Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilders Show taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton, and special guests, our good friend, Senator Phil King from Texas, hot off the special session. Well, I guess the special that she was going Phil, but you guys got the redistricting bill passed. So a lot of people around the country have been paying attention to the news of the fleeing Democrats running off, hiding in places all over the country but looks like the task has been done and we thought it'd be great to have you on to get caught up on what happened. 

Senator Phil King [00:00:44] Yeah, it was a interesting, interesting experience. 

Rick Green [00:00:51] That's a very neutral way to say that, brother. 

Senator Phil King [00:00:55] Yeah, I started to go with bizarre, but, but we'll stick with interesting. 

Rick Green [00:00:59] Well, we've been talking about a lot of the program, even just the constitutional perspective and the historical perspective and all those things, but I guess we should start with just the results. So is it done now? I mean, is the house and the Senate now passed the same bill when it's headed to the governor? 

Senator Phil King [00:01:17] Yes, so we've got a redistricting plan out, it's headed to the governor's desk, it should be there, oh, today, and he'll sign it immediately, I think, and it'll be in effect for the next election cycle. 

David Barton [00:01:37] And hey, and just everybody knows to redistricting. This is based on the census that happens every 10 years by the constitution. You take the population state, you break, there is a set number that's recalculated every 10 year, what's the population of America? You get 435 representatives in Congress. You take. The total population, you divide it by 435 and you say, okay, we've got to have 790,000 or have room in a district. And then within the state, you just kind of see which seven hundred and ninety thousand or however many it is goes into that district. And so what Texas is doing is taking the way that the results have gone in the twenty twenty four election and say based on that, here's the way we can create districts to elect congressmen. And the bottom line is it looks like Texas by doing that has come out with an additional five districts or not additional. They got the same number of districts, but they'll have five districts that went Democrat that would now go Republican based on the way the voting went. And it's got the same constitutional requirements of how many in each district and all this is gonna have to be cleared by the courts, the Voting Rights Act, et cetera. But the bottom line is that redistricting now, which is there's not many states doing it, but there's gonna be a bunch doing it now, has really kind of changed the way it may look in Congress for the next session coming up in the next election. 

Senator Phil King [00:03:00] So you're right, David, after each census, they do what they call reapportionment, which is they just divide the total population of the country into the number of members in the U.S. House, and then they assign those to the states based on the state's census population. So Texas has the second highest number of congressional members. We have 38 and currently 25 are elected as Republicans and 13 are elected as Democrats. This map, and believe me, nothing's a guarantee, because these are competitive districts. And incumbents have an interesting advantage in every race. But five of these districts in the new map now lean Republican, and so we have a great chance of going from 25 Republicans to 30. And let me tell you why that's important. In the midterms, first off, we all know the Biden administration was devastating for the United States and since Trump's been in office and we've had a Republican Congress and Senate, we've been seeing amazing things happen and we're only, what, eight months into it. But after the mid-terms, traditionally, presidents lose, incumbent presidents lose seats in their party in Congress in the midterm. What's going to happen now is if, and we've got a very narrow majority in the US Congress for Republicans, what will happen now, is if we wake up after the next November election, a year from November, and the Republicans in the Congress have a three or four seat majority, then Texas with its five new seats, from my perspective, will have saved America and if other Republican states can kick in and do this too, that majority can even. Be safer and maybe larger. 

Tim Barton [00:05:00] I do think, guys, it's gonna be interesting to see how this all unfolds, because we of course know Gavin Newsom in California is talking about doing this, but now there's multiple other Democrat states, New York, others as well, that are saying they're gonna redistrict as well. And certainly this is a process that states can do. I was gonna say this is the game that can be played. It's not quite a game, because this is a process. That does take place in states. But it is going to be interesting, because as you mentioned in Texas, this is not necessarily a guarantee. Because part of, and please correct me if I'm getting this wrong as we go, Phil. But part of the process is you might look and go, OK, in this district, it votes 70% Republican. And maybe on a close Democrat district, it was 55% that voted Democrat. Well, if we shift... That district a little bit and so then some of that larger percentage that voted Republican that was 70% if we put that down to 60% and move that 10% over and obviously there's a lot of numbers and population of math involved but I say that because as you start doing this Phil you mentioned there's a close percentage that we're playing with to some extent. That it can go either way based on who shows up and turns out and who votes. Well, this is the same thing going on in some of these Democrat states, and I do think this is where it's going to become super interesting because not only is it possible that even though y'all have done the research and the homework and you have done your due diligence to try to make sure that we're not going to lose any Republican seats, we're only gaining them, Democrats are do the same thing, but because the margin now narrows. I think it's going to be interesting to track. There will be some that that margin became closer than it should in some states and whether that's California, New York, hopefully not Texas. There might be some interesting pickups or losses in some of these states because there was enough gerrymandering with some of those lines. I think it will be really interesting to see what happens in other states. And ultimately how that final result comes out, because as, as Phil, you mentioned, we've talked about on the show, generally speaking, the president, whatever political party he is, that party loses seats in Congress in that midterm election. That's just the way it's. It generally has been for most of history and for it to go a different direction could be interesting. Of course, Americans saw how crazy things were under Joe Biden. But then when you balance it out with thinking that in New York City, they might actually elect a socialist. And that's something that most of us never would have thought we'd have come to the place that Americans have been that extreme. So in the midst of us thinking Americans aren't that crazy, I think the majority of Americans aren't, but I do think there's some strongholds where because of really bad education system, because of really good propaganda from different outlets. You know, political media personalities, a lot of people have bought into a lot of really bad narratives, not to take away from, I think the midterm is going to be super interesting as against some of these Democrat states, they start messing with their margins too. It's possible that president Trump could pick up some of these congressional seats from states that we weren't counting on because they shrunk the margin too much. And that's going to be interesting. 

