(The Center Square) – After House Democrats absconded for more than two weeks in opposition to a Congressional redistricting bill, the Texas House on Wednesday passed the bill by a vote of 88-52.

It was passed after roughly eight hours of debate during which the majority of Democrats called Republicans racist.

State Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, filed HB 4, the redistricting bill, which was added to the call for the first and second legislative special sessions. He also authored the redistricting bill the legislature passed in 2021 that remains in litigation.

“I’ve heard a lot of comments, and I will tell you I don’t take them personally,” Hunter said. “These are tough issues. I feel like sometimes that I’m a pinata with no candy, just being hit. But I respect all of you.” Speaking to Democrats who fled the state, he said, “you left for 17 to 19 days and most of the comments I’ve heard could have been handled, discussed or mutually resolved in this House within that time. You chose to leave … that’s your choice. We chose to stay. That was our choice.”

State Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, like her colleagues, said the redistricting plan was racist. Collier on Monday refused to comply with House rules she voted for, not leaving the chamber, The Center Square reported. On Wednesday, she asked Hunter if he was aware that during the time of slavery, Blacks fled, or that during Nazi rule, Jews fled. “They fled their oppressor,” she said, accusing House Republicans of being oppressors, saying they “don’t reflect the diversity of Texas.”

She also complained that House Democrats weren’t involved in the redistricting process, to which Hunter replied they were gone for 17 days and chose not to be a part of the process.

“When you are oppressed, you flee the oppressors,” she said.

In response, state Rep. Katrina Pierson, R-Rockwall, said, “Chairman Hunter may not have taken the personal attacks and disrespect personally, but I did. The opposition gets to stand here and grandstand and say pretty much anything that they want, and we’re expected to stand here and just take it.

“You call my voters racist. You call my party racist, but yet we’re expected to follow the rules. Well, that double standard ends today.”

“More minority voters are voting their values, not their skin color,” she continued. “Many of them are moving to Texas to escape blue states because their values have been successfully gerrymandered into suppression. I’ve heard the accusations that this mid-decade redistricting is going to silence voters, and that it misrepresents the population of Texas. The facts don’t match the rhetoric.”

She said that under current congressional maps, Texas has zero Black CVAP (citizen voting age population) districts. Under the new map, there are two. She also replied to Collier’s claim, saying that Blacks fled during slavery to Republican states.

“I have heard repeatedly that these maps are gerrymandered, but that doesn’t fit the narrative either. That’s just spin because in many parts of the state, the map eliminates gerrymandering; they emphasize compactness in whole counties and whole cities. Political performance isn’t just legal, it is fair. It reflects the voters of the state of Texas,” she said.

She also pointed out that President Donald Trump won Hispanic voters in Texas in the last election. “President Trump flipped 11 out of 18 counties on the Texas-Mexico border. He doubled his support from 2020. Political performance is the driver” behind the redistricting. “You lost,” she told Democrats. “Get over it.”

After the vote, House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, thanked members who carried the bill, also saying the new map is constitutional and legal.

“These past few weeks have not been easy, but the House members who showed up for work every day have shown a dedication to their constituents that will not be forgotten,” he said. 

(The Center Square) – White Hawk Carriers, an interstate freight carrier in Ceres, Calif., is under investigation along with one of its drivers facing three charges of vehicular homicide in Florida.

Additionally, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rules were violated by the states of Washington and New Mexico. California’s issuance of a license is also under investigation.

“If states had followed the rules, this driver would have never been behind the wheel and three precious lives would still be with us,” Duffy said. “This crash was a preventable tragedy directly caused by reckless decisions and compounded by despicable failures. Nonenforcement and radical immigration policies have turned the trucking industry into a lawless frontier, resulting in unqualified foreign drivers improperly acquiring licenses to operate 40-ton vehicles.”

Harjinder Singh, the accused seen on video from inside his truck making a U-turn in a 70 mph zone of the Florida Turnpike, had correct responses to two of 12 verbal questions on an English language proficiency assessment and correctly identified only one of four highway traffic signs during an interview with the Motor Carrier Administration.

