James Talarico: Redistricting Strips Diverse Communities of their Voices

Transcript:

Texas is a very diverse state. Um, you

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know, it's what makes Texas so great.

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Always has been. We're this big mashup

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of all these different people and

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cultures. It's why we have some of the

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best food and the best music, right? The

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best culture.

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Um, and it's why I love my state so

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much. But that is a threat to some folks

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who are in power um who don't want to

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see this these rising um, you know,

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black and brown communities um, starting

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to exert their influence in the

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political process. And so I I mentioned

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that grabbing these five seats is the is

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the goal. That's the what.

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We should talk about the how though. The

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how they do that is by intentionally

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dividing communities of color,

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black and brown communities in Texas to

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dilute their their voting power. Right.

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There's there's a um a historic uh

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Latino neighborhood in Houston, Texas

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that it's a pretty big neighborhood. So

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when it's in a congressional district,

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it can pick the representative of their

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choice. They may not pick a Latino rep,

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right? They may pick a a black

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representative, a white representative,

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um, Asian-American representative, but

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they get to pick as a as a community.

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But now this new map divides that

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community in half and then takes both

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halves and draws them into white rural

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areas

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which now have a bigger say. So you've

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you've watered down their voting power.

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You've intentionally um cracked their

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their um influence in the democratic

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process. So, these maps are are deeply

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racist and it's something that, you

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know, all of us learned about in the

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20th century.

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I'm not sure if everybody realizes it's

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still happening in 2025. Um, and it's

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something again we should all reject uh

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because it's deeply unamerican.