Williams on voting rights, Afghanistan

This is the second part of a two-part interview with Congressman Roger Williams. It has been edited for length and clarity. The interview took place on August 18, and updates have been provided where appropriate.

Wimberley View: We’ve got a lot of new census data coming out and there’s going to be redistricting coming up. The Supreme Court has ruled that partisan gerrymandering is effectively legal... that they don’t have oversight over that. Do you think that partisan gerrymandering should be legal?

Representative Roger Williams: All of the sudden people are worried about redistricting when for the last several cycles they really didn’t think much about it. But one of the things you do when you run for office, and as a party, is you try to get control of whatever you’re running for, right? And one of the advantages of being in control of the state house is you get to draw your congressional lines. So, they draw the lines, and it’s impossible to make everything a square. You can’t do that. So losers called it gerrymandering. Winners call it drawing the lines for redistricting. And that’s the way it works. It’s been that way forever. Democrats gerrymander as much as Republicans.

WV: So I guess what you’re saying is you do support partisan gerrymandering.

Williams: Well, I support redistricting, naturally. And we’ve got to define how many people are going to be in the district. And then you’ve got to shove two more seats in this year. So how are you going to draw it? You can’t draw straight lines... But not every district is going to look the same, just in the fact you’re trying to gobble up people. And look at West Texas. People moving out of West Texas, coming down the I-35 corridor. There is no telling what some of that (redistricting is) going to look like to get the people you need to get in (each district).

WV: Everybody understands that redistricting is something that has to happen as populations change. And the question is always, what is a fair way to do it? My understanding is that the Supreme Court has said kind of what you’ve said, which is ‘to the winner goes to spoils’ so to speak. Right now, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act (is in front of the House) and one of the many pieces of that legislation involves changing it to make it illegal to gerrymander or to redistrict with partisan intent.

Williams: If the Democrats were in charge you wouldn’t see that. It’s just the way it works. If you’re in charge, it’s redistricting. If you’re not, that’s what it is. The state legislature is responsible for drawing the lines. And what they come up with will (go through) a lot of lawsuits, probably. All of that’ll settle in and whatever the lines are we’ll run on them... You’ve got a primary coming up in March. It’s going to be interesting to see if they get all that done before we have our primary, or is it going to be pushed out?

WV: I’ve seen your thoughts on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, is there any part of it that bill that you support?

Williams: I’m going to look at that. That’s one of things we’re going to look at when we get up there Monday. So I’ve got to read it and take a look at it. We’ll see what we can live with what we can’t live with.

WV: There’s nothing specifically that you know of that you’re in favor of or that you might be looking to approve?

Williams: I’m in favor of fairness, so we’ll see how that works out in that bill. (Editor’s Note: Since this interview, Rep. Williams voted against the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. The bill passed through the House on a party-line vote with Democrats in favor and Republicans against. The bill now heads to the Senate where it is expected to face a Republican filibuster.)

WV: Is there anything that you’re working on specifically that has a direct impact on Hays County?

Williams: There is. First of all, I’m always working on cutting taxes. That has a direct impact on everybody. I’m a big tax cutter. I think if you cut taxes, and we know this to be true, you create more cash flow, you create more tax payers. So I’m always doing that. I’ve got several bills that are bipartisan. I’m a bipartisan guy. I’m a business guy. I make deals all the time. We’ve got a bill out there for school security, and it allows for $1.2 billion over the course of 10 years where, say, Hays County schools can do a review by an expert. An expert would be a Sheriff or a police officer, whatever, to review what that school needs, not the school district, but the individual school. So it might be different for the elementary school as opposed to the middle school and high school. They’ll do this study, and maybe they came up with the fact they need more bulletproof glass, more steel doors, this kind of thing. Then they submit it to the Department of Justice, and they apply for their grant. Say the expert says it’s going to be a million bucks. They can apply for a million dollars to the DOJ. They get their grant and it may fix their school. So it’s bipartisan. It’s a no brainer. We want our school safe for our teachers and our kids. The other thing we’ve got going, when I was Secretary of State Governor (Rick) Perry and I were about ready to celebrate a billion dollar capital improvement down on the coast. Before we did that, I got a call that said they are going to Michigan. I said ‘What do you want to go to Michigan for? Those people don’t even smile at you.’ He said, ‘Well, Michigan’s got welders and Texas doesn’t.’ So we can have all the lawyers we want, all the newspaper people, all the car dealers, you name it. But if we don’t have electricians, plumbers, carpenters, etc, we don’t have an economy. So we’ve got a lot of kids dropping out of school in the ninth grade in Texas, hundreds of thousands, because they’re losing hope. They’re losing hope, because maybe they think they can’t be a lawyer or a professional. But they can go into trade school, learn how to be a carpenter, etc. and walk across the stage the same as their friend who is going to be a lawyer. So I’ve got another bill, bipartisan... that creates a sizable amount of dollars so that some of the schools that educate these kids to do these trades, can apply and get some grants to help with their expenses. That would work right here in Hays County I think.

