AUSTIN, Texas — Texas lawmakers released their first draft of a new congressional map for the next decade, which largely protects incumbents, while reducing Black and Hispanic majority districts, despite the two groups fueling the state’s population growth. 

What You Need To Know

  • Texas gained two congressional seats, and the proposed map places them in Austin and Houston

  • The current 22 congressional districts with a white-majority voters would increase to 23

  • Civil rights organizations say the proposed map disenfranchises voters of color

Texas gained two congressional seats, and the proposed map places them in Austin and Houston. 

District 37 would consolidate central and west Austin and be safe for a Democratic candidate, and District 38 would contain west and northern Harris County, likely a safe Republican seat. 

Neither would be in a minority opportunity district, and the current 22 congressional districts with a majority white voting age population would increase to 23. Hispanic-majority districts would decrease by one and the only district with a Black majority would be erased. 

Civil rights organizations, especially those representing the Hispanic population, are speaking out against the proposed map saying it disenfranchises voters of color. Amanda Salas is an activist and political strategist from the Rio Grande Valley who does grassroots organizing among Hispanic communities in Texas. 

“Political awareness and community activism are monumental in making change," said Salas. 

She advocates for progressive candidates and policies that represent the interests of the Hispanic population, a job she’s worried will soon be a lot harder. 

“It’s very specifically to elect and push up people of color into leadership positions so that way they can focus on the issues that are affecting those communities, because I can guarantee you, without adding a seat that represents more communities of color, there's more issues that affect communities of color that are going to go unheard," said Salas. 

Census data shows that 95% of Texas’ population growth over the last 10 years was driven by people of color, especially the Hispanic population. 

Domingo Garcia, the national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, says the proposed map is the continuation of a long history of the state disenfranchising voters of color. He says based on the population, there should be 14 Hispanic-majority districts. 

"We're going from eight to seven under this plan, because of the rigging of the system, politicians selecting their voters, not voters selecting their elected officials, and that is, we believe, unconstitutional, illegal, and we plan to challenge it in federal court," said Garcia. 

He says an example is how the new districts are drawn in Dallas and Tarrant counties, where Hispanics would not get a majority district. The proposed map shows the area is split into Districts 30, 32, and 33, which will likely be reliably Democratic and have large Black populations. 

Garcia says this dilutes the influence of Hispanic population and protects Districts 12 and 14, which are more rural and Republican. 

“They take out the minority voters and just pack them into three minority districts, and therefore continue the history, the sad history in Texas of gerrymandering that we've seen, based on ethnic lines, basically disenfranchising Latino voters from electing a candidate of their choice," said Garcia. 

Daron Shaw, a government professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said Republicans will likely argue that the Hispanic population has the opportunity for representation in the eight districts with no racial majority on the proposed map. 

“But the traditional position has been minority representation demands minority majority districts and that's what you need to accomplish. Again, judicial minds will weigh in on this," said Shaw. 

Even with the likely legal challenges, Salas says if passed, the proposed map would still have tangible consequences. ​

“I don't think it's fully hit a lot of us that are doing the work on the ground, how much this is going to deeply impact us for a long time," said Salas. "It's really set us back for a little bit, and it's just made things a lot harder for us to get real change here in the state.”

Members of the public will have opportunities to give their input on the proposed maps to lawmakers in public hearings at the Texas State Capitol. 

LULAC has sued the state of Texas over the redistricting maps every cycle since 1970, and won each case.

An earlier version of this story misspelled Domingo Garcia's name. This has been corrected on all platforms.