 If the representative from the Census Bureau is still here, I wanted to give you a minute to talk. Are you still here? So you guys the census is so important everyone knows that from this conversation that we just had so I was thrilled yesterday when they Reached out to us and asked if they could table event. I was like, we're gonna let you talk. Please come Good morning Thank you so much for allowing us to be here and I just want to say that We need trusted voices in the community To get help us get the message out that it is important that it is the law and That the information is private and confidential If they hear it from us, you know, but if they hear it from trusted voices, you you guys trusted voices in the community then They take that more too hard and We also are recruiting We were going to be hiring between 25 to 3,000 people next year the peak of the census and so we asked people to to Apply online 2020 census.gov slash jobs Because we need to hire people from their own communities people are going to be hired by by zip code and We are going to need to hire them and train them by the end of the year. We have an operation right now Where we hired a lot of people and that was for address can see we're looking at What we have on the map and actually gone go on the ground and see is that bacon? Is it a building? Is it a home apartment? So that's what we're doing right now The timeline will start in January We're going to have census workers go to group quarters Anywhere where people live together? universities prisons nursing homes RV parts anywhere where people live together that's going to be done in starting January as well as the military and then the homeless will be count in February and We don't know the date and we won't because we need we're gonna have an army of Census workers, you know going to where the home we know the homeless live March is when you're going to start receiving your letter with the code that you can do Your census application online This is the first time that it's been done that and we know that there's a digital divide so we need a lot of people to Are they're going to need help you can do the census by phone? by on computer or in person and You can also ask for the application The questionnaire to be sent to you. So that would be starting in March You can start filling out the questionnaire March 12 April 1 is census day. That means where are you living on census day? That is the question and you put everyone in and the questionnaire will say who you need to count Don't count your children if they're on campus count your relatives or anyone that's staying there if you Have a daughter that has a friend that's homeless Living with you then you count everyone in your household that will go through April Lake of April through July is when our work census workers will be knocking on doors But we really want we get the best Data from people that self-respond so that's what there's a big push in 2010 we missed over a million children five and under nationwide and So without people Communities could not plan or did not receive the funds for more teachers more schools and The education so there's a big effort, you know to make sure that Children five and under will be counted as well as the different areas that we know people that are fearful people that have a language barrier or Do not have a computer the library is one of our partners that is We're going to have people help them with the computer to fill out the questionnaire Thank you so much for the time any questions They're in English and you can request it in multiple languages and you can also call and there'll be multiple Languages that people will be can talk, you know, we'll be able to talk with you to help you out There is going to be Language the questionnaire will be in English and Spanish, but you we can request you can request other languages So we don't know what that need will be until you know, we get called And it's going to be available Yes, ma'am Okay, that's a good question. You will get hired by zip code So you work in your community. You will not work in a specific community. It would be whoever gets assigned to work the group quarters the people that get assigned to work with the homeless, but it's not an assignment per per population it's The operation that determines, you know, who gets assigned to what areas but it is We need to hire within the people that live in the community 18 and older 14 to 18 dollars an hour They get paid for training for mileage and get paid every week So we're recruiting parents grandparents. We hire which is hired a 78 and 80 year old man and 78 year old man's wife is so happy So please please let your family and friends know that and they need to apply now They're not going to get called right away. It takes maybe two to two and a half months because of background check in the process But we need the people that will get called late November for December training Yes, that's part of group quarters. Oh, you can you get assigned Yeah, any any group quarters and will be counted and so Even well with the prisons, but all the centers any questions. Thank you so much for your time. Oh, yes, ma'am The they will be working We'll start working in December. They get hired and they will be trained January through July is the operations and Starting late April May is when we go back to the homes that do not respond So that's the the big push that everyone hears about but it we need to finish by July We have to everything that we count has to be validated and then the final report goes to the president on December 31st 2020 So, yes, thank you again to the league Because we know that a lot of people are going to need help and they need to be comfortable where