Senate Passes Congressional Map
that Reflects Population of the Past

Capitol Inside
October 8, 2021

Texas Senate Republicans united on Friday behind a congressional redistricting plan that's designed to protect the GOP's 23 current seats while giving the party one of two new districts that should both go to Democrats based on the 2020 Census count.

Sponsored by GOP State Senator Joan Huffman of Houston, the new U.S. House map in Senate Bill 6 cleared the chamber on an 18-13 vote that was cast exclusively along party lines. Huffman said that she crafted the proposal purely for partisan purposes without regard race. But SB 6 - whether by calculation or coincidence - would give white Republicans more representation in Congress than they deserve in light of dramatic demographic changes in Texas during the past decade.

Texas gained two million new Hispanic residents since 2010 - one half of the state's population growth since that time. But the number of U.S. House districts in Texas with a majority of Latinos who are eligible to vote would drop from eight to seven on the Huffman map. Whites accounted for less than 5 percent of the population increase here in that span of time.

SB 6 would pit Hispanics against Blacks in Houston where veteran Democratic U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee would be paired with U.S. Rep. Al Green in the district that he represents. Jackson Lee would be vulnerable to a primary challenge from a Latino if she ran for re-election in 2022 in her current home base of Congressional District 18.

CD 18 would lose the University of Houston, Texas Southern University and parts of downtown Houston with the elimination of the south end of Jackson Lee's current district. The Senate map for Congress would - on paper reduce the number of Black representatives in Texas from three to two. SB 6 would boost the number of Texas congressional districts that white Republicans would control from 23 to 24 while Democrats who have 13 seats here now would end up with 14 on the proposed map.

The Democrats would be in position to win a new Congressional District 37 that would be anchored in Travis County with a slice of Williamson County on the northern edge of the Austin area in SB 6.

With Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick calling all the shots in the Legislature's upper chamber, the proposed map for the Texas delegation to Congress features a new white Republican seat in the northwest part of the Houston area that he represented for eight years as a state senator.

Democrats portrayed SB 6 as map an illegal product in an attempt to discriminate against minority voters.

“The Senate Republican majority has decided to continue the long and shameful legacy of discriminatory redistricting in Texas," State Senator Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio said today in an email. "They have surgically carved up communities of color, tilted the scales in favor of Republicans, and picked their voters so they can keep a grip on power. Frankly, it is very simple to describe what the Senate Republican majority has done here: racism.”

The charge could hit a nerve across the rotunda where Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan banned the word racism from the debate this summer on a controversial elections bill. Phelan hasn't announced if the floor fights on the GOP maps in the current special session will be censored.

Gutierrez sued the Republicans amid the assertion that the Texas Constitution doesn't give the Legislature the authority to draw new voting districts until the regular session in 2023. Patrick sees it through a different lens.

"The congressional district map that the Texas Senate passed today is both legal and fair," Patrick said. "This map displays our collective commitment to making sure every Texan's voice is heard in Washington, D.C. I want to thank all 31 senators for their hard work, and especially Sen. Huffman for her leadership throughout the redistricting process."

more to come ...