Texas Republicans and Democrats battle over the optics of redistricting vs flood relief as a legislative priority in Austin.
DALLAS — Last Thursday in Kerrville, Alicia Jeffrey Baker poured out her heart to lawmakers, publicly sharing the grief of the July 4 loss of her parents, Penny and Emlyn Jeffrey, and her 11-year-old daughter Madelyn in the Texas Hill Country floods.
“The river that we loved so much,” she said, her voice trembling, “killed them.”
For Baker, it wasn’t just a tragedy of water rising too fast. For her, it’s a story of warnings that never came, and a desperate plea to put warning systems in place to save someone else.
She asked lawmakers in Kerrville to consider installing outdoor sirens that could be activated by river gauges when the Guadalupe, which flows through Hunt, Ingram, Kerrville, and Comfort is approaching dangerous levels.
“If it gets to a certain point, that’s when the siren goes off,” she suggested.
But Monday morning, the real noise wasn’t coming from Kerrville. It was echoing from Albany, New York, Chicago, and Boston, where Texas Democrats, still exiled to block a redistricting vote, marked one month since the floods that killed 138 people across Central Texas.
“Today marks the one-month anniversary when over 130 people died,” said State Rep. Mihaela Plesa of Plano. “And we’ve held just two hearings on that. Meanwhile, we’ve held nine on redistricting. That shows you what our governor is focused on, what House Republicans are focused on. It’s not the people of Texas. It’s the people in power and how to keep that power.”
Jessica Huseman, editorial director of Votebeat, put it more bluntly:
“Donald Trump asked for redistricting a couple of weeks ago. And here we are. Meanwhile, Texans are suffering,” she said in reference to the flooding recovery in Central Texas, “and we’re not acting particularly quickly on that.”
Governor Greg Abbott has insisted that flood response and preparedness are a legislative priority. But on Monday, the only item listed on the Texas House calendar was a vote on redistricting. The vote, as expected, was canceled due to a lack of a quorum.
None of the proposed flood-related bills, including legislation that would require outdoor warning sirens in flood-prone areas, has made it to the House floor.
“If there’s a deal, if there’s a product that’s ready to go, I think it would be moving,” said Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak of Potomac Strategy Group. “But the flood relief thing is complicated, and they’re not quite ready to do that. The reason there have only been two hearings on flood relief is it occurred in one location primarily, which is in Kerr County, whereas you wanted to give people from around the state an opportunity to weigh in on the redistricting proposals.”
Democrats, who have temporarily fled the state to deny the Republican majority a chance to put the redistricting vote first, see the lack of flood and disaster coverage legislation differently.
“They’ve taken these communities who are struggling to recover,” said State Rep. Gene Wu at a news conference alongside Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, “and used them as hostages in a political game.”
A memorial service for Madelyn Jeffrey and her grandparents, Penny and Emlyn Jeffrey, is scheduled for this Saturday in San Antonio.
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