they're going to to get the help Thank you so much I'm gonna start it off. I'm gonna Eventually pass it over to Joaquin Joaquin's gonna Do the last portion of the talk just so you guys guys know what's coming in front of you So first of all, I want to say thank you for coming on on a Saturday to listen to this Very much appreciate it and I very much appreciate the San Antonio League for hosting us today So the League of Citizens Taxes received a grant we applied for it back in May And we got that grant from our National League and the whole idea behind this was to you know Have the next year to get the public ready for these public input hearings But then of course the legislator has because we've been pushing them For more hearings and more transparency They decided to start those hearings rapid-fire, so they're starting I guess in two weeks And all of our major cities are packed in the first two months, and I'm pretty sure they've done that on purpose So we don't have as much time to prepare everyone So I want to make sure that you guys know about that public hearing like Senator Menendez was talking about that September 12th We need you guys to come out and participate. We need your help spreading the word about it as well and So I want to talk the first thing I always have to start with is if you would like to join the league Please please check out our website on how to do so We are always looking for new members to participate and to help set up events like this So yeah, please consider joining us so Chris Carson is our National president and I wrote to her I guess it was a year and a half ago now but I needed help with a talk there was this big math group coming into town and It's more of like a national level Talk that I had to give it was just a quick five-minute pitch So I wrote her and I said hey Can you just help me come up with some talking points just to make sure I'm representing the league appropriately and Crispy in the a type that she is she actually gave me kind of the whole speech But when she sent it back everything kind of Firmed up what my job was and what we need to do to mobilize the community And so I'm just gonna read you her little spiel that she wrote There is a whole component of citizen education dealing with transparency and public engagement that is absolutely vital to any redistricting system people need to understand what the current redistricting process is why it is so bad and what can Be done about it and clear simple terms We need good material in all formats and good speakers to share that material We need volunteers who represent our diversity to help us inform our communities We need to focus on creating a more transparent process We need people to watch when the new maps are drawn to guard against gerrymandering sunlight disinfects If the line drawers aren't doing anything funny, then there is no reason to go behind closed doors The public needs to see and understand who is drawing the maps and how they are drawn So that right there kind of summarizes everything we need to be doing in a nutshell So redistricting is one of the most important processes in our democracy because it determines the power of your vote It determines how your community is represented It determines which communities are going to be located in your district with you and then it determines who goes on to elect Who you go on to elect to represent you and that elected official then turns around and makes very important decisions about the quality of The air you breathe the quality of your water the quality of your child's school the quality of health care the quality And how much you pay in taxes so these these Decisions that they're making on our behalf affect us in our everyday life So it's very important that we're involved in the redistricting process as much as possible To make sure that we get good and adequate representation to take care of those needs So why do we need districts anyways? I want you guys to drop yourselves back in time back to the 1800s and pretend like you're going out to West Texas to set up a town What are some of the first things you're gonna need to find when you get out there? Water supply way to grow food a way to build a house Soon enough you might have a small town showing up right might have a grocery store school a hospital Maybe the line of transportation comes by next maybe the railroad so that that town that eventually develops is what we Refer to as a community of interest and that community needs to have a cohesive voice of representation Representing them in government to make sure they get all of their needs taken care of So I'm gonna briefly go through the rules for redistricting We've already talked about the census so the redistricting process is gonna start at the census We're gonna count everyone up and then we go through something called Reapportionment reapportionment is where they go back and allocate congressional seats Based on your state's population. So some states gain seats. That's some states lose seats That was what was discussed a little bit on the panel discussion. So Texas. I think we're estimated to gain three seats But besides that there's shocking shockingly little Guidelines basically to determine how our districts are drawn after that So we get that census data back from the government and then we have to redistrict everything, right? We have to draw new districts to make sure that they're all of equal size That's what the one person one vote ruling was about our districts have to be equal sized So our federal guidelines reflect that our districts have to be equal sized We also have the voting rights act that we must uphold or what's left of it I should say we cannot delete the power of minority representation