Texas is in the middle of what one lawmaker called a “redistricting war,” and the voices from Houston made clear what’s at stake. At a virtual briefing on Aug. 14, State Representative Gene Wu, civil rights attorneys, and local activists warned that the Legislature’s proposed maps could silence Black, Latino, and Asian voters for the next decade.

Wu, speaking virtually on a Houston Community Media news briefing after he and dozens of Democratic colleagues broke quorum earlier this month, said the effort is nothing short of cheating. “Gerrymandering and redistricting, all that stuff, I understand, is very complicated,” Wu said. “And you don’t need to understand it completely to understand people are trying to cheat.”

He accused Republicans of rewriting the rules for partisan advantage. “What they’re trying to do is rewrite the rules in the middle of the game, because they know that they’re going to lose,” he said. Pointing to demographic data, Wu asked, “After the 2020 census… 96% of the growth was Black, Latino, [and] Asian. But the two new congressional district seats that were created were majority white. How did that happen?”

The consequences, Wu said, would be devastating. “If the Republicans go through with this… your voice carries only one-fifth the power of a white vote,” he warned. “Our people will die… if we can’t ask for services, we can’t ask for support. Money doesn’t come, people die.”

Carla Maradiaga, a voting rights attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, described what she saw at a Houston hearing on the maps. “We had almost 1,000 people register to speak… The testimony lasted all day… People were very concerned on the ground,” she said. But she criticized the lack of transparency: “This process… should be transparent… At these hearings, the maps had not been released.”

For Maradiaga, the issue cuts to the core of accountability. “When you rig the maps… representatives choose their voters… they are not accountable to us, and that basically turns our democracy upside down,” she said. She added that her organization had already filed a lawsuit in Tarrant County, where a majority-minority district was dismantled.

Melissa Allala, a resident of Congressional District 29 and a former census worker, said her community has already been carved apart. “Congressional District 29… currently… looks like an elongated backwards C… The new redrawn map actually creates… a box… and you can absolutely tell that there are very significant portions of it… intentionally left off,” she explained. “It still favors Republicans.”

As a longtime organizer, Allala urged her neighbors to stay engaged despite daily struggles. “I’m so glad I’m representing myself, but I hope this lights a fire under everyone’s ass… to stay involved… to actually be involved… to know what’s on the table—and to know that you’re also on the menu.”

Carmela Walker, with the Houston Area Urban League, warned that the fight goes beyond partisanship. “The stakes are high because we know that minority communities are going to have their voices muted,” she said. “No one’s coming to save us. We’re going to have to save ourselves.”

Walker stressed that a healthy democracy depends on accountability. “A healthy democratic process requires elected officials to compete for votes, and not manipulate boundaries or guaranteed outcomes,” she said. “People from diverse backgrounds have a common cause, and we can do this together as one.”

By the end of the briefing, the speakers had sharpened their message: the battle over redistricting is not just about drawing lines on a map. As Wu put it, “If there’s any hope of us making America better… we have to have the power to actually change the future… If they are allowed to do this… It is game over. The end. That’s it.”