REDISTRICTING

The coastal county faces a drawn-out trial over claims of intentional discrimination in its 2021 redistricting of commissioners court precincts. The only district in which Black and Latino voters could meaningfully influence elections was dismantled.

The high court left intact a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act in a case many feared would go the other way. The decision’s importance in ongoing litigation over Texas’ political maps will largely be felt in what didn’t happen.

The 150 districts didn’t change, but the vote ensured the House met its constitutional requirement to approve new maps in the first regular session following formal publication of the 2020 census results.

The vote ensured the Senate met its constitutional requirement to redraw districts in the first regular session after publication of the 2020 census results.

After redistricting, the state constitution requires senators to draw lots to determine which half of the chamber will have four-year terms and which will have two-year terms. This keeps Senate district elections staggered every two years for the rest of the decade.

The redistricting process this year is mostly procedural and is not expected to produce very different results from the most recent process completed in 2021.

All 15 seats of the State Board of Education are up for grabs in November, and one race in District 7 highlights how critical race theory has become a key issue.

The Republican-drawn maps largely serve to bolster the party’s dominance. The maps are being challenged based on various claims, including intentional discrimination, vote dilution and racial gerrymandering.

Republicans dismantled the only Galveston County commissioners precinct in which voters of color held political clout. It’s a major blow for Black and Hispanic voters who had been building political momentum.

Texans who don’t vote in primaries and primary runoffs are missing a chance to choose who goes to Congress and the Texas Legislature. Thanks to the political maps drawn by lawmakers last year, only a handful of those contests will be competitive in November.

See the full list of candidates in the Democratic and Republican primary runoffs, and find out who’s on your ballot based on where you live.

Powell, a Democrat, had won Senate District 10 by winning over a coalition of diverse voters in Tarrant County. The GOP redrew the district to branch out to counties to the south and west that made it more rural and more white.

As Texas defends against accusations that its new political maps are discriminatory, it’s laying the groundwork to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out longstanding Voting Rights Act protections.

Texas has a history of a dismal turnout rate in primary elections. This year’s turnout was higher than the last six midterm primaries. Still, less than 1 in 5 registered voters participated.

The redrawn state Senate District 10 splits Black and Hispanic voters in Tarrant County. A full trial on whether GOP lawmakers intentionally discriminated against voters of color is expected later this year.

A three-judge federal panel is hearing arguments in a lawsuit claiming that Texas Republicans violated the Voting Rights Act when they redrew state Senate District 10 in Tarrant County to lessen Black and Hispanic voting power.

With less than five weeks left in the primary election season, there is no shortage of political issues to debate. But most of the political conversation isn’t about the election.

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, is the favorite to return to Congress via Texas’ 37th District, while Republican Wesley Hunt is the leading contender in the 38th District.

Challenges to new Texas laws on voting, political districts and abortion are all pending in court, as is the state’s challenge to federal vaccine mandates. But until the courts rule, those laws remain in place — and they provide political fodder for the incumbents who support them.

The Texas 2022 primary will take place March 1. See the full list of candidates statewide and find out who's on your ballot based on where you live.

In 2021, the Tribune’s data visuals team helped tell the biggest stories affecting Texans. Here’s a roundup of our most impactful work.

Dallas-area Latinos hoped their growing numbers would finally translate into political clout this year through the creation of a new congressional district anchored by their communities. Instead, their neighborhoods were splintered between numerous white-majority districts.

Texas’ population has grown 40% this century, and 91% of the new Texans are people of color. Federal judges now have to decide whether those monumental changes are reflected in the state’s political maps.

Texas lawmakers illegally discriminated against voters of color by drawing new political districts that give white voters more political power despite rapid growth of Hispanic and Black populations, the department claims in its lawsuit.

For Texas voters, fear of an insecure border consistently overshadows other issues — electric grid failures, handgun regulation, abortion access — even when those things top the news.

Inside a packed room earlier this month, Galveston County residents gathered to speak in opposition to proposed new precinct maps.

Asian and Pacific Islander populations surged in Texas over the past decade, but their political power is weakened under new congressional maps. A northwest Houston neighborhood offers a case study in how that was done.

