AMNA NAWAZ: Texas Governor Greg Abbott now says he will extend his standoff with state Democrats over redistricting as long as necessary.

Stephanie Sy has our conversation with a Republican Texas lawmaker central to the debate over the dividing lines.

STEPHANIE SY: Amna, The Texas Statehouse is stuck in a political stalemate.

The Republican effort is being pushed by President Trump and Governor Abbott, who called the special session, on the agenda, flood relief, but also passing a new electoral map that could yield Republicans up to five additional congressional seats.

Democrats cried foul and they're trying to run out of time by staying out of Texas.

Joining us now is Texas State Representative Carl Tepper, who sits on the redistricting committee and helped draw that proposed map.

Representative Tepper, thank you so much for joining the program.

So I heard a local radio interview you did last month where you outright said that the crux of this special session was about redistricting.

In fact, you said -- quote -- "The Trump administration wants to see if we can squeeze out two, maybe five congressional districts, Republican districts, in Texas."

That seems like a pretty honest explanation of the goal here.

Am I right?

STATE REP. CARL TEPPER (R-TX): Well, you might as well put the facts out there as they exist.

Trump challenged us to find some more congressional states.

I'm with him.

I think we should have done it in the past.

I'm glad he's motivated to get here.

And I see fit to give it a try.

STEPHANIE SY: Democrat states have also in the past been accused of drawing congressional maps to their advantage.

We hear a lot about Illinois, New York, California.

But wouldn't you say that what you're doing is unusual?

You're redistricting several years early.

How is this not an attempt to rig the system ahead of the midterms?

STATE REP. CARL TEPPER: Well, now I'm going to push back against the term rigged.

I think the system has been rigged against us and we're just responding.

STEPHANIE SY: You represent Lubbock.

That's in Western Texas.

That part of Texas, from what I understand, would not be affected by this new map.

But I understand the parts that would be affected are big cities like San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Austin.

That is also where a lot of Black and Hispanic Texans live and vote.

Do you think this new map is a fair representation of Texans?

STATE REP. CARL TEPPER: You know, it's not fair enough.

Hispanics voted 54 to 55 percent for Donald Trump last election.

And that's a really troublesome dynamic for the Democrats right now, where a huge swathe of Hispanics are jumping over to the Republican side.

They didn't like seeing illegal immigration, human trafficking, the drug trade, their jobs being stolen by illegal immigrants.

And they are looking at Donald Trump for answers.

And, heck, they voted for Donald Trump.

And wherever we set the lines down, we're going to be representing them better.

STEPHANIE SY: You're part of the redistricting committee, so I understand you have a role in how this new map was created.

Again, I heard you say on this interview something really interesting, that you know where the voters are.

You know who, for example, has a membership with the NRA.

You know who subscribes to a liberal magazine like "Mother Jones."

So how can this be anything other than sort of making it so Republicans are advantaged in a way that you draw this map?

STATE REP. CARL TEPPER: That's allowed.

We're not allowed to draw by race, but we are allowed to be partisan in drawing on the maps and that's what we're going to do.

The courts have been very clear on that and that's absolutely what we're doing.

We're not going to try to fool you.

We're not going to lie to you.

These are partisan maps.

And these are maps that, frankly, are going to be representing our constituents and our voters better.

STEPHANIE SY: Tell me how all of this is affecting other items on your agenda in this special session, notably relief funds for Central Texas, which had those horrible floods earlier this summer.

STATE REP. CARL TEPPER: Yes, our redistricting process is not holding up any other issue.

As a matter of fact, we put some flood relief and some flood response on the calendars this morning for tomorrow.

The only thing that's holding things up, relief for the flood victims, relief for property taxpayers, is the Democrats fleeing the state.

And we hope they come back.

We hope they come back voluntarily.

STEPHANIE SY: Now, I know these are Democratic colleagues you probably have worked with on some issues.

They're being threatened with arrest.

They're being threatened getting kicked out of office.

What do you think should happen to them?

Should they be forced to come back to the state?

STATE REP. CARL TEPPER: I think they should voluntarily return.

I think they should come home and do their jobs, collect their paychecks.

We're going to disagree on a myriad of issues.

By the way, probably 90 percent of the issues that hit the Statehouse floor, we agree on and go together on.

There's a lot of sort of I call them pothole issues out there.

We see a pothole.

It's not a Republican pothole.

It's not a Democratic pothole.

And we all agree to fix it.

But there are some partisan issues.

This is just another one of those partisan issues where we're going to disagree and they need to come home and speak out and speak out forcefully, but they need to be here to do that.

And we need to eventually get to the vote.

STEPHANIE SY: So it doesn't sound like you're particularly angry with your colleagues.

Do you disagree with the governor and the attorney general wanting to potentially have the FBI arrest them?

STATE REP. CARL TEPPER: I'm for all options on the table to get them back.

But obviously I'd like to bring them back peacefully.

I'd like them to come back voluntarily.

STEPHANIE SY: What do you think the odds are at this point that President Trump gets the new congressional map he wants to see in your state?

STATE REP. CARL TEPPER: I think the odds are 100 percent.

Eventually, we're going to get a quorum, and we're going to stick to our guns.

Now, if there's some smart changes to the map, if there's some commonsense changes, we're always looking to legislate.

We're always looking to cut a deal.

We're always looking to negotiate.

STEPHANIE SY: That is Texas State Representative Carl Tepper.

Thank you.

STATE REP. CARL TEPPER: Thanks.

Appreciate it.