Racial gerrymandering is basically what we're concerned about in in the VRA when it comes to redistricting our state guidelines we have again not many guidelines to Direct tests for how to draw these districts or state house districts We have something called the county line rule that means that if you have a county with a large enough population For two districts that means that that county has to have those two districts within the whole county If that makes sense, so you can't cross the county line if population permits And our Texas Senate districts. They must be single member and contiguous So, you know, how is this process of redistricting so bad? You know, we don't have too many guidelines. Where is this going wrong? It's going wrong with something called gerrymandering Gerrymandering is a process of drawing district lines to favorite one group of people over another We have two types of gerrymandering. We have partisan gerrymandering and racial gerrymandering Partisan gerrymandering is still being allowed by the Supreme Court. That was what that recent Supreme Court case was Rucho out of North Carolina The Supreme Court in June said that we're gonna let partisan gerrymandering go. It's fine It's too much of a political question for us to get involved Then we have racial gerrymandering racial gerrymandering was supposedly outlawed by the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 What's the problem with these two being in existence at the same time? Race and partisanship often go hand-in-hand like overwhelmingly here in Texas So the the black community votes overwhelmingly Democratic according to latest Pew estimates 90% of the community votes for a Democrat and in the Hispanic community at 70% of the Hispanic community will vote for a Democrat So the state will claim that they are using partisan gerrymandering to draw their districts But at the same time what they're doing is infringing that on the rights of minority voters by diluting their vote So the big question is does this translate into an advantage does gerrymandering and the way the district lines are drawn Translate into an advantage for that party So I have two examples up. I have the Democrats in the 90s So not many people know this, but the Democrats heavily gerrymandered in the 90s It was actually considered The third worst gerrymandering US history based on some of these mathematical models that are coming out So when you look they won 50% of the votes But they captured 70% of the seats and this is for the US congressional races then so come up here to current day and Republicans that are gerrymandering against Democrats so in 2018 Republicans won 50% of the vote, but they've captured 63% of the seats So that's an excess I think of three or four seats that they have right now in the US Congress One important thing that I forgot to mention is that these maps are passed as regular legislation, right? So they have to be Passed through the house and the Senate and then the governor has to give his stamp of approval for it at the end of the Day The problem with this is that this gives one party a distorted control over the process And that's why you see the Democrats who were in control in the 90s having that tilt toward the Democratic Party And today you see Republicans having that advantage So how are the maps drawn legislators consult with data analysts? Yes, they do State party officials and special interest groups They meet behind closed doors and they do not have to consider the public's input Unfortunately at the end of the day they they get to say What the map is going to look like and it's going to be up to us to help them accountable and call them out on that They use partisan and demographic data and go block by block to choose their voters And this is the congressional district that we were talking about quite a bit. So this is like dogged district It's over there on that poster The purple on that poster is a Hispanic community. So when they do that district what they claimed they were doing is Giving the Hispanic community a voice, but I want to point out that in 2017 the federal court actually here in San Antonio During that was the racial gerrymander And the reason for that was because they actually split precincts And we had played dogged out at our last talk that we gave and he was talking more about it And they actually split over a hundred precincts to draw that district when you split a precinct You have to really rely on racial data. So that was one of the reasons why the court thought that was the racial gerrymander And what they ultimately decided was that influenced? I'm sorry that decrease the Hispanics Community's voice statewide that however was overturned by the Supreme Court and this is one of the big Conundrums that we're in with race and partisanship here in Texas I want to point out just the block by level or block by block detail that they they gave Or they implemented on that district So that's San Marcos and I believe that's Texas State University But you can see how they they really have sectioned off just one little chunk of a neighborhood there Sometimes I just talked about that so I think I might just skip over that really quick So let's go into cracking and packing So this is a great example first of all of Packing that's the one that I was just telling you about where that purple and district 35 is Hispanic community Let's go over packing. I'm sorry cracking now So you've heard senator Manetta is talking about Travis County is being a great example of cracking and I kind of have a Visual for you so you can see it. So congressional district 10. It's that little red blurb in the 1990s map That's most of Travis County right there. So for the past hundred years, if