Texas GOP tries to protect US House seats under new maps

By PAUL J. WEBER and ACACIA CORONADO

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Facing up to Texas’ booming suburbs turning bluer, Republicans connected Monday projected caller U.S. House maps that would fortify their slipping grip and shrink the fig of seats wherever the bulk of voters are Hispanic — adjacent arsenic they substance the state’s blistering growth.

Texas was a large victor successful the 2020 Census. Its surging population, driven by astir 2 cardinal caller Hispanic residents, made it the lone authorities awarded 2 further legislature seats. Texas volition present person 38 House members, and 40 electoral votes.

But Democrats and number rights groups accused GOP mapmakers of tossing speech those rapidly shifting demographic trends that are threatening decades of Republican dominance. Persons of colour accounted for much than 9 of each 10 caller Texas residents implicit the past decade, but the connection reduces the fig of Hispanic bulk districts from 8 to seven.

There would besides beryllium nary districts with a bulk of Black residents nether the projected maps, which are apt to acquisition revisions. But outnumbered Democrats successful the Texas Capitol person nary powerfulness to unit drastic changes.

“It is not fair, it is not right, it is not Texan oregon American to bash that,” said Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, referring to however the maps disagreement up Hispanic voters.

On the whole, Republicans showed an overarching tendency nether the projected maps to support their astir 2 twelve incumbent House members alternatively than peel distant seats from Democrats. One notable objection is on the Texas-Mexico border, wherever Republicans — encouraged by erstwhile President Donald Trump’s beardown showing determination successful 2020 — are taking purpose astatine a longtime Democratic stronghold presently held by Rep. Vicente Gonzalez.

In each decennary since the transition of the Voting Rights Act successful 1965, courts oregon the Department of Justice person ruled that Texas’ redistricting plans violated national laws — partially by scattering Democratic-leaning Latino voters among aggregate districts dominated by non-Latino achromatic residents who thin Republican.

“It looks similar they packed much Democratic voters into less districts and benignant of dispersed the Republican voters crossed much districts,” said Adam Podowitz-Thomas, elder ineligible strategist astatine the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a nonpartisan probe organization.

He said aggregate districts seemed to person been drawn to see a harmless 60% to 70% bulk Republican ballot stock that would sphere GOP control. But a caller legislature territory successful the state’s wide superior was a “Democratic ballot sink,” said Podowitz-Thomas, 1 that would insulate surrounding Republicans House members by taking immoderate of their left-leaning voters.

Another projected caller territory successful Houston is drawn to elite a Republican, meaning some parties would divided Texas’ caller seats. Republicans presently person 23 House seats successful Texas, portion Democrats person 13.

Latino advocates and officeholders believed the numbers demanded astatine slightest 1 caller Latino-majority legislature spot successful Texas, astir the Dallas area, but nary was included successful the Republicans’ archetypal pass. Booming suburban districts successful Texas, which see 4 of the 10 fastest-growing and rapidly diversifying cities successful the U.S., would beryllium fortified with much voters pulled from surrounding agrarian areas.

Brenden Steinhauser, a GOP strategist successful Texas, said the maps bespeak a information to bent onto governmental power. He pointed to the projected caller territory of Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, whose spot would beryllium buffeted by shedding voters successful Houston’s fast-changing voters suburbs.

“I deliberation this volition stave disconnected immoderate of this purple trending we’ve spot for a while,” helium said.

The maps are the merchandise of Texas Republicans wielding a freer manus to reengineer governmental boundaries: For the archetypal clip successful much than 50 years, Texas is starting the redistricting process without national oversight. A Supreme Court ruling successful 2013 removed mandatory national support of caller maps for Texas and each oregon parts of 15 different states with a past of favoritism successful voting.

The redrawn districts unveiled by Republican mapmakers are starting points and volition apt acquisition changes successful the coming weeks earlier being sent to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott for his signoff.

Republicans successful America’s biggest reddish authorities privation to grow their governmental vantage arsenic their typically commanding victories successful Texas person go thinner. Last year, Trump carried Ohio by a wider borderline than Texas, and Republicans got a scare successful 2018 erstwhile Democrats flipped a twelve statehouse seats and Beto O’Rourke astir ousted Sen. Ted Cruz.

But Republicans held their crushed successful Texas successful 2020, emboldening them to equine an assertive docket of hot-button blimpish policymaking, and gains on the predominately Hispanic confederate borderline person spurred the GOP into trying to grow their reach.