DEMOGRAPHICS

News of Congregation Beth Israel hostages' safe escape is met with intense relief, but communities feel pain and fear over the latest in a series of antisemitic attacks and incidents in Texas and beyond.

The new year comes with a new election — and with familiar challenges to the way Texans vote and have their votes counted.

Here are a dozen of my columns from 2021: highlights on the winter storm, redistricting, the state’s finances and on issues that could figure into this next round of elections.

Texas politics in 2021 were marked by a violent insurrection at the nation’s Capitol and state legislative fights over abortion, voting rights and redistricting. Our photojournalists were there every step of the way.

After nearly two years of navigating life during a pandemic, many Texans are now scrambling for COVID tests, delaying plans and worrying about relatives who have been exposed to the virus.

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.

Republicans in Austin have been after local governments for years, pushing aside local laws and rules on a long list of issues where local and state powers overlap. Now they're recruiting fellow Republicans for local offices, to try to change things at the ground level.

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.

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.

The GOP slate for statewide office includes two high-profile Latinos and two Black candidates who have previously held state or federal office. Republicans are making a play to be more competitive with voters of color as the state’s electorate grows more diverse.

El Pasoans who have followed O’Rourke’s political career are excited about his run for governor. But his critics still remember his support of a development plan that could have displaced Mexican American residents from one of the city’s oldest barrios.

In a final push to secure federal voting rights legislation this year, congressional Democrats failed to secure the necessary votes to avoid a GOP filibuster on the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

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?

Austin fire officials said they’re investigating a Sunday incident that caused about $25,000 in damage as a potential arson.

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.

House Bill 25 will require student athletes who compete in interscholastic competition to play on sports teams that correspond with the sex listed on their birth certificate at or near their time of birth.

Texas lawmakers drew new maps for the state House and Senate, congressional delegation and State Board of Education. Here’s what Texans should know about the 2021 redistricting outcomes.

Texas lawmakers have 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 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.

“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 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.

Under House Bill 25, K-12 student athletes would be prohibited from competing on school sports teams aligned with their gender identity. The bill will now head to the Senate, where it is expected to pass.

A House committee approved the bill despite emotional testimony from parents of transgender Texas children. This is the fourth legislative session this year in which lawmakers targeted LGBTQ kids.

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.

Republican lawmakers in Texas are trying to make the most of their majority, drawing new political maps to preserve their political dynasty. The maps they’ve proposed would do that, but don’t represent the state’s population.

Historians long thought the Karankawa people had disappeared. But now a group of descendants is fighting to protect a coastal area — where thousands of Karankawa artifacts were found — from an encroaching oil export facility.

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.

A federal document also says that misusing a person’s preferred pronouns could be considered harassment in some instances. Texas Republican officials have tried to pass state laws targeting transgender people’s access to bathrooms and school sports teams.

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.

James Whitfield was put on paid leave about a month after being accused of teaching critical race theory. His future could soon be decided after an evidentiary hearing where he can argue his case to the school board.

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.

Before the second special session ended, lawmakers sent the GOP-backed bill for the governor's signature.

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.

The Texas Workforce Commission announced that the U.S. Department of Labor notified the commission that the state’s unemployment rate fell below the threshold needed to continue the benefits.

Conservative lawmakers denounce critical race theory and say it facilitates racism. Some teachers say it actually informs their efforts to counter racism in the curriculum and classroom, even though they don't teach it directly to students.

Senate Bill 1 would outlaw local efforts to make it easier to vote, ratchet up vote-by-mail rules and bolster protections for partisan poll watchers. The Senate already passed the legislation, but a House panel Monday replaced that with the lower chamber’s version of the bill.

The ruling is yet another blow to reproductive rights advocates after Texas passed a law this year that goes into effect Sept. 1 banning abortions as early as six weeks. That law is also currently being challenged in court.

One of the Republican authors of the so-called critical race theory bill said the district is misinterpreting the new law’s ban on political activism. A school official called the language “vague.”

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.

If passed, Texas' anti-transgender legislation will require student athletes to play on school sports teams that don't align with their gender identity.