Lucio is retiring from the Rio Grande Valley seat, and Dominguez wants to continue his legacy of focusing on education in the region. But he suggested he would take a different approach to at least a couple issues, including abortion.

The Rio Grande City lawmaker was the least liberal Democrat in the Texas House this year, according to a political scientist’s rankings of lawmakers.

Republican incumbents enter their reelection campaigns well ahead of their Republican challengers and with most voters unacquainted with the Democratic challengers in the field, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

The Mexican American Legislative Caucus is arguing that the new state House map violates the Texas Constitution. The lawsuit follows two legal challenges to the state’s new maps previously filed in federal court.

In Texas, the Legislature draws political maps — with results that predictably favor the party in power. Do independent commissions do any better?

Ordaz Perez announced she will challenge Fierro after new political maps forced her to run against another incumbent if she wanted to seek a new term. Democrats have criticized the GOP-drawn House map for diluting the El Paso area's representation.

The new political maps drawn by Texas Republicans have run into some criticism from academics studying gerrymandering. That puts the Texans in the same boat with Illinois Democrats.

The new political maps drawn by the Texas Senate don't just favor Republicans; that much was expected from a Republican majority. The maps help Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pick which Republicans he wants in the Senate.

After conservative complaints about the national results in the 2020 election, Texas Republicans have tried to anticipate everything that might play against them in 2022, right down to who’ll be at the helm.

Houston Newsmakers: Redistricting is a near miss for Jackson Lee

The redistricting process in the GOP-dominated Legislature made many political districts less competitive, which some experts believe might hurt civic engagement.

This year’s elections will take place using newly redrawn political maps for the state’s congressional, House, Senate and Board of Education districts. Search your address to see how the new districts will affect your community.

The fast-growing region likely will see a considerable number of new state and federal lawmakers after the 2022 election. And in many cases, they will be representing districts whose boundaries have significantly shifted.

On this week’s episode, Matthew speaks with Alexa, James and Patrick about the end of the Texas Legislature’s third special session and whether there will be a fourth.

The controversial issues you’ve heard Texas lawmakers debate for most of the year aren’t going away; many of them will be argued all over again during the 2022 elections.

With partisan fervor, Republicans drew new maps for Congress and the Legislature that dilute the power of voters of color. Now the lawsuits begin, as groups that feel marginalized battle for representation in the halls of power.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office says there’s no plan for a fourth special session at this time. If this was the final special session of the year, what did we learn from it?

After a few last-minute alterations, the state's new congressional districts are drawn and await the scrutiny of federal courts. Already, one lawsuit has been filed claiming the new maps intentionally discriminate against Latino voters.

Before they’re even signed into law, the state’s new maps for congressional and statehouse districts have been challenged in federal court by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The Austin Democrat, who has served in Congress since 1995, currently represents the 35th District, which stretches down to San Antonio. He will run in the newly created 37th District located in Travis County.

“Turn Texas Blue” was the Democratic rally cry in the 2020 elections. It didn’t happen, and with the maps the Texas Legislature is drawing, it’s not in the cards for 2022, either.

The redistricting plans for the House, Senate and State Board of Education were approved Friday.

The likely new district comes as Texas Republicans continue to try to make new inroads in South Texas after the 2020 election.

The GOP is losing its hold on suburbs of Dallas and Fort Worth as they grow more diverse. Two new districts show how far the party is reaching to entrench rural, white electoral power.

Members considered more than 50 amendments to the proposed map during debate that began Tuesday and ended early Wednesday. Some of the biggest changes focused on Dallas and Harris counties.

The doughnut district would be in Bell County, a traditionally red area that has trended blue in recent years as the diverse community around the nation’s biggest military installation grows.

In this week’s TribCast, Matthew speaks with Alexa and Reese about the ongoing court fights over Texas’ new abortion law and the redistricting process in Texas.

Texas gained two new seats in Congress based on population growth fueled by people of color. But the Senate’s proposal provides no new majority-Black or majority-Hispanic districts to reflect that growth.

