In Testimony, Top Texas Republican Remembers Another Conversation With GOP Mapmaker

EL PASO, TEXAS — A top Texas Republican revealed in federal court Monday he didn’t tell legislators about a phone call with the national GOP operative who drew the state’s new gerrymandered congressional map. 

State Sen. Phil King, the chair of the Senate redistricting committee, admitted in an August legislative debate that he’d spoken with Adam Kincaid, the national GOP’s leading map-maker, three times over the summer. But testifying in federal court Monday, King said he failed to mention a fourth conversation – when he called Kincaid to ask him whether racial data was used to draw the map.

King’s comments came during a hearing for a challenge to Texas’ new congressional map. Minority voters* and voting advocates are asking a federal court to block the state from using the new map in the upcoming 2026 election, alleging that it’s racially discriminatory. 

Texas insists the map, which was drawn after pressure from President Donald Trump to create as many safe GOP seats as possible, is a partisan gerrymander that complies with the law.

“I’d been asked repeatedly if racial data was used,” King said. “I called [Kincaid] and asked.”

A lawyer for Texas asked King what Kincaid said in response. But Chad Dunn, a lawyer for pro-voting groups, quickly jumped in to object to the exchange as hearsay before King could respond. The objection was sustained.

Kincaid himself is expected to testify Tuesday – the first time the public will hear from the map-maker after months of speculation about how decisions were made to eliminate a handful of majority-minority congressional districts across the state.

Pressed by lawyers for the plaintiffs about why he didn’t tell lawmakers about his fourth conversation with Kincaid, King responded: “I presume I just didn’t remember it at the time.”

King previously said he called Kincaid once in early June, then ran into him at a conference in mid-July, and received a call from Kincaid in August. At the time, his response was notable as one of the only instances when a Republican admitted to being in contact with Kincaid — the man who led the state’s ultra-secretive map-drawing process. 

During the legislative process, Republicans repeatedly refused to answer questions about who drew the map, when the map would be released to the public, how much the map-maker was paid or what changes to the map voters could expect. 

Kincaid is the executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, the party’s top redistricting organization. He also was behind the state’s congressional map in 2021 and a gerrymandered map Tarrant County, Texas passed earlier this summer.

During the redistricting process, Democrats pressed King to subpoena Kincaid to answer their questions at a committee hearing, but Republicans blocked the request.

King was also questioned Monday about his second conversation with Kincaid over the summer, when King said he ran into Kincaid at a conference and told him not to tell him anything about the map. Asked if it’s normal for him not to want information about something coming before his own committee, King responded he wasn’t sure if Kincaid’s map would be the one they voted on. 

Lawyers for the plaintiffs will resume questioning King this week when he returns to the stand.

*Some Texas voters are represented by the Elias Law Group (ELG). ELG firm chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.