WV: (Editor’s Note: This interview took place on August 18 the morning after hundreds of Afghans were flown to safety while others clung to the aircraft and fell as it took flight.) The last few days, we’ve all watched the withdrawal out of Afghanistan unfold. I don’t think anybody would say it’s gone well. Did you support the withdrawal in general from Afghanistan beyond what we’ve seen from the withdrawal? Did you support the idea of it?

Williams: We need to get out of Afghanistan. I believe that. We need to get out of it. But the problem is that in the process of getting out, we had no exit strategy it appears. Now, I’m not in those meetings. But we should have an exit strategy to get our soldiers out, get our civilians out, get the people over there that are working and so forth. And we don’t have that. And now we’re going to send 6,000 more in. And are they going to start having confrontations being back in war again? When you see these pictures coming out in tears your heart out. I’m old enough. I remember people standing on the rooftops when we’re getting out of Saigon and Hanoi, in Vietnam, how tragic that was. We need to get out, but we need to get out in an orderly basis. Now we’re leaving our equipment over there for the Taliban to take over. It’s pretty much been a disaster. I haven’t heard yet from the administration, what their plan is. President Biden stood up and said he doesn’t regret what his decision was, and he said everything’s going fine. Well, I think you can sure take disagreement with that. We’ve got great generals that have plans. General (Mark) Milley is a personal friend of mine. He’s a great man. I don’t know if the generals gave the president advice, and he didn’t adhere to it, or whatever. But we do need to get out. But we need to be getting out in an organized fashion, which does not appear we’re doing that right now. It appears we’re a little out of control. (Editor’s Note: Since this interview, 13 United States military members were killed by a suicide bomb at the airport in Kabul where the evacuation from Afghanistan is taking place. On August 26, Rep. Williams called for President Joe Biden’s impeachment over the withdrawal. “I stated earlier today, the best thing for the future of America and our troops overseas, is for President Biden to resign. Judging by his refusal to accept full responsibility for the crisis at the press conference this evening, it’s clear he has no intention to do so. For that reason, Congress should immediately begin impeachment proceedings to remove President Biden from office, before any further damage can be done.”

WV: On a lighter note, I’ve got one last question for you. As a man who knows how to sell cars, what are you doing about car prices? I’ve been trying to buy one for six months and prices are through the roof.

Williams: Do you really want me to tell you about the industry?

WV: Yes.

Williams: So (the price of used cars) is one of the reasons inflation is up... and the reason is the price of used cars is out of sight. I think that’s going to settle down. I think that’ll bring inflation down. We’ve never seen this before where used cars are actually appreciating. I kid people, but if I advertise that on TV, they’d send me to jail. But it’s true. So it’s supply and demand. The model that you see where there’s really few new vehicles on a car dealer’s lot, you’re going to see that for a while. Just in the fact that this (microchip) thing is a big issue. But the price of cars is high because of supply and demand. People just can’t get anything right now, but it also depends on where you’re trying to shop. If you try to buy from me, it’s pretty cheap.