not, yeah, I guess more actually a Congressional district 10 was always like this huge liberal pillar surrounded by a sea of red They've always voted Democratic and then So you see one whole congressional district there and 2003 one Tom DeLay did his mid-sensors redistricting They started cracking up Travis County to delete their vote and over here in 2017 there really isn't too much of congressional district 10 and left in Austin right now There is just a tiny bit But what they've done basically is they've split Travis County into five congressional districts and they've diluted the Democratic voice With the more rural areas that vote more conservative. So out of those five congressional seats that we have only one is a Democrat and that was the racial gerrymander. I want to point out with Lloyd dogged district And so they've really kind of neutered Travis County's representation and voting power Did you have a question? That's for the state House rules So our state Senate and our US congressional there is no geographical restriction like that And that is part of the problem and that was one of the strategies that we tried to push forward to get legislation through this session Yes, ma'am so that's a good question and I think that the Supreme Court really failed the America and our democracy here when they made this most recent Decision to stay out of partisan gerrymandering. So that case was to basically determine if you could set a limit on How much partisan gerrymandering was too much? What's the balance and their quite their answer was there is no balance We're gonna stay out of this and they said that Certain states can go ahead and implement Citizen non-partisan redistricting commissions if they choose to do so, but I'll get to that in a minute We can't do that easily here in Texas And so I just want to point out that the Supreme Court has in my opinion failed us and our democracy Tremendously over the past ten years. We had citizens united. We had the Perez trial which upheld this racial gerrymander We had the gutting of the Voting Rights Act And so they are really kind of unraveling our democratic institutions and our safeguards Tremendously over the past ten years in this latest instance of this partisan gerrymandering case just adds to that pile So when you look at the legislator as a whole and this is what I really want to point out This this is kind of demonstrates how race and partisanship go hand-in-hand So 50% of Texans are consistent people of color So you would expect to see that reflected at the legislator as well if we had fair districts for those communities of color And unfortunately right now we only have 36% people of color representing us at the state legislator So you see that skew as well So this is the most important slide I think out of all of them of the effects of gerrymandering I'm a lot of this isn't very Obvious until you start thinking about it. So legislators are drawing safe districts for themselves What happens when they do that? That means that the election gets moved to the primary right because you know which party is going to win That district so when you move that election the race to the primary what's going to happen? You have no compromise going on across party line, right? In fact, it's the opposite you kind of have to pander to the extremes now to win the primary So when you when that happens you see more party for yeah more extreme polarization occurring between the parties Importantly you cannot hold legislators accountable to the power of your vote, right? If you want to vote them out of office, you can't do it in the general election. You have to go to the primary This also leads to incumbents getting reelected and a lot of these incumbents are very entrenched both democrats and republicans alike right now a little sickening So At any rate the incumbent will get reelected. It's hard to find a challenger races go uncontested And why do you want to show up to vote when you know who's going to win the election? And that has an effect on down ballot races as well Yes, ma'am There's a few reasons why you still want to come out and testify There's a few reasons why you want to come out and testify number one There's going to most likely every 10 years There's always redistricting litigation that occurs and it's always based on racial gerrymandering claims We need people from the community to come out And provide that testimony on where their communities of interest are so we can use that in future litigation Number two, there's an even more important reason. They're going to be redrawling all of these districts They're not going to stay the same. They're going to redraw them based on growth. We're going to get more congressional districts They're going to have to give I believe bear county another district So we need to come out and tell them Where our our communities are so they can try to protect them and keep them whole as much as possible in the future maps So i'm not going to go over the supreme court case. We've talked about that enough And this is a legislation that senator menendez filed Believe was very happy that he actually filed that we didn't know he was filing it on the senate side We worked very hard to get it filed on the house side. So we ran them as companion bills So many states are actually moving to non-partisan commissions The one thing that all of those states have going for them is they have access to a ballot and initiative process So they can have a ballot measure to get it on the ballot for people to vote on We don't have that here in texas so in order to get this legislation through we'll have to have a constitutional amendment for our state legislative districts But for our us congressional districts is quite easy. We