AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Republicans are working to cement their GOP dominance for the next decade as new political maps advance at the State Capitol.
This week, a state House panel passed a proposal along party lines for its own 150 members. It would give Republicans stronger positioning to maintain control of that chamber. But one big change: Collin County gets redrawn to be a Democratic-leaning district. The House map now heads to the full chamber for debate.
Texas House: https://dvr.capitol.texas.gov/House/16/PLANH2176
The Texas Senate also gave final approval to changes to its 31 districts, sending it over to the House. The proposed map does not draw any new opportunity districts for nonwhite populations. It increases the number of Senate seats with a majority white electorate. Under the map, one Tarrant County district would see major changes that could spell trouble for the current office holder, Democratic Sen. Beverly Powell. As approved, the district grows in geographic size by at least tenfold and becomes a largely rural district with a chunk of southern Tarrant County.
Texas Senate: https://dvr.capitol.texas.gov/Congress/14/PLANC2116
“Does it concern you that Tarrant County is majority-minority, yet your plan provides zero senate districts in which Tarrant County minority voters would ever elect their candidate of choice?” Powell asked of the author of the legislation, Sen. Joan Huffman, R, Houston, during floor debate.
“I have followed the law. I drew blind to race. I believe the maps I have drawn are compliant under the Voting Rights Act,” Huffman responded.
A senate panel also passed a map that redraws congressional districts. In one part of the state, it pits two Black representatives against each other.
“You have surgically undone what we have worked to create for many, many years,” U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said during a senate committee hearing.
Lee and Rep. Al Green, also of Houston, pleaded with lawmakers to amend the proposed congressional maps that puts them in the same district.
“It doesn’t look right for the only two persons in the state of Texas to be running against each other in a congressional district from the same party to be of African ancestry," Green said.
Overall, the congressional proposal largely protects Republican incumbents while decreasing the amount of minority-majority districts. That's despite people of color accounting for 95% of Texas' growth over the last decade. That map now heads to the full Senate for a vote.
Congressional: https://dvr.capitol.texas.gov/Congress/17/PLANC2116
State Board of Education: https://dvr.capitol.texas.gov/SBOE/42/PLANE2106