Texas House Republicans unveil new congressional map that looks to pick up five GOP seats

Texas House Republicans unveil new congressional map that looks to pick up five GOP seats was first published by The Texas Tribune a nonprofit nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about residents strategy politics regime and statewide issues Sign up for The Brief The Texas Tribune s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the greater part essential Texas news Texas GOP lawmakers distributed their first draft of the state s new congressional map Wednesday proposing revamped district lines that attempt to flip five Democratic seats in next year s midterm elections The new map targets Democratic members of Congress in the Austin Dallas and Houston metro areas and in South Texas The draft unveiled by Corpus Christi Republican Rep Todd Hunter will likely change before the final map is approved by both chambers and signed by Gov Greg Abbott Democrats have commented they might try to thwart the process by fleeing the state This rare mid-decade redistricting comes after a pressure campaign waged by President Donald Trump s political company in the hopes of padding Republicans narrow majority in the U S House Right now Republicans hold of Texas House seats Trump carried of those districts in including those won by Democratic Reps Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen Under the proposed new lines districts would have gone to Trump last year each by at least percentage points The map was promptly panned as racist and illegal by Democrats who have been raising the alarm about the prospect of voters of color being diluted The proposed map splits voters of color in Tarrant County among multiple neighboring Republican districts and changes the shape of the th District in Central Texas which was originally created as a consequence of a court order to protect the voting rights of racial minorities Rep Greg Casar who represents the th District that runs from his hometown of Austin to San Antonio slammed the map as an insult to Texas voters If Trump is allowed to rip the Voting Rights Act to shreds here in Central Texas his ploy will spread like wildfire across the country Casar mentioned in a comment Everyone who cares about our democracy must mobilize against this illegal map Related Can Texas GOP steal the midterms in advance Yes they can The changes would create two more districts in which white residents make up a majority of eligible voters or citizens who are old enough to vote hiking the number of such districts from under the current map to It would also add one additional district where Hispanic residents the state s largest demographic group form the majority bringing the total to eight under the new plan And it would create two majority Black districts where previously there were none The traditional racial politics of redistricting have been scrambled somewhat by Republicans increasing reliance on Hispanic voters among whom they made historic gains in Four of the five districts that Republicans have drawn with the intention of flipping would be majority Hispanic though the Hispanic populations in the new seats in Houston and Central Texas are almost exactly The districts represented by Cuellar and Gonzalez both of which are overwhelmingly Hispanic and anchored in South Texas would become slightly more favorable to Republicans Trump received and in those districts respectively in under the new proposed lines he would have gotten almost in both districts Also targeted are Democratic Reps Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch whose Dallas-anchored district would be reshaped to favor Republicans and Marc Veasey of Fort Worth whose nearby district would remain solidly blue but drop all of Fort Worth Veasey s hometown and political base That seat now solely in Dallas County contains parts of Johnson s Veasey s and Rep Jasmine Crockett s current district raising the prospect of a primary between Veasey and Johnson The map s newly proposed GOP seat in Central Texas also triggers the prospect of Austin Democratic Reps Casar and Lloyd Doggett facing each other in a primary for the area s lone remaining blue district To avoid that scenario one of the two would have to step aside or run an uphill race for a new Central Texas district based in San Antonio that Trump would have won by points In a message Doggett sidestepped the question of what this means for his political future saying the only What if that matters is What if this crooked scheme is approved to give Trump a rubber stamp to do whatever he pleases In the Houston area the proposed map would remake four Democratic districts The biggest upheaval would be in the th Congressional District a majority-minority seat represented by Rep Al Green that as of now covers the southern part of Harris County and its direct southern neighbors It would shift to the eastern parts of Houston where no current member of Congress lives Instead of being a seat that Vice President Kamala Harris won by percent under the current boundary Trump would have won it by percent Texas Republican-dominated Legislature last drew these maps in with an eye toward protecting incumbents by making their seats as safe as manageable Trump won every Republican-held Texas district in by double-digit margins as did every GOP incumbent who received a Democratic opponent Edinburg Rep Monica De La Cruz s -point success was the closest of any winning Republican To pick up new seats Republicans have proposed to pack more Democratic voters into districts in the state s blue urban centers giving Democrats even bigger margins in districts they already control such as those represented by Crockett Rep Joaquin Castro in San Antonio and Rep Sylvia Garcia in Houston And they re looking to disperse Republican voters from safely red districts into several districts now represented by Democrats such as the ones held by Johnson and Casar No Republican incumbents districts were made significantly more competitive The map-drawers managed to move more Republican voters into Democratic districts around Dallas and Houston without imperiling the nearby seats of GOP Reps Beth Van Duyne R-Irving and Troy Nehls R-Fort Bend Both faced competitive races in before their districts were redrawn in to become solidly Republican and neither was made to sacrifice those gains in the state House s initial map Among the new majority-Black districts is the th Congressional District centered in Houston which has been represented by a decades-long run of renowned Black Democratic members including Barbara Jordan Mickey Leland Sheila Jackson Lee and preponderance of late Sylvester Turner whose death in March left the seat vacant The map proposes to pack even more Democratic voters into the solidly blue seat Harris won the district with in and would have carried it with under the new boundaries Crockett s Dallas seat would also become majority Black The th District was among Texas four majority-minority congressional seats flagged by the U S Department of Justice as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders a charge Texas Republicans have interchangeably denied in court and cited as the basis for pursuing mid-decade redistricting Any new map will inevitably be challenged in court Courts have exposed that at least one of Texas maps violated the Voting Rights Act every decade since it went into effect in the mid- s The current map is still being challenged in federal court in El Paso with no verdict yet reached The lineup for The Texas Tribune Festival continues to grow Be there when all-star leaders innovators and newsmakers take the stage in downtown Austin Nov The newest additions include comedian actor and writer John Mulaney Dallas mayor Eric Johnson U S Sen Amy Klobuchar D-Minnesota New York Media Editor-at-Large Kara Swisher and U S Rep Veronica Escobar D-El Paso Get your tickets in the present day TribFest is presented by JPMorganChase This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https www texastribune org texas-redistricting-congressional-maps-house-republicans The Texas Tribune is a member-supported nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and protocol Learn more at texastribune org Read more about the Texas GOP Texas Republicans were reluctant to redraw the state s congressional maps before Trump Trump floats controversial redistricting plan in Texas Newsom threatens retaliation Why Greg Abbott refuses to release his emails with Elon Musk The post Texas House Republicans unveil new congressional map that looks to pick up five GOP seats appeared first on Salon com