just need a state statute So these commissions are they there are always Free of legislative influence and to give you an idea of the like the six or seven step process that they use to guarantee that Usually that that complex adventurous list means you couldn't have been a legislator You couldn't have worked for a legislator You couldn't have lobbied for a legislator You could have donated couldn't have donated more than $2,500 to that campaign. You couldn't have Worked for a state party At any level I believe and then also you Your family member it's the same you could not any of your family that applies to them as well So in california, they started with an applicant pool of 30 000 people for this commission By the time they applied that strict complex of interest list, they would have let down to 2000 To just think about that and how effective it was So senator menendez's this legislation was very similar Um, so those commissioners that were chosen you had five democrats five republicans four independents Importantly though, all of that is great and dandy, but the way they do the districts is super important They did not use partisan data. So right now they're using partisan data, right? They know who's a democrat who's a republican and they draw the districts based on that to give one party an advantage In california they were blind. They didn't know who was a democrat who was a republican not only that but they had a very strict complex Or i'm sorry a strict List of ranked criteria that they used to draw the districts and we'll talk about that in a second So here in texas. Oh and the last thing that they did Was not only did that commission draw the districts, but more importantly they had 33 public hearings around the state People showed up to tell the commissioners where their communities of interest were And that is super critical And so the commissioners then drew the maps there at the meetings the public input hearings basically Or at a public work session, but it was all 100 based on the the public's input And so we have a similar slightly similar process here in texas where they have the public input hearings that are coming up that keep plugging um So, uh, yes, I know that they might not have to listen to us But I just explained the reasoning behind why we need to show up We need to tell them where our communities of interest are because they're going to be changing these lines We're getting three new congressional seats or state house seats are in flux as well And our big metro flex areas are going to be getting more districts most most likely in the state house So we need to be able to to show up to tell them where our communities of interest are Not only that I want everyone to turn around and take that to your state legislators in 2011 It was a state house reps that drew their own districts basically So I would like to be able to take it to them and and push and advocate them to adopt a fair and transparent process and to protect their communities So a community of interest as I've been saying is a contiguous population Which shares common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation So you want to be able to effectively advocate for your shared needs in your community These are that Those ranked criteria that I was talking about the number one is equal population one person one vote comply with the Voting Rights Act And this really applies to if you want to go and get into the nitty-gritty of drawing your own district map to take with you Which I really encourage everyone to try to do at least or to at least take a map even google maps And try to map out where your community is. Where's your house? Where's your school? Where's your work? Where's your grocery stores to help kind of narrow down that community in your area? So I've mentioned the state house Rule that we have for the county line rule where if a district a district should be kept within a county population permits And then this is the one of the league Again, I keep plugging. We want to protect our communities of interest This is the one that the league is a very big supporter of We want to be able to keep our our neighborhoods whole We want to be able to advocate for shared needs as a as a neighborhood, right? So who in here lives in one of these funky districts where your neighbor across the street from you lives in a Different district or even like two blocks down from you. Is that anyone in here? No, usually you'd be surprised I do a lot of these talks at every meeting I've been to so far at least two or three people have raised their hands And that's really how bad it's gotten Um, and these are people that Have the same shared resources as you so there's a reason why you want to keep this all together or keep everyone together Compactness is also one to consider not really a super critical Yes, ma'am I'm going to tell you at the end And then um nesting don't worry about nesting nesting is just if you want to have all of your districts overlap So if you want your congressional district To encompass your state house district and your state senate district and your city council Just for the purposes of overlapping representation. That's what nesting is And all of this this part about non-partisan criteria is in the packet. I pretty much copied all of the slides And gave it to you So you can actually have access to it and take it home with you So here are some examples of community of interest some a place that has a shared culture or history common transportation Whether water watershed That's like water boards and stuff like that economical regions. So industrial agricultural tech army recreational areas and come status housing languages spoken Schools health care areas and hospital districts