Hey, good morning. It is Sunday, August 3rd. I'm Ali Velshi. We begin this hour with the week ahead, which may see the escalation of an arms race that could threaten our representative democracy.

A new congressional map for the state of Texas, which aggressively gerrymanders five seats currently held by Democrats in favor of Republicans, has just been advanced by a legislative committee in the Texas House this weekend.

It's set for a vote by the whole legislature, either tomorrow or Tuesday.

Texas state Democrats are mulling their options, including leaving the state

altogether to prevent a quorum and to deny a vote. That's what they did over yet another

redistricting fight in 2021. But Texas Republicans have since imposed heavy fines for lawmakers

who leave the state to break a quorum. Right outside the committee hearing, 15 hours of

public testimony on the map,

almost entirely against it, the chair of the redistricting committee, Republican State

Rep. Cody Vasut, told reporters right out in the open what this effort is all about.

I have not seen any evidence that this map was racially based. What I have seen is evidence

that this map was politically based. And that's totally legal, totally allowed, and totally fair.

This bill was not based off of that DOJ letter. This bill was based off of improving political

performance. Improving political performance. Why knock on door or shake hands or kiss babies

when you can simply redraw the lines

to guarantee that you'll win the election? Now, usually congressional redistricting happens

after a U.S. census is conducted at the start of every decade to account for demographic changes.

But next year's a midterm year when the party controlling Washington historically loses

seats. So President Trump has urged Texas

and other red states like Missouri and Ohio to take up mid-decade redistricting efforts in order to

create additional Republican seats and shore up existing Republican seats before the 2026 midterms. In response, several Democratic

governors like California's Gavin Newsom and New York's Kathy Hokel are considering ways to offset the

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