Congressional redistricting makes the agenda in Texas special session

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June 3, 2011

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By Jimmy Ardis

AUSTIN, Texas: The 82nd Legislative Session came to a close on Monday with a slew of open problems still facing the Texas Legislature. As we reported on Tuesday, Governor Rick Perry (R) called an immediate special session to rectify those issues. Chief amongst the items forcing the special session is balancing the budget, but redistricting is an equally vexing open problem. While redistricting maps were passed for the Texas House of Representatives, the Texas State Senate, and the State Board of Education, the legislature failed to pass a congressional map within the regular session. As many observers expected, Governor Perry has added congressional redistricting to the agenda.[1]

After redistricting was added to the special session agenda on Tuesday, legislators finally released a long-awaited congressional redistricting map. Senator Kel Seliger (R), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Redistricting, and Representative Burt Solomons (R), Chairman of the Committee on Redistricting, sponsored the map. Following the major trend of Texas's 2011 redistricting cycle, Democrats immediately railed against the Republican plan for not giving enough representation to minorities, even going as far as calling the map illegal. Democratic Representative Marc Veasey of Fort Worth, upset about minority division in Tarrant County under the proposed map, stated "A plan that splits and packs the 2.1 million African Americans and Latinos in Dallas and Tarrant Counties to provide us only one effective voice in Congress is not just illegal, it's wrong."[1] The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund also came out against the map, citing the disparity between the growth in the Hispanic population over the last decade and Hispanic representation under the new map. "The Solomons-Seliger map does not increase the number of Latino opportunity congressional districts despite the fact that 65% of the State’s growth over the past decade was comprised of Latinos. Instead, the map gerrymanders more than nine million Latinos in Texas to make sure that we have no more electoral opportunity than we did in 1991," stated a MALDEF representative.[1]

The proposed map can be viewed here. Congressional redistricting hearings begin today.[1]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 The Texas Tribune, "Perry Adds Redistricting to Agenda," May 31, 2011
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