On Monday, September 27, Texas Republicans were criticized for proposing a new congressional map that would give their party two new House seats but would not create a single new Latine-majority district.
According to VICE, POC have made up 95 percent of the four million people who moved to Texas in the last 10 years. By gerrymandering the map, however, the Republican Party would get more power in the state and neglect these growing communities. Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said the moves that Republicans are making will disenfranchise Latine voters.
“The Texas Senate has totally disregarded the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act and has engaged in a bizarre rigging and gerrymandering of district lines,” Garcia told VICE. “Logic and fairness and basic decency dictate that there would be two new Latino-opportunity districts.”
Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett called the map an example of “extreme gerrymandering to carve up neighborhoods and communities” and said Republicans were doing it because they feared voters. “With lines shaped like snakes, tentacles, and dragons, parts of both [Texas counties] Travis and Bexar are included in five different districts,” Doggett said in a statement.
Texas congressman Joaquin Castro agreed with Doggett and also called the proposed map “extreme gerrymandering.” He also referred to it as “racially discriminatory.”
“Texans deserve fair maps,” he tweeted. “Ninety-five percent of Texas’ population growth was driven by Black, Latino and Asian Americans. But the proposed congressional map drawn by Republican politicians DECREASES the # of minority-majority districts.”
Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa wasn’t as retrained as Castro. The map isn’t the only thing he called racist. “It affirms what we’ve always known: that they’re racist,” he told VICE. “They care little about the contributions Hispanics bring to the state of Texas, they’re all about winning and they don’t really care what’s fair to the largest ethnic group in the state.”