How Texans' voice in D.C. changes under a new map
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Texas' proposed congressional map changes how residents across the state can be heard in Washington, while removing voting power from people in the state's urban centers — many of whom are Black and Latino voters.
Why it matters: True representation means someone who knows the area and its issues and residents, political science experts say. But the new map creates more geographically diverse districts, where representatives would live hundreds of miles away from some of their constituents.
Catch up quick: President Trump has pushed Texas to redraw its map in the middle of the decade, a rare move aimed at picking up five additional GOP House seats in a closely divided Congress. It's spurred a wave of redistricting across the nation.
- The Texas Senate passed the new map on Saturday, sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott's desk.
What they're saying: "It's really helpful to know the community to be able to adequately address problems," Veronikah Warms, voting rights policy attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, tells Axios.
- "It's a lot harder when your constituent has to educate you."
For example: The 27th District, anchored in the Texas Coastal Bend, would now encompass parts of Travis and Hays counties. People on the coast and around Austin have different needs, Warms says.
- The 10th District would now encompass more of Austin in addition to its large East Texas base. "East Texas has a huge dearth of hospitals that they are dealing with. But in Austin, we are literally flush with hospitals," Warms says.
- The 32nd District changes dramatically — shifting from an urban Dallas district to include rural East Texas counties.
Reality check: The sprawling 23rd District looks much the same: it runs all the way from the edge of San Antonio to the edge of El Paso, encompassing sparsely populated stretches of West Texas.
State of play: Lawmakers don't have to live in a district to represent it. But not living there makes it harder to campaign in a district, Jon Taylor, department chair and political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, tells Axios.
- "You'll be accused of not understanding the district," Taylor says.
Zoom in: The city of San Antonio would lose a congressional district under the proposed map. It could go from being represented by three Democrats and two Republicans to one Democrat and up to three Republicans, based on how the districts are drawn.
- That's despite the city's voting history being largely Democratic.
- The 28th District, represented by Democrat Henry Cuellar, would no longer stretch into San Antonio, and is one of the five districts drawn to newly favor Republican candidates. While Cuellar is not from the area, he sits on a committee for military construction and veterans affairs — which takes up issues important to San Antonio, dubbed Military City USA.
- That loss would hurt the city, Taylor says.
Between the lines: The proposed map packs into fewer districts voters of color who have a history of low voter turnout — and in some cases, people who aren't citizens and can't actually vote, despite being counted in the census, Warms says.
The bottom line: "We don't have the same interests and needs in the way that these districts are being divided up, and so people's views at the federal level are not going to be properly represented," Warms says.