After intense infighting and multiple delays, Tuesday’s Texas primaries proceeded under a compromise map intended to hand two of the state’s four new House districts to Latinos. It now appears as if neither of the new Hispanic-majority districts will send one of their own to Washington.
Texas’s population ballooned over the last decade due to the state’s rapidly growing Hispanic population. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of Hispanics grew by 2.8 million in the state; the group now comprises almost 40 percent of the population. But they make up less than one-fifth of its congressional delegation — and after November, that contingent could shrink, even after advocates fought tooth and nail to open the doors for Latino candidates with the state’s redistricting map.
Latinos had hoped redistricting would afford them new opportunities since their growing numbers are a large part of why Texas was awarded four new congressional districts based on reapportionment following the 2010 census. It didn’t work out that way.
A federal court in San Antonio ultimately drew the new map after the Republican-controlled state legislature’s map was thrown out for not creating any new majority-minority districts. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out the lower court’s map because it gave Hispanics — who accounted for 80 percent of the population gain it Texas — an edge in too many of the new districts and instructed them to try again. The result was the compromise map, comprising two Hispanic-majority districts.
“I think the overall impression is it’s still kind of a mixed commentary,” said Texas Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, on the new district lines. Fischer serves as chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, one of many groups that filed suit over the Republicans’ original map.
“I feel strongly that we need more Latino representation because of obviously what that means to other up-and-coming leaders,” said retiring Texas Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, who heads the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Still, Gonzalez said, the purpose of a minority-majority district is to “empower Latino voters.” It’s about “the power that will rest with minority communities to elect someone of their choice … it might be someone else who doesn’t have a Latino last name,” Gonzalez said.
Indeed, that might be the case in the new 35th District, which runs from Austin to San Antonio and includes a long, skinny strip in between. Longtime Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who is white, chose to run there rather than face what would have been a strong challenge from state Rep. Joaquin Castro, a rising Latino star who is running instead for the seat Gonzalez is vacating. Doggett beat Bexar County tax collector Sylvia Romo, thanks in large part to a huge campaign war chest, to win the nomination outright and avoid a runoff.
Fischer found a silver lining in Doggett’s victory, arguing that even though Doggett isn’t “brown,” he has a “brown heart” and would represent the Hispanics in his district well. He also said that as long as the district exists, it will be an opportunity district for a Latino candidate.
Fischer pointed to the 33rd District, a solidly Democratic, Hispanic-majority district where state Rep. Marc Veasey, who is black, and attorney Domingo Garcia are headed to a runoff for the Democratic nomination, as an example of a district that will send a minority candidate to Washington under the new map.
But Luis Vera, an attorney for the League of United Latin American Citizens or LULAC, another group to challenge the Republican plan, thinks the outcome is a disaster for Hispanic representation. The 33rd District he said, should have been two districts that could have been represented by two minority candidates.
The other Hispanic-majority district drawn by the court was the new 35th District, which runs from Austin to San Antonio and includes a long, skinny strip in between. But longtime Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who is white, chose to run there rather than face what would have been a strong challenge from state Rep. Joaquin Castro, who is running in the 20th District. Doggett beat Bexar County tax collector Sylvia Romo, thanks in large part to a huge campaign war chest, to win the nomination outright and avoid a runoff.
Fischer found a silver lining in Doggett’s victory, arguing that even though Doggett isn’t “brown,” he has a “brown heart” and would represent the Hispanics in his district well. He also said that as long as the district exists, it will be an opportunity district for a Latino candidate.
“Redistricting has a decade implication, and so the face that this change wasn’t instantly recognized doesn’t mean that it was a failure,” Fischer said. “In the context of redistricting, Latinos have always made very marginal gains decade after decade. This growth phenomena is not new to this current decade … but you’ve never seen that realized in actual growth in political power.”
Vera doesn’t see it that way. “Everybody knew that there was no way that two Latinos would be elected from those districts, and that’s exactly what happened,” he said. And he’s not optimistic that an Hispanic will ever represent the 35th. “We’re being realistic,” said Vera, “what’s really happening is that we now have a white Anglo man serving a Latino district and by the time he retires, that district won’t be in existence anymore. It will be redrawn in another district.”
Hispanic representation also took a step backward Tuesday among existing representatives. El Paso attorney Robert “Beto” O’Rourke (Beto is an Hispanic nickname, but O’Rourke is of Irish descent) beat incumbent Rep. Silvestre Reyes in a Democratic primary fight, ousting one of Texas’ six Hispanic representatives.
In other districts where Latino candidates are likely to prevail in November, the impact on Hispanic representation in the state is essentially a wash. In Texas’s 23rd District, a strong pick-up opportunity for Democrats, two Democratic challengers, state Rep. Pete Gallego and former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, are now in a runoff to decide who will challenge freshman GOP Rep. Quico Canseco. Though Democrats favor Gallego and hope he will oust Canseco, the outcome won’t impact the number of Hispanics from Texas overall.
The new 34th District, a Hispanic-majority district, will see a runoff in which attorney Filemon Vela is strongly favored to win both the nomination and general election in November. While Vela will boost Hispanic representation, he is filling a seat that until 2010 was held by Hispanic Rep. Solomon Ortiz.
In Texas’s 20th District, Castro avoided a primary and is favored to replace retiring Rep. Charlie Gonzalez — again, keeping a Latino representative where there was one already.
“It’s a tragedy, it’s a travesty,” said Vera. “This should have never happened.”