and then a common goals or some sort of policy Issue that your community has been advocating for for a long time like reducing crime or increasing jobs So these are the two Websites that I wanted to point out. I don't know if I don't think I connected to the internet So I can't connect you the first one though is district fear. This is provided by the state legislator So if you want to pull up what the current districts look like That's the website that you would go to and again I think that's already included in the handout that I gave to you as well So you don't have to worry about writing it down The next one is this math group that I mentioned earlier They created their own districting software and what's great about it is that when you sit down to build districts You build it based off of election precincts So there you can't really get into too much funny business when you put together your community of interest This one is free though. The software is usually very expensive to like a professional one It cost upwards of $10,000 sometimes for these licenses And I want to point that out because you know, we want to enable our communities to participate in this process Have access to these tools and the league was Advocating for such legislation that would have made the state do that And they didn't Anyways, this one is free. It's not great, but it's there and I encourage everyone to go and use it. Yes When you say Okay, ask again, so there's district r. So district r does have demographic data That's both district are district are in Mapitude mapitude is the professional version the leak has bought a copy if you would like to access it You'll have to email me and I can give you access You'll have to install amazon workspaces and then basically like check it out like a library book You can get so much time to use it or whatever. I want it on this day And you know when you see that this somebody other stuff up here I mean it's not if I do GIS and I don't But I've never done it before No, no, no, go ahead keep going Well, you're saying that if there's some software out there that runs Yes, yes, and you piece together districts based off of precinct level data So you highlight the precinct and then you go and highlight another one and it'll update and give you percentages of What the ethnicity is the total population Voting age population the whole nine yards, but that's based off of Keep in mind that's based off the 2010 census data And so with that I'm going to turn it over to Joaquin because he's going to go over some of the stuff that we're asking the House Committee to Consider and adopt when they start drawing these districts Is Does that confuse the redistricting process in any way? It can yes, right? And so I mean under gorilla tactics, we know what's going to happen. I mean, they're going to get a spoke to They're going to redraw it with they're going to directly with a crap out of Texas again But it doesn't last 50 years. So we're making that assumption And we just also assume that maybe there's some other process where we can confuse and confound them in their in their process And just do some rule of practice like voting in You know other primaries and and what will be the other thing trying to get the What is the information that you're using to gerrymander? I mean if they normally use our primary vote To gerrymander that would be a product They use both your primary data, but then they also look to see how many like how many times we've voted in the past Five years because they want to see what the likelihood of that person voting Democrat or republican is because that Shorts up their predictions, right? They have election data. Yeah, so they don't know how you voted in the election, but they know that you did vote So are you a three time democratic voter? Are you a three time republican voter? Um, three time being voted in the primary three times. They know they have access to that and that's how they shore up their predictions of You know who's a democrat and who's a republican? So I want to emphasize please come to these hearings and give them hell. I'm serious You had your hand up. Yeah So they don't have Is They're not going to do that Um, they don't have red apple stations available anymore if you want to access red apple You'll have to talk with your state refer states and in order to give you access to it Yes So that's why I gave you some tools so that district R is one of those pieces of software that will it's not going to be as Fancy as red apple the state's uh software, but it's something to go off of it's a good starting point Really what you're going for is these communities of interest But then also the second level to that is you want to be able to show an alternative plan They're going to give us crappy districts, right? I guarantee you they're going to give us really horrible districts The question is if it does violate the vra You need to be able to show an alternative plan that it Here's a better district that would have given my community a good voice and you need that in in litigation Yeah, so district District R does for sure the map tattooed does map tattooed is usually what the consultants use But that's the one that i'm telling you that you'd have to check out a license for it So you just come up to me afterwards and I can get you my email address So I didn't go over my statistics from the 2016 election Which I talk about so the 2016 election was considered in my opinion the worst Year for turnout and gerrymandering in the whole nine yards when you look at the statistics from that election 98 percent of incumbents got reelected because it's partisan gerrymandering And I know this past this past election cycle. We had a switch, right? We got some