AUSTIN, Texas — The third special legislative session this year begins Monday and the main item on lawmakers' agenda is redistricting, the redrawing of the state’s congressional and legislative maps that determine how Texans are represented in the statehouse and in Congress for the next decade.  

Lawmakers are holding public hearings to hear testimony on the process, and grassroots organizations are encouraging Texans to participate, saying it's important for people to inform lawmakers about their communities and how they would be best represented. ​

The Texas House Redistricting Committee is holding its next public hearing this Saturday at 11 a.m. 

“I wanted to work on fixing the fundamentals of democracy," said Genevieve Van Cleve, Texas director for All On The Line, a group that is fighting against the practice of gerrymandering. 

She's been preparing for the upcoming redistricting process for years. ​

“The way these lines are drawn is how all of the power and the money is divvied up in Texas for a decade," she said. 

“The way in which you will partition the state, the way in which certain voters are grouped with other voters, makes a big difference both in terms of political and partisan representation, as well as in racial and ethnic group representation," said Daron Shaw, government professor at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Van Cleve has trained thousands of Texans on how to give effective testimony in public hearings, to share with lawmakers how redistricting will impact their communities. 

"We asked them to share their story to share how this will affect them, their communities, the people that they care about, to try and get the legislators, those that are on the committees, to understand the impact that their decisions are going to have on their constituents and people all across Texas for generations," said Rocio Fierro-Pérez, political coordinator for the Texas Freedom Network. 

Courts have found that the Texas political maps disenfranchised voters of color in every redistricting cycle since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. 

“Despite Travis County being overwhelmingly Democratic, most of the voters here vote Democratic, four of those five congressional seats go to conservative lawmakers and those districts that crack Travis County run 150-plus miles into rural areas. And so the whole point of cracking them is to take that large Democratic base and mix it in with more rural voters that tend to vote more conservative," said Stephanie Swanson, redistricting chair for the League of Women Voters of Texas. 

Lawmakers will be drawing the maps using 2020 census data, which showed that the population increased by 16% in the past 10 years. The vast majority of the growth happened in urban centers around the state among communities of color. 

In 2010, the white population made up more than 45% of the state.  By 2020, that share decreased, while communities of color grew. 

Grassroots groups want to make sure lawmakers hear from those communities as they draw new political maps. 

“It is particularly important to the regions where people of color reside to ensure that those districts are more reflective of the population in that region," said Jackie Bastard, deputy director of Jolt Initiative. 

"Does it make sense for an area in Austin to have its own particular representative? Does it make sense for a place in the Metroplex or in Houston, a place down in the valley, to have a single representative because the community is so tight and their interests are so particular? I think that's something that needs to be on record. I think it's something that lawmakers need to understand. And so in that sense the public testimony is not just welcomed, but necessary," said Shaw. 

But organizers say that testimony is also critical for potential future legal challenges. 

“Especially if you're in a community of color, if the legislature does not listen to us and those maps do racially discriminate, then we will have a good record for litigation basically moving forward," said Swanson. 

Van Cleve says she’s pushing for transparency and accountability in the process. 

“They need to change, turn their back on the racist policies of the past and make sure to draw maps that represent all people," said Van Cleve. ​

Republicans have said the map-drawing process will be fair, but they’re also pushing to hold on to their power in the state. 

Grassroots groups want lawmakers to hold more public hearings once the new maps are released so Texans can give their input before any final vote is taken.