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San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro is crying foul after he was cut out of his home congressional district.
“The Republican legislature is tearing up the 20th Congressional District, changing a lot of the neighborhoods, and they were specifically targeting me," he said.
The Democrat, who has represented much of San Antonio since 2013, said the move is part of the Republican plan to suddenly redistrict the Texas congressional map.
President Donald Trump has publicly said he wants five more Republican members of Congress coming from Texas after redistricting. Those five additional GOP seats could decide which party has the majority in Congress after the 2026 midterm election. Historically the party that controls the White House loses congressional seats in the midterms.
Texas currently has 38 seats in Congress, with 25 of the seats held by Republicans.
Castro said under the proposed redistricting map, multiple Texas Democratic members of Congress are being surgically cut out of their home districts.
Castro said he and Representative Jasmine Crockett, who represents much of Dallas, and other Democratic members of Congress are seeing their districts redrawn with their homes outside of the districts that they represent. And he said this is no accident.
“My office got a call from the Texas Legislative Council shortly before we saw those first maps, and they asked me to verify my home address. And then when I saw the map, my home was about a half mile outside of the boundary for the 20th Congressional District that I now represent,” he said.
Members of Congress are not required to live inside the district that they represent; however, not living in their own district can be a liability when campaigning for office.