Senator Phil King [00:08:37] I think that's a yes and a no, that the interesting thing is the Democrat states, so many of the blue states, which I didn't really realize till we started looking at this in the last month or two, but so many those blue states have so incredibly aggressively gerrymandered To elect democrats that they a lot of them don't really have very far much like they can't really elect any more Democrats. They've already boxed in all the Republicans the best that they can. And so a lot of those blue states are going to have trouble if they redistrict, creating new Democrat seats. But I will tell you, the red states have not done that as aggressively. And so it is completely legal. It is completely proper. It is completely ethical for those states to go in and look at redistricting. And if they, like Texas, continue to have areas that are growing more and more Republican by being able to align those maps a little bit better, we've got some Republican states that could elect some more Republican congressional members, but it's harder for the D states because they have been so aggressively gerrymandering for decades to elect Democrats. 

David Barton [00:10:03] And I would add it into this too, that while the constitution does say every 10 years of census and Phil, as you pointed out, Congress then does the reapportionment based on how many people and which states get how many. I mean, a state could literally redistrict every two years that they wanted to in every session. There's nothing constitutional on what happens past that. It's, it's literally up to the states. And so I don't think Texas has really done a midterm redistricting like this and forever. Whereas Illinois is required to do one every five years by their state law. So this is really kind of up to the states on what they do 

Senator Phil King [00:10:37] Well, and also, if you go back and look at history, which this show always does, you know, the, the decennial census was put in place in the U.S. Constitution. Well, back then you had, what, four million people in the United States and the population was growing very slowly. There's a really, really good argument to be made that we need to be doing a census every few years so that we know where the population is. We know where the population trends are. And then be doing redistricting more and more often because our population is growing exponentially. 

Rick Green [00:11:10] And and changes more rapidly, too, right Phil? Because of mobility and and and people moving and I and I think I don't have it In front of me, but I think it says within every ten years. So it's not even that it says do this every ten. Years. It says within ever ten years, which I think you're right I think It opens it up to do it do it more often and I'm curious what you're hearing from your colleagues because you're so well connected across the country in these other states Do you think they have time? To do this as well. And I'm thinking red states that haven't squeezed this like the blue states have. Arkansas, Tennessee, there's a bunch of them. 

Senator Phil King [00:11:49] It's going to be hard because obviously, um, uh, you know, people, uh start filing for office for each state is different in Texas will be filing for office in November for the March primaries for the following November midterm election, some states have their primaries later, but, uh if they're going to do it, they need to get after it pretty quickly because it's, I can tell you just from personal experience, it is a fight to get it done. It is totally lawful, totally appropriate to do it, but the D's will come at it with everything they have. 

Rick Green [00:12:26] Or they'll just leave the state when you want one of the two. Or they will just leave the state. All right. Well, as we're going to break, I do need to correct him on something. He said that they, uh, New York might elect a socialist. I just want to say they've elected a lot of socialist him. They just haven't elected an avowed admitted socialist. I know what you meant, but, uh. And then Phil for mayor. Okay. You're right. You're right. And, and Phil, I just got to say on a personal note, brother, I think God had you, you know, right where We needed you at exactly the right time, man. I know if, you know, a few years ago, you had a lot of options for what you might run for or go do next. And, and you, you, know, you decided on the Senate new God was putting you there had probably, you don't have no idea that we'd end up where we are right now with this issue, but you had so much experience with redistricting. Over the last couple of decades, you were exactly the perfect man for this job and, uh, you now we're biased cause you're a friend of ours, but there's just no doubt you were the right guy to do this. And it was just like a cycle. Easy for you for compared to other people so I just think you know I'm thanking God for having you right where he has you right now. 

