PETE GALLEGO SPEAKS OUT ON SUPREME COURT DECISION TO HEAR TEXAS REDISTRICTING CASE

12/12/2011

For Immediate Release                                                            Contact: Rowland Garza

Dec. 12, 2011                                                                        Phone: (830) 703-0043

PETE GALLEGO SPEAKS OUT ON SUPREME COURT DECISION TO HEAR TEXAS REDISTRICTING CASE

Democratic legislator is committed to campaign for Congress regardless of who draws the districts or where the lines are drawn

Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court halted implementation and use of the interim congressional, state house and state senate maps drawn by a three-judge federal panel in San Antonio, Democratic congressional candidate Pete Gallego reaffirmed his candidacy for Congress. The full Supreme Court has said it will hear the matter of Texas’ redistricting on January 9, 2012.

Nonetheless, Gallego made clear that his campaign would not rest while the State awaited the Court’s decision. “Regardless of how the map`s lines shift, the 23^rd district will almost certainly include people from El Paso County to Bexar County – including most or all of the state house district I currently serve,” Gallego said. “These are the people I have worked with for nearly three decades as a prosecutor and state legislator, and they’re the people I look forward to serving in Congress.”

“The people of this part of Texas are hard-working, independent-minded voters – the kind of voters who have elected me to the Texas House over the past 22 years,” added Gallego.  “They are Texans who find themselves in the middle - caught in the crossfire of overly partisan politics and to often forced into a false choice between one of the ultra-liberals on the far left or a tea party reactionary like Congressman Canseco on the far right. Just as most Texans do, I reject both extremes.”

Gallego vowed to accept whatever decision the Supreme Court might render, but made it clear that he would be a candidate for Congress regardless of how the districts are ultimately drawn. “I remain both patient in terms of waiting for our district lines to be finalized, and confident in the likelihood that, at the end of the day, our campaign for working families and Texas common sense will prevail,” Gallego said. “Indeed, I`m committed to working as hard as ever to earn the privilege of representing the voters of the 23^rd district in Congress.”

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