FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 31, 2025
CONTACT: Nicole Hill, press@texasaft.org
Statement from Texas AFT President Zeph Capo on House Bill 4 and the proposed set of new congressional districts released this week:
“We as Texans have let this state’s so-called ‘leaders’ divide us along party lines for too long. Tearing up districts on a president’s whim – and on taxpayers’ dimes, no less – isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue. It’s an attack by cynical politicians on the everyday people who actually make this state great.
There is no way to spin this new map that can hide the truth: this redistricting scheme suppresses the votes of Black and Brown Texans, the very people who have fueled most of our state’s population growth over the past decade.
Make no mistake, this farce hurts us all. Greg Abbott is following the same playbook as he did with his private school voucher quest. When he couldn’t force through his deeply unpopular scam for the wealthy, he bought himself a Legislature. And when even that hand-picked Legislature looked like it might thwart him, he called in this president to bail him out. Now, it seems the president has come to collect on the debt. But it’s not Greg Abbott paying it; the cost comes for working Texans who will lose even more voice in the decisions made about their lives.
This moment isn’t about which side of the aisle you’re on. Instead, it’s time we all take a hard look at who’s on our side.”
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The Texas American Federation of Teachers represents 66,000 teachers, paraprofessionals, support personnel, and higher-education employees across the state. Texas AFT is affiliated with the 1.8-million-member American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO.
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