right, and then Democrats, who have no other option but to flee the state, they would, if they sat there, they would be they would have to be part of this passing. They don’t want to be, so they ran away, and now we’re talking about law enforcement coming after them and and being removed from office.”
“This is this is just not the way the government is supposed to work,” Dovere added, “and it is part of the reason why redistricting, when it happens, as messed up as it is when Republicans do it, when Democrats do it, and all the gerrymandering goes on, at least it only happens usually once every 10 years.”
– YouTube youtu.be