S. Texas likely to pick up seat in Congress

South Texas is almost assured of gaining a Congressional seat when state legislators convene next year to redraw district lines that reflect population growth shown in the 2010 Census, state Rep. Aaron Peña said this past week.

The real fight will be determining where the district lines will be drawn.

The first battle lines were drawn Monday at a joint hearing of two Texas House committees where Rio Grande Valley legislators, community members and others with a stake in the process provided input on the new districts’ configuations.

Two other hearings in South Texas are scheduled for Laredo and Corpus Christi this week as the redistricting and judiciary committees prepare a report to be released when the redistricting hearings begin in the 2011 legislative session.

But the real work will begin when the U.S. Census Bureau releases its population counts that show how many seats Texas will gain in the U.S. House of Representatives, said Luis Figueroa, a legislative staff attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The Latino advocacy group is a key player in the redistricting process.

Using the new numbers, legislators must insert the new Congressional seats into the state’s high-growth areas while dealing with population counts, incumbents’ interests and minority participation in both the existing and proposed districts.

“Drawing lines is more of an art that it is a science,” Figueroa said following the redistricting hearing at the McAllen Convention Center. “In order to draw districts that comply with ‘one person, one vote,’ the Voting Rights Act and all the other criteria, you have to be very diligent. I do expect (redistricting) to be a contentious, difficult process.”

The process begins in earnest when legislators convene in January only a day after the federal government announces the number of congressional seats apportioned to the states based on Census figures.

Texas is expected to pick up at least three seats in the U.S. House of Representatives,

adding to its current 32 seats, because of its high population growth relative to other states.

In addition, state legislators will need to determine how population shifts within the state — from West Texas, for example, to urban centers in Dallas or Houston — will affect distribution of seats in the state House and Senate.

Because of its high population growth, the Rio Grande Valley is likely to gain additional representation in the state House and the U.S. House of Representatives, Peña, D-Edinburg, the chairman of the House subcommittee on redistricting, said. Other fast-growing areas in Texas such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and the Austin-San Antonio corridor are also likely to see bumps in representation.

The Valley has three representives in Congress, but only U.S. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa’s 15th Congressional District is decidedly Valley-centric.

The number of Congressional districts that overlap the Valley is unlikely to change from three because the population growth isn’t there, Peña said. But at least one of the anchor points — where the districts are centered — should move to the Valley, pushing U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar closer to his base in Webb County or U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz toward his native Nueces County.

Cameron County, which is represented predominantly by Ortiz, may gain its own seat during redistricting next year.

But doing so would likely mean carving another seat around Corpus Christi, where a conservative movement among the Hispanic population would likely make that seat a Republican one, Peña said. The addition of a seat in western Hidalgo County and Starr County would likely ensure a Democratic representative.

But neither partisanship nor political ideology will carry the weight that minority rights carry in redistricting, Figueroa, the staff attorney for MALDEF, said. All new districts created or changed during redistricting must comply with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the landmark legislation that outlawed discriminatory voting practices.

The “fajita strip” districts that run north-south from the Valley were created out of necessity to avoid claims of “packing” and “cracking,” the redistricting practices where minority votes are concentrated or diluted to reduce their ability to sway elections, he said.

Any Congressional seats that are created in South Texas must ensure that the region’s Hispanic population is well-represented or risk a court challenge such as LULAC v. Perry, the 2006 Supreme Court case that changed lines in five Texas Congressional districts.

At the same time, legislators must consider the “one person, one vote” requirement that each district be roughly proportional in population, and they must take into account other factors such as the incumbents in existing seats and commonalities between communities.

The result is a redistricting process that’s both “political and technical” and “sensitive and delicate,” said Henry Flores, a demographer at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. As the redistricting process begins, a number of potential plans will be developed by political parties, current seat holders and others with a stake in the outcome.

“(Redistricting) is like going to a sausage factory,” Flores said. “You like the end product, but you don’t want to see what goes into it.”