CONGRESSMAN VICENTE GONZALEZ SUBMITS TESTIMONY TO TEXAS REDISTRICTING COMMITTEES: “NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY HAVE WE SEEN THE GOVERNOR OF TEXAS BOW DOWN TO A NEW YORKER”

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS — Today, Congressman Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34) submitted written testimony to both the Texas Senate and Texas House Redistricting Committees demanding that both bodies host an in-person redistricting field hearing in South Texas.  

Congressman Gonzalez is fighting to ensure that South Texas voices are heard as the committees hear from Texans in other parts of the state as part of the ongoing redistricting process.  

The full testimony is as follows: 

Chairman King and Chairman Vasut:  

As the United States Congressman proudly serving the 34th Congressional District of Texas, I write to convey my written testimony to this committee. First and foremost, I would like to assure that the record reflects the following: never in the history of our country have we seen the Governor of Texas bow down to a New Yorker. Gone are the days of tenacious and fiercely independent leadership in the Lone Star State.    

I am ashamed to see such a blatant attempt to sell out Texans and shut out key communities – like my own in the Rio Grande Valley - from the process. Our community is strong, and we deserve to be properly represented during both this process and in Congress. I wrote to you all just a few days ago urging you to schedule a field hearing – in-person, not virtual – in the Rio Grande Valley, where all of our citizens have the opportunity to participate if they so choose.  

My district is a hardworking and rapidly growing community of over 778,000 South Texans. It is home to SpaceX’s Starbase, two liquefied natural gas facilities, and the Port of Brownsville, the only deepwater port on the United States – Mexico Border, not to mention a multitude of land ports of entry that are economic drivers on not just the state scale, but on the international scale. 

 With all that we have to offer, our region finds it wholly unacceptable and disgusting that metropolitan areas such as Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth (Arlington), and Austin  are afforded hearings for their populations, but the Rio Grande Valley, an entire region of the state, won’t have a physical hearing before our legislature decides to cheat the system and silence our voice. I am not asking for you to move heaven and earth, we are only asking for the Rio Grande Valley have the same opportunity as people in other parts of Texas – not have to travel hundreds of miles to do so.  

Therefore, I urge the Texas House and/or Senate Select Committees on Congressional Redistricting to hold an official and in-person field hearing in the Rio Grande Valley that is accessible to all voters in our region. I remind the committees that the voters of Texas are watching closely, and they will remember this on election day. We will not be silenced. 

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