Texas Redistricting Maps Face Scrutiny Over Racial Representation

Texas Representative Vince Perez says the state’s newly approved congressional map unfairly diminishes the voting power of Latino and Black residents by giving white voters disproportionate control over representation. The maps, drafted and adopted by Republicans in the Texas Legislature, are expected to cement white-majority districts in most of the state, despite demographic changes showing that people of color now make up nearly 60 percent of the state’s population.

Independent analyses support those concerns. According to reporting from The Texas Tribune (October 2021), the new congressional boundaries create 23 majority-white districts while reducing the number of districts where Black or Hispanic residents are a majority. As a result, white Texans would have effective political control over 26 of the state’s 38 congressional seats.

Critics of the maps argue that they fail to reflect the state’s rapid growth among minority communities. Nearly 95 percent of Texas’s population growth in the last decade came from people of color, according to U.S. Census Bureau data cited by The Associated Press (October 2021). Latino residents alone accounted for half of that increase, yet the congressional plan adds no new Latino-majority districts.

Republicans who advanced the maps have defended them as legally compliant and consistent with traditional redistricting practices. State Senator Joan Huffman, who oversaw the process, said, “We drew these maps blind to race.” (Texas Tribune, 2021). Supporters maintain the maps will withstand legal challenges, though several lawsuits have already been filed on the grounds of racial gerrymandering and vote dilution.

As the legal battles unfold, Texas’s redistricting fight has broader implications for representation in one of the most racially diverse states in the country, where communities of color continue to grow in political power but face structural barriers in converting population gains into congressional seats.

Sources:

• The Texas Tribune, “Texas Republicans’ new political maps ignore growing minority population” (Oct. 18, 2021).
• Associated Press, “Texas Republicans approve redistricting maps that dilute minority representation” (Oct. 2021).
• U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census demographic data.