Greetings, everyone. I'm Monique Presley. Welcome to The Week with Monique. This is that time where we take that one thing, maybe two, that out of all the things that could be capturing your attention in the week, we want you to pay close attention to these and not just pay attention to them but do something about them.

This week I want to highlight and talk to you about my home state, the Lone Star State, Texas.

A place that you may not know was once blue and I would argue is still politically blue

non-voting. One of the reasons non-voting is apathy, obviously, but a second reason is because of the

active, active will of those in power to keep others from voting

through voter oppression, voter suppression, gerrymandering, and frankly breaking the law.

We're seeing more of that play out recently

and it's all gonna come to a head starting next week.

So I want you to be informed and prepared to take action.

On July 7th, just a few days ago, Hermit Dillon, who's the Assistant Attorney

General of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, reminder, this was the

division that in prior administrations, including most recently where it was headed by our dear

sister, Kristen Clark.

This is where they did things to ensure that civil rights laws were enforced and to punish those

who did not enforce them.

But now it's led by Hermit Dillon and he sent a letter to Texas Governor Greg Abbott and to Attorney General Texas Ken Paxton on July 7th in which he expressed the DOJ's concern regarding the constitutionality of four Texas congressional districts.

It's Texas 9, Texas 18, Texas 29, and Texas 33. The letter

alleges these districts are quote-unquote coalition districts, meaning they were drawn by combining

two or more racial minority groups to form a majority, and that this constitutes unconstitutional

racial gerrymandering. Dylan urged the state to redraw these districts to rectify the alleged

race-based considerations, warning that failure to do so could result in legal action by the

Attorney General.

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