New proposals for re-districting 23rd & others

Reprinted from the Texas Insider

WASHINGTON — The first proposals to redraw Texas' congressional map and fix Latino voting rights violations would create up to seven Latino-majority districts in the state — but leave Travis County split between three members of Congress.

The two maps are being proposed by the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, and are the first of several proposals expected to be submitted to the Texas Legislative Council by Friday.

The new maps come in response to a Supreme Court ruling in June that found the state's 2003-Republican drawn congressional map had led to voting rights violations in the 23rd congressional district in southwest Texas.

The biggest differences between LULAC's two maps, Plan "A" and Plan "B," are: Plan "A" fuses Laredo back together as part of Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar's 28rd district (which currently runs from San Antonio to the border), and has Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla's 23rd district shifted north to pull voters from South San Antonio.

Plan "B" fuses Laredo back together as part of Bonilla's district, and has Cuellar's 28rd district shifted north to include more of Bexar County.

The two congressmen currently split Laredo; that would change under either proposal. In Plan A, the member's homes would remain in separate districts in November (Bonilla lives in San Antonio and Cuellar in Laredo). In Plan B, it is likely Cuellar would challenge Bonilla for the Laredo territory.

In both proposals, a handful of other districts are only slightly affected. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, would see his 25th district tweaked, and similar small changes would be made to the 20th and 21st districts, currently represented by Democrat Rep. Charles Gonzalez and Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, respectively.

Doggett's curent district winds from Austin to Mexico. It includes about one-third of Travis County. The rest of the county is represented by Smith and Republican Michael McCaul.

"We did everything we could to try and maintain the 25th District with 54-to-55 percent Hispanic registered voters," said Rolando Rios, general counsel for LULAC.

Keeping Doggett's 25th district intact, and making changes to the disputed 23rd district would give Texas seven districts that in which minority voters are in the majority, Rios said.

In its ruling in June, the Supreme Court found that Texas effectively had five "reasonably compact" Latino-minority districts, not counting Doggett's winding 25th district, which they expected the would be altered: "There is no reason to believe that District 25 will remain in its current form once District 23 is brought into compliance."

Furthermore, the court found that based on Texas' large Latino population, the five "reasonably compact" districts were "two districts shy of proportional representation."

But the justices were vague on whether they required redrawing the 25th, as they found no voting rights violations there. Deciding exactly what's required will be left to the three-judge panel that will examine all the proposed fixes Aug. 3.
But Rios said LULAC considers the 25th to be majority-minority already, so "in reality, if you fix the 23rd, you've actually got seven," Rios said.

Rios said both LULAC and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), another party in the Texas redistricting lawsuit, are pushing for a seven-district Latino-minority map. LULAC's map is being supported by the NAACP, Rios said.

"In 2010 we're going to be redistricting again," Rios said. "If in this process, we start with seven Latino districts, then we start with a base of seven. And once we have that base we can't go below that base."

MALDEF has also turned in its map proposals, but details were not immediately available. Attorney Nina Perales, who successfully argued MALDEF's redistricting case before the Supreme Court in March, was on Capitol Hill Thursday in last-minute meetings with members and to testify Thursday afternoon before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Sen. John Cornyn, on voting rights act legislation in light of the Supreme Court's ruling.

Perales said MALDEF is concerned that Laredo be reunited.
LULAC's map is only the first of a string of map proposals expected by Friday. In the two weeks since the Supreme Court's ruling, Texas Democrats have scrambled to come up with their proposed fixes to the map, as have Texas Republicans, who are working through the state Attorney General's office to create their proposals.

Each office would only say this week it was working with the other Texas members to come up with a solution that protects all Texans' voting rights.
A three-judge district court panel will hear arguments for each of the proposed solutions Aug. 3 in Austin.