WCPT 820 Interview: Texas State Rep. Trey Martinez-Fischer

Edwin Eisendrath is joined by Texas Democratic State Rep. Trey Martinez-Fischer.

"We are not a Republican state; we're a non-voting state," Martinez-Fischer told WCPT, offering a "Texas 101" primer on state legislative politics and President Donald Trump's mid-decade congressional redistricting scheme that Texas is trying to become the first state to adopt. 

"We have the largest African American population in the country. We have the second largest Latino population in the country. We are a majority minority state, when you combine African Americans, Latinos and Asians, but we are governed by very extreme Republicans that have perfected the art of stacking, packing and cracking communities of color so that they will never have a voice. 

"So, hey, there's a big sports town in Chicago. I happen to like the Bears as well. Why would the Chicago Bears ever take the field if they knew the game had been engineered for them to lose? Who would want to play that game? That's what they're doing here in Congress. They are, with mathematical precision, determining political outcomes before there's a single vote cast, and that's what Donald Trump wants. He is doing lousy right now in the polls. The midterms are going to be a wreck, and the U.S. House of Representatives has a really good chance of going back to the Democrats. So Trump picked up the phone, called [Republican Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott and said, my friend, I need you to bend the knee and draw me five Republican congressional districts right now."

Martinez-Fischer called the effort "extreme gerrymandering. This is 'the hell with the voters; we know better.' These politicians will pick the voters, instead of the other way around. This isn't about a fair and square election anymore. This is about engineering outcomes. And just think about how much technology you have on your smartphone right now, and all the things you can do that you could never have done before in the 1980s. Well, when it comes to voting and drawing districts, the technology has moved at an incredible speed. They know everything about you."

He added: "This President is not the commander-in-chief anymore. He is what I've been calling the commander in cheat." 

Catch “The Big Picture with Edwin Eisendrath” Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/the-big-picture).   

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