Texas Republican Accidentally Admits Truth About GOP’s Gerrymandering

Some defenders of Texas Republicans’ plan to rejigger the state’s congressional districts at the behest of President Trump might be inclined to suggest there’s some fair rationale for the move.

Not state Representative Mitch Little, a Texas Republican who explained brazenly to CNN Tuesday that it’s a Machiavellian partisan maneuver.

CNN’s Brianna Keilar asked her guest why the Texas GOP is attempting to redistrict now when it just did so four years earlier after the last U.S. census.

Little put it plainly: “Because we can. We have the votes. It’s legal for us to do so. It’s legal for us to draw the lines based on political performance. We have three Hispanic-predominated districts in south Texas that we believe that we can carve out for Republican leadership in the United States Congress,” he said—which, he claimed, will “be a good thing for Texas.”

“Because you can,” Keilar repeated. “Why should you, though?”

Little replied: “Because it’s good for our party, it’s good for our state, and we need to ensure that Donald Trump’s agenda continues to be enacted throughout his second term,” Little said. (Note that “our party” apparently came to mind quicker here than “our state.”)

Little and his fellow Republicans, he continued, see this gerrymander “as the difference between Democrats trying to impeach President Trump again during the second half of his final term as president of the United States or accomplishing the agenda that all the voters in Texas, by a significant majority, sent him to accomplish.”

“So you’re doing this for President Trump?” Keilar pressed.

“We’re doing this for Texas,” Little insisted. “President Trump doesn’t call me. I don’t think he has my phone number. But what I would submit to you is: This is the best thing for Texas and its representation in the United States Congress.”