Senator Phil King [00:13:30] It was an honor to get to carry the bill, but let me tell you, everything we do is a team effort in the Texas Senate and the Texas House, and the Republicans stuck together, the Speaker of the House, the Lieutenant Governor and the Governor worked together well on this. Anytime you do something big, it is always a team effort, and that's what this was. And I bet there's 

Rick Green [00:13:48] There was a lot of hesitation, even on Republicans' part, for what you just said a few minutes ago about, man, there's so little time to get this done. So it was really cool that y'all were able to pull this off. All right, quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to The Wall Public Show. 

Rick Green [00:15:08] Welcome back to the WallBuilder show. Senator Phil King sitting in with us today. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Phil, once again, as we were going through the break just talking about, you know, the right time, being in the right place, and God had you there for this. What do you think in terms of the timing of this now? As you said, the governor will probably sign it today or tomorrow, and then, you know, that'll, the districts will, everybody will start to kind of realign and refile. I know even where... Where I'm living you got you know the congressman was that was there is now running for something else So a bunch of people are getting in I mean the mayhem is about to begin isn't it? 

Senator Phil King [00:15:45] Well, yes. And we've got court battles already started. You know, we're still in, uh, you know, lawfare, I think was born with redistricting, uh because we are still, uh and, and other states, I'm, I'm sure are as well still in litigation from the, uh redistricting that was done in 2021. We actually had our trial on it in Texas just, uh in June. The, the Democrats have already, uh, filed a new lawsuit. On the congressional map they filed it before it's even become law they filed it on friday and so they've already requested a temporary injunction uh... To prohibit the uh... New map from going into place so yes while everybody's looking at it going hey i think i could run there or hey we've got a new republican seat here that somebody might could run for hey i'm a congressman i no longer live in my district which has happened In some cases, too. At the same time, we're going to have a legal battle going on to make sure that we can even use these maps in the upcoming election, and again, people start filing for office in Texas in November. 

David Barton [00:16:58] And I've got to add to that. This is really an interesting time with that battle coming up because the Supreme Court has given some indications that they may look at the way this has been done for the last 50, 60 years. Phil, as you said, this kind of came into redistricting. The constitution says, look, you do this with that regard to race, gender, religion, anything else. And now suddenly we have certain districts that have to be Hispanic, or certain districts have to black, or Somalian, or whatever. And the court has raised some questions, is in a wait a minute. If we're supposed to do this without regard to race, why are we looking at race and the voting rights amendment, everything else? So it literally, if the court goes with where at least some of the voices in the court have raised a question, man, you could look at a totally different remake of America over the next four to six to eight years, if the Court ends up striking down the stuff they've been doing since the 60s and that would, I don't even know how people would approach elections anymore in America because everything is totally different at that point. And you don't have these designated cutout districts that that'll be a whole new ball game for everybody in the country. 

Senator Phil King [00:18:05] Well, and never forget, it was the Republicans who teamed up in 1965, I guess it was, or 64, when the Voting Rights Act was passed. It was the republicans that teamed up with the Johnson administration because the southern Democrats were blocking the Civil Rights Act from passing as well as the Voting rights act. The reason the Votting Rights Act is important is because we do not want Discrimination in elections based on race or minority language status, anything like that. We want it based on, you know, who the candidate is, not the color of their skin or anything like that, and that's what Republicans and conservatives stand for. But the courts have, I believe, taken this way out of context and created a lot of complex and confusing law out of the Voting Rights Act. For any legislators that are listening out there that may be thinking about doing this. Let me tell you, it is really not complex to draw a legal map. Frankly, you just sit down and you redraw that map to align with the political trends in your state. You try to keep communities of interest and use other traditional redistricting criteria to make it a map that holds neighborhoods and communities together in the best way possible. And you draw that in the political fashion in the direction you want to go. And then you turn it over to have someone do a legal scrub and to make sure that it complies with all aspects of the Voting Rights Act, all aspects the Constitution, and any other applicable law. And then if it doesn't, you correct that. And if it does, you've got a legal map and go forward with it. 

Rick Green [00:19:57] I'm so glad, Phil, to hear you say, you know, that the desire to be a race, you know, not to not bring race into it, to not be a racist, literally to not be a racists because, you know, even in the last few years, there's been Supreme Court decisions, I think it was Alabama, I can't remember, where they literally upheld the idea of a map, requiring a map to elect a person of a particular skin color, which is absolutely racist. And, and it's exactly what you just said. Distortion of the voting rights act or maybe even there's problems with language in the voting rights act, but it's just, I hope the trend is moving in the right direction that we're finally going to say that we are at a place in our country where we actually will say it's content of the character, not color of the skin. Like you said, the qualities of the candidate that's running, that are not based on race, that's just hopefully we finally get to that place. 

