Senate Remap Panel Republicans Spurn
Subpoena for Fed Who Triggered Effort
Capitol Inside
July 25, 2025
A half-dozen Texas Senate Republicans rejected a bid by Democrats on Friday to force a U.S. Department of Justice official to appear before a special committee as the author of a letter that prompted Governor Greg Abbott to order the redrawing of the state's U.S. House map in a special session that began this week.
The Select Congressional Redistricting Committee's chairman - GOP State Senator Phil King of Weatherford - asked Democratic State Senator Borris Miles of Houston initially to withdraw a motion that would have paved the way for the panel to subpoena Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon to testify on the communique in question.
But Miles refused to cancel the request for the subpoena in a motion that required support from two-thirds of the members of the redistricting committee that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick appointed on Monday with six Republicans and three Democrats. The select committee tabled the Miles motion in a decision that the Democratic lawmaker knew would be a foregone conclusion but wanted to get on the official record for court challenges that are inevitable if the Republicans in Austin redraw the Texas map for Congress that President Donald Trump wants it to approve with five more seats for Republicans.
Dhillon, who heads the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, put the GOP power grab in motion with the letter that she sent on July 7 to Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton with claims that several congressional districts that are represented by Democrats were products of racial gerrymandering.
While the letter was ambiguous and riddled with mistakes, Abbott moved swiftly to capitalize on the concerns raised by Dhillon when he announced the agenda for the summer session with congressional redistricting on his marching orders for lawmakers.
"That letter is what got us here today," Miles said.
Democratic State Senator Carol Alvarado of Houston said she'd asked King to send an invitation to Dhillon to testify about the letter that Abbott used as the springboard for a rare midstream redistricting effort in a process that's typically conducted once every decade. The Legislature approved the current U.S. House map in 2021.
King acknowledged at the hearing that he did not honor the Alvarado request to ask Dhillon to appear before the committee because he was afraid such a move could have an effect on a lawsuit in El Paso involving districts there. But King appeared to back peddle in the face of grillings from the Democrat on the panel and - saying eventually that he'd have no objection to an invitation for Dhillon but wanted to discuss it first with legal counsel that he expects to have in place at some point this weekend.
King left the impression that a subpoena would be out of the question for the Republicans who control the special committee even though they would have the power to compel Dhillon's testimony if they chose to do so. King admitted he'd been "very reluctant" to invite the DOJ official due to fear of "stepping into legislation going forward" in the exchange with Democrats. But the panel chief said he'd be open to the "general concept" of an invitation pending discussions with lawyers.
The Senate remap panel's first hearing was a replay in terms of objections raised by witnesses opposed to the remap push at a meeting of House counterpart committee on Thursday. State Rep. Cody Vasut - an Angleton Republican who chairs the Select Congressional Redistricting Committee in the House - shut down testimony from the public after six hours even though a long line of witnesses who'd traveled to Austin to testify had not had their chance.
Vasut ended the public hearing shortly after he had a Democratic U.S. House candidate physically removed from the hearing in a wild scene early Thursday evening. Congressional District 18 contender Isaiah Martin of Houston refused to end a fiery speech against the map reshaping when Vasut told him his time was up.
Martin was physically restrained at the witness table and dragged by a pair of panel officials out of the meeting room in the Capitol's underground extension. Martin was wrestled to the ground and carted to the Travis County jail in the face of several misdemeanor charges including resisting arrest and criminal trespass.
An unspecified number of Texas House Democrats headed for Sacramento and Chicago in separate groups on Friday to huddle with the Democratic governors in California and Illinois - Gavin Newsom and JB Pritzker - on the potential targeting of GOP districts to counter the effort here.
more to come ...
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