Texas state Rep. Chris Turner holds a map as he asks questions during a public hearing on congressional redistricting in Austin, Texas, Friday, Aug. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Last week, Texas state Rep. Chris Turner (D-Grand Prairie) spoke with WCPT’s Patti Vasquez about the ongoing chaos in his state as Republicans try to gerrymander the state in favor of them.

Speaking from an undisclosed location on Aug. 6 as Republicans try to arrest him for helping to block the state’s redistricting scheme, Turner said his Republican colleagues have assimilated under President Donald Trump’s “cult.”

“Really since Trump came on the scene about 10 years ago, the Republican Party has just become a cult, and he is the cult leader,” Turner said. “And it doesn’t matter how bad his ideas are, how extreme they are, how much they break the norms and test the boundaries; these guys just follow him, and they’re too afraid to stand up to him and to say no.”

Texas Republican leaders like Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) are trying to instill a new congressional map just four years after the last one was passed in order to give themselves five more projected U.S. House seats. Seeing it as splitting up communities of color in a ploy to give Trump a Republican-controlled Congress after the midterm elections, over 50 Democratic lawmakers have fled the state to deny quorum and therefore passage of a new map.

“People are sick of the chaos and the destructive policies that are coming out of the Trump administration,” Turner said. “But that’s exactly why he’s doing what he’s doing in Texas, with this redistricting effort, because he knows his policies are unpopular, so he’s taking extreme measures to try to artificially protect a narrow Republican majority in Congress.”

Below is the full transcript of the interview. (Please note: The transcript has been edited for clarity.)

Patti Vasquez: I am so excited to have our next guest on the show. But beyond being excited, I am grateful that Democrats like him are taking the stand and drawing the line and saying no to fascism, as Donald Trump tries to roll over democracy.

State Rep. Chris Turner, who has served Tarrant County in the Texas Legislature for six terms, representing parts of Arlington and Grand Prairie — sir, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. How are you doing tonight?

State Rep. Chris Turner: I’m doing great. Thank you for having me. It’s great to be in northern Illinois.

Patti Vasquez: (Laughs.) Well, welcome, and we will keep any other information undisclosed, because apparently there’s a warrant for your arrest, which has to be surreal to you.

State Rep. Chris Turner: (Laughs.)

Patti Vasquez: First of all, you have been in the state legislature for six terms. Have you seen this slow slog toward this moment in history?

State Rep. Chris Turner: Yeah. It really has evolved, or devolved, I should say, over time. Really since Trump came on the scene about 10 years ago, the Republican Party has just become a cult, and he is the cult leader. And it doesn’t matter how bad his ideas are, how extreme they are, how much they break the norms and test the boundaries; these guys just follow him, and they’re too afraid to stand up to him and to say no. And that’s why we’re in this situation we’re in right now in Texas.

Patti Vasquez: It’s truly gobsmacking.

Let’s talk about why he is doing this and why he is trying to redistrict Texas to lean so heavily toward him and toward Republicans.

State Rep. Chris Turner: So there a couple things that are important to know. The U.S. House of Representatives is very close right now. It’s the closest margin since the 1930s and Trump’s very mindful of that. He’s very mindful, no doubt, of the shellacking he took in 2018, in his first midterm election, and given the unpopularity of his policies. So far this year, he’s no doubt afraid of a similar outcome in 2026. So that’s set the table for this crisis that we’re in in Texas.

But what’s really insidious, beyond just his desire to have a Congress that’s compliant to him and is not going to hold him accountable or ask any tough questions. The way they’re going about this in Texas is to identify and intentionally dismantle several majority minority congressional districts in which voters of color have repeatedly demonstrated the ability and the power to elect the candidates of their choice. And they are ripping apart, they’re trying to rip apart, congressional districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that I represent, in Houston, in the Austin, San Antonio area, and in south Texas. And it’s absolutely illegal. It is a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but we know they’re trying to test that as well and ultimately overturn the Voting Rights Act. So the stakes here are very, very high.

Patti Vasquez: Are there any Republicans that you’ve had conversation with, or can you tell us that they’re like, hey, this is just the way our caucus is going; we have to do this. Is there any Republican in private that will say this is nuts?

State Rep. Chris Turner: Yes, some Republican members will certainly say that, and have said that. But they fully acknowledge that the stranglehold that Trump has on their party, they believe, leaves them no choice. And that’s really sad because it’s important that any of us, as elected officials, be we Democrats, Republicans, whatever, that we’re willing to say something’s a bad idea and bad for our constituents and bad for our state when it is, even if that means taking on someone from our own party if they thought it was bad for Texas. But we’re not at that point anymore.

Patti Vasquez: Are your constituents, and perhaps you know about constituents around the state — one, are they starting to feel the impacts of the policies of Donald Trump and reacting the way you would think people who are being squeezed would?

