Healey, a Democrat, offered her support to the Texas lawmakers but also ruled out pushing for redistricting in Massachusetts.
At a news conference in the Massachusetts state House, Healey, flanked by two Texas representatives and eight senators, called Texas Republicans’ efforts to push ahead with mid-decade redistricting a “partisan, craven, political power-grab attempt” by Trump, Gov. Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton. She added that the GOP move was meant to “further an agenda that’s about protecting them and their power.”
Healey offered her “support” to the lawmakers who left Texas, though she ruled out helping fund the fines they’ll incur as a result of abandoning the in-session Legislature.
And unlike her Democratic counterparts in New York and California — Govs. Kathy Hochul and Gavin Newsom, respectively, who’ve said they’d move forward with efforts that would allow their blue states to possibly also conduct mid-decade redistricting — Healey said she’d let Massachusetts’ existing congressional maps stand.
“We’re going to follow the rules. We just went through a customary and orderly process just a few years age,” she said.
Massachusetts, following the process that is typical in most states, redrew its congressional maps in 2021, after the 2020 census. The redistricting process in most states occurs at the start of each new decade, when new census data is available.
“We just did that,” Healey said. “The Massachusetts maps, in my view, are fair. They were drawn after a robust process and signed into law by a Republican — Gov. Charlie Baker.”
Meanwhile, Texas state Rep. Ana Hernandez, who, like her House colleagues, has been threatened by Texas Republicans with arrest and expulsion, told reporters that when it came to those threats, “that is not what we’re concerned about.”
“When we left, it was to make sure that our constituents have a voice, because that’s what this process is doing, it’s silencing our constituents,” she said.