This comes after Washington issued him a full-term commercial driver’s license on July 15, 2023, despite asylum seekers or individuals without legal status not being eligible, the Transportation Department said. On July 23, 2024, he was issued a limited-term/nondomiciled CDL by California, a license now under federal probe.

On July 3 of this year, Singh was given a speeding ticket and administered a roadside inspection by the New Mexico State Police. The Transportation Department said the English language proficiency assessment was started June 25 and there’s no indication the trooper enforced it.

Singh is from India and sought asylum in America.

“In some of these states, you have liberal governors who don’t want to comply with the law,” Duffy said in a television interview. “They think that they know best and that we’re just trying to be mean to illegals. But whether you’re going to fly on an airplane, you’re going to be a train, or you’re going to be on the American roadway, you deserve to be safe and you expect that your federal government is going to have smart policies in place that do keep you safe. They just blatantly in New Mexico said, ‘We’re not going to comply with federal regulation and give him that road test.’”

On social media, Duffy wrote, “If you can’t speak our national language or read our road signs, you are not qualified to drive a truck.”

Singh attempted the U-turn on the Florida Turnpike through a point in the divided highway marked “official use only.” Homeland Security’s link to video from Breaking911, shot from inside the truck, shows the graphic collision that followed.

A Chrysler Town & Country minivan slams into the trailer that suddenly blocked its lanes. All three inside the minivan were killed – a 30-year-old man from Florida City driving, and a 37-year-old woman from Pompano Beach and a 54-year-old man from Miami.

Singh was not injured.

Singh has appeared in a Stockton, Calif., court and signed papers allowing his extradition to Florida to face charges. Duffy said his department’s investigation will support the ongoing criminal probe in Florida.

(The Center Square) – High tide peak storm surges from Hurricane Erin are forecast from 1 to 3 feet between South Carolina and Virginia, and 2 to 4 feet on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Erin at 8 a.m. Wednesday was Category 2 at 100 mph maximum sustained winds and moving 13 mph to the north-northwest, having started to make the turn away from the mainland as expected. The National Hurricane Center, an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the storm’s center was 645 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, and 900 miles west-southwest of Bermuda.

Veteran meteorologists have marveled at the size of the storm.

Hurricane force winds (74 mph or greater) extend outward 90 miles from the center, and tropical storm force winds (39 mph or greater) extend 265 miles from the center. Rain for the Carolina coast is just 1 to 2 inches Wednesday and into Thursday, with damage coming more from storm surge than rain or wind.

The next high tides on the Outer Banks are 6:18 p.m. Wednesday, and Thursday at 6:45 a.m. and 7:10 p.m. Erin has already sent Atlantic Ocean water over dunes and N.C. 12, the famed 148-mile roadway linking peninsulas and islands of the Outer Banks.

Mandatory evacuations have been issued for Ocracoke Island in Hyde County and Hatteras Island in Dare County. Each county has declared an emergency.

Storm surge warnings were in effect from Cape Lookout to Duck; a tropical storm warning was in effect from Beaufort Inlet to the Virginia border inclusive of the Pamlico and Albemarle sounds; and a tropical storm watch was in effect from the North Carolina-Virginia border to Chincoteague, Va.

The Wednesday evening high tide for coastal South Carolina, including Charleston, and southern North Carolina is being closely watched for flooding. Early Thursday evening is the expected time of coastal flooding from the southern Delmarva Peninsula and southern Chesapeake Bay down to eastern North Carolina.

The storm’s projected path through the weekend skirts parallel to moving more away from the Atlantic Seaboard. Thursday’s pass is by the Carolinas and Virginia, and Friday the storm will be moving by Maine.

Coastal rescues from rip currents in North Carolina, according to published reports, have numbered between 75 and 100 over Monday and Tuesday.

As often happens with hurricanes, water began to run over N.C. 12 on Tuesday. The highway begins at U.S. 70 at the community of Sea Level and runs to a point just north of Corolla and south of the Currituck Banks North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve. Two ferries, Hatteras Island to Ocracoke Island and Cedar Island to Ocracoke Island, are part of the route.

The storm’s landfall miss of the state is particularly welcome in light of Hurricane Helene. Recovery from that storm is in its 47th week. Helene killed 107 in the state, 236 across seven states in the South, and caused an estimated $60 billion in damage to North Carolina.