State Rep. Chris Turner: I believe so, yes. I think with the passage of the big, ugly bill last month people are genuinely starting to feel the real negative impacts in terms of losing health care access, whether that’s the cuts to the Affordable Care Act and Health Insurance Marketplace, whether that’s cuts to Medicaid, cuts to food assistance programs, nutrition assistance programs, and a myriad of other programs that help people in Texas, just as they do across the country. And I think people are starting to see that.

Additionally, I think they’re starting to see — they have been seeing just the sheer dysfunction, once again, of a Trump presidency. He promised he’d bring down prices. Prices haven’t come down. And you see the chaos in his foreign policy, these ICE raids that are happening across the country, where they’re ripping families apart. But people are sick of the chaos and the destructive policies that are coming out of the Trump administration. But that’s exactly why he’s doing what he’s doing in Texas, with this redistricting effort, because he knows his policies are unpopular, so he’s taking extreme measures to try to artificially protect a narrow Republican majority in Congress.

Patti Vasquez: There are people who say, ‘Well, look at Illinois; they gerrymander their state.’ Look, I know we have a supermajority in our chambers. And the thing is that we do it every 10 years. Tell people why this is so freaking different.

State Rep. Chris Turner: Yeah, that’s a great point. Redistricting is a necessary process. It is supposed to happen every 10 years, after each census is done, and that’s because district populations are supposed to be equalized and people move, people are born, people pass away, and populations change within boundaries, and so you readjust every 10 years to equalize the populations. A mid-decade redistricting, like what’s happening in Texas, is based on census data that’s now five years old, so we’re not going to have equalized districts, if they go through with this, and it’s incredibly disruptive to the electoral process and to people’s representation, when your member of Congress can change on a whim just because a president orders a state to redraw its districts. And so, there’s a real element of chaos to what they’re trying to do in Texas right now.

Patti Vasquez: Well, I know I’ve watched some videos of folks that have tried to testify, have spent hours first driving to the state capitol in Austin, others who have been waiting hours to try to speak and then being cut off. Tell us a little about this process and how it’s been rolled out.

State Rep. Chris Turner: Yeah. The process has been a complete sham from the beginning. So the Republicans in the Texas House, what they did was they scheduled three public hearings, one in Austin, one in Arlington — the area that I represent, in north Texas — and one in Houston. And you’re right. We had hundreds — thousands, actually, of Texans come out to make their voices heard. Ninety-nine percent — and I’m not exaggerating — 99% of the people were opposed to this mid-decade redistricting. But what the Republicans did is they held the hearings before they introduced their map, so people didn’t know exactly what they were testifying on. They were still against it, but they hid the ball; they didn’t show people the map, and they claimed they didn’t have a map.

And then, lo and behold, less than 36 hours after that final hearing, they roll out the map. They rush it through the process. We had another final committee hearing last Friday in Austin — same thing, hundreds of people came out, virtually all in opposition to the map. Republicans ignored the testimony, ignored what the people were saying, and passed the map out of committee, hastily called hearing a meeting Saturday morning at 9 a.m., and then accelerated its movement to the full house, and it was scheduled to be on the House floor [on Aug. 4], which is why we made the decision to leave the state on Sunday evening.

Patti Vasquez: Man, I, again, want to express our gratitude, not only for this conversation, but entirely for the work that you are all doing. I know we’ve used the word fled, but you are digging in.

Before we let you go — and again, we’re grateful for your time — what would you like everyone listening to know about this moment in history?

State Rep. Chris Turner: Yeah. Well, what I think is important for everyone to know, everyone in the United States of America, is that Donald Trump is steadily and surely trying to dismantle our democratic institutions, and this is one more front in that war. It’s a really big front in that war. But we are in real danger of losing the safeguards in our country that make us the oldest and strongest democracy in the world, and Donald Trump has no regard for democratic norms, democratic principles. He wants to be a dictator, and he is taking dictatorial actions, and then unfortunately, we got people like [Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott who are happy just to follow him along and go along with it.

So, it’s important that every American realize this fight affects them, because it affects the control of the Congress, and it affects the ability to have free and fair elections where people actually get to choose who represents them in our nation’s capital.

Patti Vasquez: Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and the work that you’re doing. Please tell your colleagues that we are also grateful for them, and this is a good radio show to do. We’re one of less than 100 progressive stations in the country that has these conversations anywhere, really, against 1,500 conservative and 700 religious stations. So I would love to have you back when time allows, and tell them that they can come on too. We’d love to hear from all of you.

State Rep. Chris Turner: I will do that. And thank you so much for what you do and spreading the word about what’s really happening to your audience. So thank you very much for having me today.

Patti Vasquez: Thank you. And welcome to Illinois. I know it’s not quite the same. I do love Texas, by the way. I really do. The food, the people, everything.

State Rep. Chris Turner: Come visit us. Come visit us sometime.

Patti Vasquez: Oh, I do. I get out there, believe me. I will talk to you again soon, sir. Take care. Take care of yourself.

State Rep. Chris Turner: Thanks a lot. You too. Take care.