Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke didn’t mince words when talking about Texas Republicans’ attempts to create a new redistricting map that would disenfranchise millions of non-white voters.
“These motherfuckers are panicking right now,” O’Rourke said during an interview in New Orleans on Friday for Netroots Nation, a nonprofit organization for progressive activism.
O’Rourke was referring to Republicans’ attempts to arrest dozens of House Democrat lawmakers who left the state to deny House Republicans a quorum to gerrymander district lines.
Under the new proposed map, President Donald Trump would pick up five more GOP-leaning congressional seats in Texas ahead of the 2026 midterms. The new map would also take voting power away from Latino and Black voters.
“You know that Trump asked Greg Abbott, our governor, to give him five congressional seats in Texas,” O’Rourke explained. “And thick as thieves, he and the Republican state legislature have been busy at work carving up the state. They were gonna vote on these five new districts on Monday, but thank god for Texas Democrats. Fifty-four of them left the state, broke quorum, said ‘To hell with that,’ and defied Donald Trump and stopped this power grab in the state of Texas.”
