Dec. 4 Supreme Court ruling<\/a> that upheld Texas\u2019 mid-census redistricting plan, Johnson is staying in the race despite the new maps.<\/p>\n\u201cI filed to run for election in the new Congressional District 33, in Dallas,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
The district is currently represented by fellow Democrat Rep. Marc Veasey. Johnson\u2019s filing comes after months of legal battles, protests and political maneuvering to stop Texas Republicans are pushing to redraw congressional boundaries in a push to gain five additional U.S. House seats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas Democrats attempted to block the effort by boycotting the session in Austin to prevent the GOP\u2019s redistricting vote. They along with voting rights groups also sued, and initially won, arguing the map amounted to racial gerrymandering that diluted the voting power of Black and Hispanic voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The victory was short-lived after the Supreme Court reversed the lower court\u2019s ruling and allowed the new map to move forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m really disappointed in what the Supreme Court did. I think their decision is wrong,” Johnson said. “But, you know, we have to live with it and move on.”<\/p>\n
Attorney and political law expert Andrew Cates has followed the redistricting fight closely.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will openly say I don’t think race had anything to do with it. It was very clearly party supremacy as the end goal,\u201d Cates said,” I’m a Democrat myself.”<\/p>\n
Cates is a Texas political attorney and lobbyist who owns Cates Legal Group PLLC, where he advises political campaigns, PACs, nonprofits, and others on election, ethics and lobbying law. He is the author of Texas Ethics Laws Annotated, is board-certified in Legislative and Campaign Law, and has previously served in government affairs roles with the Texas Nurses Association and the Texas Association of Realtors.<\/p>\n
Cates believes the ruling leaves Democratic candidates across the state scrambling ahead of Monday\u2019s filing deadline.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody needing to move districts and, refile or file for a different race,\u201d Cates said.<\/p>\n
He is now watching what happens next for Veasey and Rep. Jasmine Crockett, both directly affected by the new political boundaries.<\/p>\n
Johnson says that the stakes for all voters could not be higher. She is confident that her record speaks for itself, both with voters and with her republican counterparts, with whom she has established non-partisan relationships over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet engaged. Recognize that politics does affect you,\u201d Julie Johnson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cGet engaged. Recognize that politics does affect you,\u201d Johnson said. DALLAS COUNTY, Texas \u2014 U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-78005","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-plano","9":"tag-plano-headlines","10":"tag-plano-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}