new democrats elected, but there weren't very many, right? So a good majority of these people are going to come back Okay Could you give me the packet So as we were mentioning and as y'all pointed out right now, you know the Legislature There's going to be elections between now and when the legislature actually draws the districts and as was mentioned previously The only data we have is from 2010 or estimates after that So even if you do go right now say to district or It's drawing 36 congressional districts with 2010 data So what I've really tried to do is uh, you know in the past the court like this last time the court really hammered the legislature on its closed-door process and Pointed out the lack of public hearings after an actual map has been proposed And the lack of inclusion of minority groups and members in the process And so what we're trying to do is Incorporate into the testimony you can go testify about your community of interest But also incorporate onto the record that it's not enough that they just told these public field hearings before There's any maps out there that we want them to take steps to remedy this broken process that they've instituted in the past and that's important both because it's Setting out goals for the next legislature and also putting it on the record if there is litigation that people made these demands And the legislature still didn't listen or if there's change in leadership Or we can just effectively advocate with the current leaders actually getting these implemented And so I put together it's an impact at a list of recommendations that you all can incorporate into your testimony That are geared at improving the process in 2021 where there's actual data And the first one is pretty basic But something that they haven't done in the past which is hold a public hearing On their maps after they draw the map. So the leader of the committee typically will be the one who draws up the map proposal and introduces it But because session is already underway in the past they've just gone through committee without actually having a public hearing on their proposed maps So for instance if they draw the map and don't release it and just pass it through There's no chance for anybody to analyze it to go in and say You didn't listen to us. You are splitting up our communities of interest You're drawing these districts to disenfranchise minority groups And there's no way to get that into the record or to make a stir about it at the legislature So the first recommendation is to hold a public hearing with public testimony On proposed maps after they've been drawn and to provide adequate notice to the public about the hearing And one thing we're hoping to do also is over the course of the next year is build more tools so that we can quickly get the data From their program the red apple program And put it online for people to view themselves So that there will be notice and some opportunity and chance for the public to look at the maps and Say if they're angry about any aspects of it and then show up at the legislature And make that known And then the next recommendation is to at these hearings Provide the public with enough time and enough resources if they do Want to go in there and look at their own district and say why they think it's messed up To go in and show how it could have been drawn better Because for any there to be any problems with the map you have to show that there was some Solution that would have been more fair or wouldn't have Discriminated based on race So we want them to give folks enough time to do so Then the next recommendation As so as part of any bill they attach an analysis of that bill And oftentimes these are very simple and cursory and it just sort of restates what the bill does So we're asking them for the map bill, which is what will ultimately be what becomes the maps that they Have a beefed up analysis and actually explain The process that they use to create the maps and if there's anything for instance the precinct splits Or they split up counties That anything that deviates from these traditional redistricting principles that are generally held to be good practice That they explain why they did that in the bill analysis And that they also include in the bill analysis A an analysis of the effects of their proposed maps On the ability of a historically disenfranchised groups to elect candidates and this is important because Ultimately the whole legislator Legislature is voting on these maps But typically in the past it has been this back room process where it's just the leaders But you have to be able to show that the whole legislature understood If there's going to be a discriminatory effect that they were aware of that when they voted on it You know if you're going to challenge it in court and just for the general purpose of advocating against that for the remainder of the legislative session Then the next recommendation is to not look at the partisan data in the first place So they can't hide behind it and say we were just doing this For partisan purposes when their real intent, you know as mr. Garza was saying Back when it was democrats in power. They were still Discriminating against minorities and now the partisan aspect has sort of changed so they can try to Try and do try to hide behind that as an excuse And we don't want them distorting things for partisan or racial purposes So it's simplified if they don't look at the partisan data in the first place And the last aspect I touched on this earlier But is to waive their legislative privilege on Any communications dealing with map drawing and the proposed bill that becomes the map So that media can have access to this public can have access to this and given the history of