Senator Phil King [00:20:49] You know, I can't tell you how many times on the floor we had a long, full-day debate that went till really 1:30 in the morning this last week. And I can tell you, how many time the Republicans and myself were referred to as racist, that this is all about racism. And I finally, in my closing remarks, I said, guys, this has nothing to do with race. This has everything to do policy. And the fact of the matter is that if we lose the US House of Representatives in the midterms, then the next two years are gonna be nothing but inquisitions and impeachments and incredible embarrassment worldwide to our country. It will be like it was before during the Biden administration because the liberals, the far left will hold that house. And it's policy that we're shooting for and we wanna keep that Republican majority. So we continue to get all these great advancements. And that's really what we were trying to do in the redistricting here. We weren't trying to affect, I mean, I don't know who's gonna run for those offices. I don't know if they're gonna be white or black. I don't know if their gonna be Hispanic. I don's know if there gonna be male or female incumbents or challengers. But what I know is we've created five new districts that trend Republican where before they trended Democrat. And we did that based on the historic election data, and Texas has been trending more and more red in recent elections. 

Tim Barton [00:22:19] Well, it reminds me of something we, every morning at wall builders, we have staffed egos, I am wearing the book of Deuteronomy right now, and we just read in Deuteroomy where it talked about for the judges, the political leaders, they're not supposed to show partiality or favoritism in what they're doing. And it was representing the poor that you don't show a favoritist and partiality and judgment. What's interesting is you can show favoritists and partiality. In a negative or a positive sense that I'm going to, I'm going to grant you something because you're poor or I'm not going to grand you something that you're for. And the Bible says, no, don't get involved in that. Just give justice. And one of the things that certainly has been brought up it's interesting is a lot of what has happened since the civil rights bills were passed, that there's there's been a little bit of an inversion where Contrary to what MLK Jr. Said, if his dream was one day his children would be viewed not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, we've moved to a place in many areas of modern America that people are being elevated because of the color of the skin instead of the content of the character. And I think one more interesting thing to include in this conversation, and I know we're running low on time, but President Trump has come out and talked about one of the things he thinks is incorrect in the census data is the fact that it estimates there's at least 20 million illegal immigrants in America, on top of the fact there's more than 50 million living legal immigrants in American. There's a lot of different ideas that have come in and because we've done such a bad job of assimilation, not everybody understands kind of the core values and principles of what America was built on, what made America special and great. But even backing up, when you look, for example, at California, what they've done in their election system, they have removed what would, in my mind, would be some pretty basic common sense laws. To the extent of they're allowing these illegal migrants to get driver's licenses to vote in local elections, which I think President Trump has also said, we're gonna make sure that illegals can't vote in these federal elections. And the reason he says that is because in some of these states, they're are allowing non citizens to vote and some of the local elections which seems crazy. But will be another interesting facet as it unfolds with even some of the census thought. The Constitution doesn't specify that you only count U.S. Citizens, but also the idea that we have a wide-open border with no accountability under my administration, it certainly does have an impact on some of this analysis and census data. 

Senator Phil King [00:25:04] This battle isn't over yet in Texas. We still have the courts involved. Uh, we'll see what they do. Uh, Democrats are very good on these cases. They've got a lot of experience. Like I said, we're still in litigation from 2021. And before that, before that we were still in the litigation from the census, 10 years before they just, it just kind of never goes away. So we'll, see what happens, but if this map is held up, and I think it will be because it is a legal map in every respect. If it is held up, then Texas may be able to elect five additional Republicans, but it's going to be reflecting the voting trends that are taking place in the state of Texas. It's not a gerrymander per se. What it's doing is reflecting the voting trends we've seen as Texas has gone more and more red in recent years. 

Rick Green [00:25:55] Senator Phil King, uh, Phil, so thankful for you, man. Thanks for updating us a lot to keep an eye on here for, in terms of the ongoing battle in Texas. And then of course, the potential of, of other states doing the same thing. And then the impact that this could have. And like you were saying, Phil. I mean, this could literally save the country if it keeps the majority in the, in the house and also just make bills less bad because you know, three vote majority goes to even eight or nine or 10. You have to take on less junk to get a bill passed. So it's just every little margin matters. Every every one of these districts and races matter and so just so thankful that you guys have persevered and and won this battle in the war and appreciate what you're doing there in the Texas Senate. Thanks to Senator Phil King for joining us today. You've been listening to David Barton, Tim Parton, Rick Green and The WallBuilders Show.