When lawmakers find something in the law that they don’t like — or that their voters don’t like — they can always say they didn’t know what they were voting on. It happens more than you’d think.

The draft, which will need a stamp of approval from the full chamber before it can head to the Senate for consideration, is likely to continue to change before the Legislature sends it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for a signature.

Democrats criticized Republicans for “targeting” a North Texas district that had been trending Democratic and for not drawing any new districts where people of color would represent a majority of eligible voters.

Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, said the maps were drawn “race-blind.” But Democratic Sen. Beverly Powell, whose district would be turned into a majority-Republican district, said they’re an attempt to deny voters of color their voice in elections.

With proposed maps out, U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, says he might switch to a neighboring district where U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, is retiring. The initial maps are also sure to impact decisions in regional legislative races.

The Texas Legislature is drawing new political maps to reflect the growth of the state recorded in the 2020 census. But their initial proposals don't look like the state demographically or politically.

Adam Foltz, now on the Texas payroll, played a key role in Wisconsin's redistricting last decade. A federal court threw out some of the maps and called the effort Foltz was involved in "an all but shameful attempt to hide the redistricting process from public scrutiny."

Wesley Hunt, an Army combat veteran who ran a close congressional contest last year in the Houston area, announced Tuesday he plans to run for the state's new 38th District in the same region.

The initial drafts of both maps have so far attempted to strengthen Republican majorities by protecting incumbents and creating more GOP-friendly districts.

Within half an hour of declaring his bid, King got the endorsement of the Senate's presiding officer, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

The proposed congressional map also increases the number of districts where Trump had a majority of voters over Biden in 2020 and protects Republican incumbents who might have been vulnerable by packing their districts with more Trump voters.

The two-term Houston representative holds a congressional seat with a storied Republican lineage. With the GOP-controlled Legislature about to release new district maps, some expect they will try to wrest the seat back into their column.

Israel’s decision creates a vacancy in Austin-area House District 50 with redistricting underway at the Legislature.

Within hours, Flores got the endorsement of Sen. Dawn Buckingham, R-Lakeway, who is vacating the seat to run for land commissioner, and then Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate.

Lawmakers must redraw the state’s political maps to account for a decade’s worth of growth, but the process leaves enough room for political manipulation. Here’s how it’ll work.

The first draft of the Senate map was authored by a Republican who chairs the Senate Redistricting Committee. It immediately drew fire from a Democratic member who said her district was being redrawn to dilute voting power of people of color.

Facing demographic changes that work against their political dominance, Republicans will be able to redraw politically advantageous maps — and shield themselves from the change — without federal oversight for the first time in decades.

Not every change in the state’s political maps starts with party affiliation. Geography and population are giving Republican mapmakers new headaches.

In this week's episode, Matthew speaks with Ross, Alexa and James about the coming legislative and legal fights over redistricting in Texas.

Two Democratic state senators filed the federal suit arguing the Texas Constitution does not allow lawmakers to meet in special session to draw up state House and Senate districts. They’re asking the courts to do it instead.

The summer fight over voting and election law has been fierce. It may well be a prologue to a bigger battle just ahead: redrawing the state’s political maps.

After a standoff that lasted more than a month, the Texas House appears to have enough state representatives in Austin to conduct business. The divisions are deep, relationships are frayed and redistricting lies ahead.

It’s happening slowly, but during the Texas government’s long summer, with legislative walkouts, fights over voting rights, and new battles over what’s safe and what’s not, Gov. Greg Abbott is mostly getting his way.

The state’s Hispanic population is now nearly as large as the non-Hispanic white population, with Texas gaining nearly 11 Hispanic residents for every additional white resident since 2010. Those trends set up a pitched battle for political control when state lawmakers redraw legislative districts.

“Whatever Beto decides to do is the domino that affects everybody," said Royce Brooks, executive director of Annie’s List, the Texas Democratic women-in-politics group.

In a state with a long history of discrimination, lawmakers on Tuesday will kick off the 2021 round of political mapmaking — the first in nearly half a century without federal oversight.

A majority of Texans believe the state is on the right track, while a plurality thinks the country is on the wrong track, according to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.