discrimination You know, it seems pretty reasonable that we would not want them to hide their communications on this important issue And so uh attached to this also there's a couple of Testimony drafts that I just put together You know general ideas on how you might be able to tie something your personal story into it and then sort of incorporate these recommendations Yes Yes, and I mean there is that technology out there I could find some links for the current maps But again, that's why we want them to have This public hearing on the actual maps because We are able once the data comes out organizations are able to quickly draw maps that do comply with the voting rights act And are fair And we want to be able to compare those maps in a public setting Well, and this is another thing, you know, like it for instance in this first sample testimony. It's not You can testify about the overall impact that the gerrymandering has on the makeup of the legislature as the whole or and You know, because it's not just you might be happy with your representatives But they split up, you know to make that district 35. They've split up travis county into six districts So excuse the overall makeup of the legislature And you don't necessarily have to Get into a detail about how you would have preferred that particular district to be drawn You can You know talk about your community and talk about generally how the process has been unbearable Deficient in the past and how you want to see it change this next time For this field hearing they haven't put a limit. I think They might put a limit. I mean, hopefully there'll be robust attendance at these and You know, it'll be a packed room. They might put a three minute to five minute limit something like that if it's a lot of people there All you can look at is the current maps. They can't Draw the new maps yet. So there's nothing to look at yet for And yeah, and if you want to talk about your own particular community that you want kept together in the next cycle Yeah, or actually, I think you have your hand up It is Do you have the Hand out. Yeah, Port Antonio. It's on the southwest side of town Yeah, the old kelly or air force base Yeah, yeah, absolutely and That's why so like this first testimony draft I tried to Sort of do that and the second one, you know, is another example of If you can talk about your personal experience and general problems with the process And then I think the league has their own Draft and I put one in here if you did have a specific issue on your community So the house redistricting committee Which is uh, I believe it's a 15 member body Probably yeah, probably not Yes Yeah Yeah, I'm we've been talking to some of them and I'm hopeful that they will be because I think that would be Yeah, for sure. Even you can Yeah, absolutely. Yeah Yeah, definitely Yeah, and your city council or something. Yes. Oh, okay when one The the texas house redistricting committee if you google that it should link you straight to it And inna minharas and lia larson are the two san Antonio area representatives One thing that you could say when you go to this hearing the chairman of the the committee is phil king He's also the former chairman of alex the american legislative exchange council. I'm glad you guys know who they are So at their recent conference they had two weeks ago in austin one of their presenters was telling Advising them to destroy your emails at the end of the day if you don't want it to come up in discovery and future litigation So you can go there and say I want you to have an honest process. I don't want you destroying your emails You can just call them out on that for stuff that you know that they're going to be doing behind our backs That really destroys our democratic system of government If they're doing that on the redistricting committee, who's to say they're not doing it on other committees as well We need to hold them to a higher standard And so inna a few weeks we're going to be launching our own counter campaign an open and honest Redistricting campaign because that's what we need to be shooting for not telling people to destroy emails I'm not sure but we can help you find out. Yeah, I can try to post notice of that And there's also going to be translated translators available. You just have to give them public notice Um a three days in advance, but I can help you find it on the committee's website or their page at least and definitely if if you have you know feel free to Email me or stephanie my email is a Joaquin at texas civil rights project But if you know that you have like a presentation that's a bit longer We can also try to talk to a member of the committee and they can always just ask your question or ask you to You know, finish a presentation or something like that Yeah, we're the fair I want to give credit to the fair maps texas coalition. So I got together with common cause who al kaufman's wife is on their board At any rate common cause and the legal women voters got together. I guess it was two and a half years ago now and Put together this fair maps texas coalition But we also have the texas civil rights project the aclu clean elections texas common ground for texas texas progressive extra network But we are a collective hive mind Trying to improve this process together So I think we have to go sorry I think the room is um, we only have it until 12 30. So I think we need to close up If you have any other questions, so you can feel free to come up and ask Thank you all. Thank you, Stephanie and For putting this together if you have any questions Feel free to even send an email to the league of men voters of san antonio And I'll forward the email to the appropriate person to get your answers and thank you all for coming