From the inbox:
HOUSTON AREA HISPANIC LEADERS: CREATE A HISPANIC OPPORTUNITY CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT IN HARRIS COUNTY
HOUSTON – Recently, Houston area Hispanic community leaders successfully coalesced to unite behind State Senator Mario Gallegos’s efforts to create a second Hispanic opportunity Congressional district in Harris County. Senator Gallegos serves as Vice Chair of the Senate Redistricting Committee charged with redrawing Congressional lines for the State of Texas. The growth in Hispanic population is the primary reason Texas will receive an additional four seats in United States Congress. Specifically, much of that growth occurred in Harris County and the ten-county region, with an increase in the population from 3.4 million to 4.1
million, or 20.3%, in the last 10 years.Please join Harris County Hispanic leaders on Monday, May 2nd, as they unite to present a Resolution calling for the creation of a Hispanic opportunity district in Harris County.
This will be at noon on Monday at the HCDP headquarters, 1445 North Loop West, Suite 110. I will be very interested to see if they present a map to go along with their call for a new Latino Congressional seat. As we know, that could be tricky business, but a map is worth a thousand words. And even if they don’t get what they want from the Lege (which is what I would expect), demonstrating that it can be done will help any case they bring to the Justice Department and/or the courts. Be there and see what they have to say.
Some handy napkin math with CVAP numbers indicates that Harris County can only support 1.3 Hispanic districts.
Harris county pop/Texas pop :: 4M/25M
.16 * 36 seats
5.76 * .23 (Hisp. CVAP share)
1.3
It’s not like there’s a great area outside of the county to attach a Hispanic district to. You can break apart North Side from the East End and balance out two districts. But it’s not clear to me that you get a Hispanic elected. If anything, you etch the Gene Green situation in stone. And maybe risk multiplying that problem by two.