New Senate Map Has Sticky Potential
as Potential Sign of Lucio Conversion

Capitol Inside
September 18, 2021

Conservative maverick Jonathan Stickland may be back for the 2023 regular session when veteran Democratic State Senator Eddie Lucio Jr. could be returning as a Republican based on a proposed Texas Senate map that was unveiled on Saturday with the potential to give the GOP a supermajority in the east wing of the Capitol.

State Senator Kel Seliger of Amarillo - the upper chamber's second-longest serving Republican - will face his most imposing challenge yet if he seeks a new term next year in a district that appears to be designed to shift the power base in his district to the southern half that's anchored by the Midland-Odessa area.

Democratic State Senator Beverly Powell of Burleson would have little or no chance to survive on the map that GOP State Senator Joan Huffman of Houston filed today for a special session on redistricting that gets under way on Monday. Powell's home base of Senate District 10 appears to be redesigned as a gift for Stickland - a Republican who represented a House district in the suburbs of eastern Tarrant County before a recent move to Weatherford.

Contained exclusively within Tarrant County until now, SD 10 would include Stickland's new residence in Parker County in the reconfigured form. Powell's current district also would have Johnson County on the southwestern edge of Tarrant County. The percentage of white residents in SD 10 would vault from 22 percent to 54 percent with the plan that's packaged in Senate Bill 4.

Stickland would give the Senate a second authentic right-winger who'd left a bigger mark on the House by far than any of his fellow Texas Freedom Caucus charter members. Stickland was a hero on the far right when conservative hadn't been cool under the pink granite dome. He would give the Senate a badly-needed dose of personality and independence with a libertarian bent as someone who'd be the only Republican to side with Democrats at time on party line votes.

Stickland would have no guarantees in a GOP primary in the newly proposed version of SD 10 where GOP State Reps. DeWayne Burns of Cleburne and Phil King of Weatherford would shots at the seat as well as residents of Johnson and Parker counties respectively.

The Senate redistricting plan makes it appear that Lucio could be on the verge of a switch to the GOP if he plans to run for re-election next year in Senate District 27, which is currently 100,000 residents short of the new standard of 940,000. As a district that's tucked into the southern tip of the state in the Rio Grande Valley, the redrafted version stretches north to the Corpus Christi area where it include a substantial number of the Republicans there.

Lucio has been Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's chief ally among the Senate Democrats as swing vote when at least one minority party was needed. Lucio sponsored the new Texas abortion ban that Democratic President Joe Biden had blasted as un-American. The proposed map would be tantamount to a stab in the back if the longtime legislator from Brownsville had been planning to run again as a Democrat.

The Senate map could put Democratic State Senator Roland Gutierrez in some degree of risk by adding Seguin on the far eastern outskirts of San Antonio to a district that stetches almost all the way to El Paso on the current plan.

more to come ...