GOP congressional map shields incumbents

More than 1M Houston voters would be put in different districts in proposed redrawing

The initial Republican proposal for redrawing Texas congressional maps calls for Harris County to once again be split into nine districts, but with major alterations to protect the region’s endangered GOP incumbents.

The shifts mean more than a million voters who live west of downtown Houston would have a different member of Congress representing them.

Ultimately, Democratic-held districts now represented by U.S. Reps. Sylvia Garcia, Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Green and Lizzie Fletcher would all become more heavily blue under the proposed map released Monday by the Texas Senate. Under the proposal, Republican U.S. Reps. Dan Crenshaw and Troy Nehls would get more like-minded voters in their districts, too.

The proposal adds a completely new congressional district in west Harris County — District 38 — designed to favor a Republican, stitched together by cutting into four existing districts.

The Texas Legislature is reshaping all of the state’s 36 congressional districts as required to address population shifts identified by the U.S. census over the last decade.

With two new Texas districts being added to account for the state’s population growth, Republicans are proposing to pack hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters into two seats the GOP lost in 2018 — one in Houston, represented by Fletcher, and another in Dallas, held by U.S. Rep. Colin Allred — and create one of the new districts in deep-blue Austin.

The Republicans would then pull their own voters into nearby districts where their party has seen tightening margins of victory in recent years.

For example, Fletcher’s 7th Congressional District would continue to have West University Place and Bellaire, but instead of picking up parts of the Energy Corridor, it would shoot southwest into Fort Bend County to pick up almost 200,000 people, including around Sugar Land and Richmond.

Those changes would make the 7th Congressional District among the most diverse in the nation with a population that is 22 percent Asian, 21 percent Black, 30 percent Hispanic and 27 percent white.

In most cases, Republicans focused on protecting the seats

they already control, shielding them from the rapidly growing areas of Texas that are shifting in favor of Democrats, said GOP strategist Brendan Steinhauser.

“The Republicans did really well in the 2020 election,” Steinhauser said. “And I think the Republican Party kind of believes that it's more important to lock in the gains over the next 10 years than to try and be too aggressive.”

GOP’s ‘significant advantage’

Redistricting analysts, in early assessments of the draft map on Monday, said the proposal shores up GOP-led districts, protects sitting lawmakers and packs heavily Democratic areas to give Republicans an advantage elsewhere. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave the proposed map an “F” grade for its fairness, concluding that the districts give a “significant advantage” to Republicans.

Although a growing population of Hispanics is largely responsible for Texas adding two additional congressional seats, neither of the two new districts is majority Hispanic under the GOP proposal, prompting outcry from anti-gerrymandering advocates.

“With 95 percent of Texas population growth in the last decade coming from communities of color, our new congressional districts clearly should have been created to provide them the ability to elect their candidates of choice,” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the good government group Common Cause Texas. “That did not happen because these mapmakers prioritized the interests of their own political party over those of Black and brown Texans.”

Last week, the Texas Senate released its proposal for redrawing districts in that chamber. Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, offered an early assessment of both the state Senate and congressional maps on Monday morning.

“One takeaway from both the proposed Texas Senate and congressional maps is, man, are Republicans in Texas now scared of suburban voters — both because the suburbs are getting more diverse and because white voters in the suburbs are trending away from R’s,” he said.

Big changes are in store for other districts west of Houston besides Fletcher’s.

More than 300,000 people in west Houston, the Energy Corridor and near Jersey Village would be taken out of Crenshaw’s 2nd Congressional District and shifted into the newly drawn 38th Congressional District that would be wholly in Harris County.

Another 300,000 people around Tomball, Cypress and the northwestern sections of the Grand Parkway would be pulled out of the sprawling 10th Congressional District now held by U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul and put into the new 38th District.

A spokesman for Wesley Hunt, a Republican who ran against Fletcher in 2020, said the former Army helicopter pilot would run for the new District 38 seat if lawmakers were to adopt the initial map proposal.

Hunt had previously announced he was running in 2022 but had yet to settle on a district while awaiting the proposed map.

“One takeaway from both the proposed Texas Senate and congressional maps is, man, are Republicans in Texas now scared of suburban voters.”

Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program

A shift south of downtown

Neighborhoods south of downtown with large Black populations would also be affected.

Sunnyside, South Park and southeast Houston would all shift from Jackson Lee’s 18th Congressional District into Green’s 9th District. Jackson Lee’s 18th District would be mostly north of downtown under the proposal. Downtown Houston would be moved to Garcia’s 29th District.

Almost 400,000 people in northwest Harris County along the Waller County border and south into parts of Katy would shift out of the 10th Congressional district into the 8th Congressional District that is held by U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, a Woodlands Republican who is retiring next year. That district would also stretch into Montgomery County and include Conroe.

In the Dallas metro area and North Texas, meanwhile, Republicans are aiming to shore up districts represented by U.S. Reps. Beth Van Duyne of Irving and Van Taylor of Plano, both of whom were targeted unsuccessfully by Democrats in 2020.

The redistricting proposal has a long way to go to become law. The Legislature has just started a special redistricting committee to work out the changes and hold hearings on them. Historically, Texas legislative leaders have often faced lawsuits that have delayed the implementation of maps, and these could go the same route, specifically because of how Hispanic voters are treated.