Latinos push for political power

As a Dallas County commissioner, Elba Garcia represents some 670,000 people nearly the population of a congressional district. The majority of her constituents are Latino and live in the fast-growing suburbs west of Dallas, where they share worries about managing growth, schools and access to health care.

Garcia is the area’s voice on the commission, but her constituents don’t have such neat representation in Congress. The area is divvied up among three House members, according to boundaries drawn by Republican legislators 10 years ago. None is Latino.

Garcia says the impact of the divisions is clear: “Everyone gets cut up and scattered around,” she said. “They dilute the Latino vote.”

Texas this week will begin redrawing those congressional lines, and Latino advocates and officeholders say it’s time to correct past wrongs. The state’s explosive population growth over the past decade half of which comes from Latinos - has earned it two new congressional seats. At least one should be a Latino-majority congressional seat in the Dallas area, they argue.