Democrats have been leaving a whole lot of empty chairs within the Texas Home of Representatives. They blocked a quorum wanted to permit Republicans to vote on President Trump’s request for brand new maps in subsequent yr’s Congressional elections.
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Rodolfo Gonzalez/AP
HOUSTON — The neighborhood known as “Denver Harbor,” is generally small properties and small companies. It is a largely Latino space and persons are fearful about immigration and deportations.
“All people’s nervous,” mentioned Rene Porras, a Vietnam fight veteran and small enterprise proprietor. “I’ve a little bit native taqueria, Mexican bakery, and enterprise is down for the final three or 4 weeks. I imply, actually down. And I talked to my different associates which have companies and the identical factor. The place did the immigrants go?”
Rita Robles is a group activist in Denver Harbor, who underscored the issue.
Rene Porras worries that space residents will see their voting energy weakened with redistricting.
Andrew Schneider/Houston Public Media
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Andrew Schneider/Houston Public Media
“After they began saying that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was going to be within the space, we have noticed them in sure areas the place they’re huddling collectively, earlier than they go do a raid, and that has scared the hell out of the folks right here,” Robles mentioned.
Mass deportations are only one a part of President Trump’s agenda that the Republican majority in Congress has supported. However their majority is slender and to assist preserve it, Trump has known as for Texas lawmakers to redraw the voting maps to assist GOP candidates within the election subsequent yr. Trump says he needs redistricting in Texas that can create 5 extra Republican-held seats.
Democrats within the Texas state home have left the state to attempt to block the chamber from having sufficient members to carry a vote on the maps. They’ve indicated they might return quickly. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Trump ally, threatened to have them arrested or faraway from workplace if they do not return to the Legislature.
One motive Democrats say they might return is as a result of Democratic leaders in California plan to ask voters for permission to counter Texas with redistricting there. And Republican-led states, together with Missouri and Florida, are contemplating countering that. Normally states simply redistrict early within the decade after the common census depend, a norm that Trump’s plan may disrupt.
This neighborhood may find yourself in a district that tilts Republican
The district is at present represented in Congress by Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia. Underneath proposed maps within the Legislature, the Denver Harbor neighborhood can be sliced out of the district it is now in and moved to 1 that features suburbs and exurbs.
An evaluation by the Texas Legislative Council, an company that gives analysis for state lawmakers, reveals that whereas the present district Denver Harbor is in now voted for Kamala Harris for president final yr, voters who can be within the new district went for Donald Trump by a large margin.
Porras says neighbors don’t desire the redistricting. “Since Trump’s proposed this,” Porras mentioned, “he is so unpopular round right here it is unimaginable. All the pieces from chopping providers and Medicaid, all of the issues he did not point out throughout the election, or mentioned he isn’t going to chop, that is precisely what he is doing.”
Robles worries about what the redrawn district will imply for the environmental well being of the neighborhood, which sits only a few miles from the Houston Ship Channel.
Cindy Siegel, chair of the Harris County Republican Celebration, says President Trump is profitable over Hispanic voters.
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Andrew Schneider/Houston Public Media
“We have now a really large downside with air air pollution,” Robles mentioned. “We have already got a lot of folks in our space that undergo from well being issues, after which on prime of that, you undergo from issues like bronchial asthma, emphysema.”
Robles mentioned folks in Denver Harbor do not make a lot cash in comparison with the neighborhoods it will be joined with within the new district.
“They make six figures, you recognize, wherever from $50,000, $60,000 and as much as six figures,” Robles mentioned of her potential neighbors. “They do not have all these issues that we do.”
Why the GOP is looking for a brand new district
However Republicans word that, whereas Denver Harbor’s present district twists and turns throughout Houston and the encompassing county, its proposed new house is extra compact. And it’ll nonetheless be majority Hispanic, though Democratic leaders may not like how they vote.
“The way in which the brand new maps are drawn is de facto extra indicative of how Harris County has modified demographically,” mentioned Cindy Siegel, chair of the Harris County Republican Celebration.
A map of U.S Congressional Districts within the proposed plan is seen at a Texas legislators’ public listening to on congressional redistricting.
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Eric Homosexual/AP
Siegel argued that if Democrats are upset by the proposed new map, it is as a result of they notice that they’ve taken Hispanic voters with no consideration, and now they pay a value for it.
“They know that there was a shift within the final election that the Hispanic group, extra Hispanic voters, in reality, supported President Trump, voted for him,” Siegel mentioned.
Texas Home Majority Chief Tom Oliverson, a Republican who represents Cypress in northwest Harris County, informed Houston Public Media that partisan acquire was, in reality, the principle motive for the redistricting plan.
“I believe it is effectively inside our proper to take action,” Oliverson mentioned. “There are a lot of, many states the place redistricting for partisan efficiency has been a lifestyle for 20, 30 years, significantly in Democrat states.”
However partisan redistricting can overlap with racial gerrymandering, which is prohibited. Michael O. Adams, a political science professor at Texas Southern College, mentioned that the obvious Hispanic majority of the proposed district is misleading and doesn’t replicate its seemingly voting majority.
“I believe what we’re seeing right here, and what we’re witnessing on this redistricting proposal and the midterm cycle, is what I might name a grasp class in demographic manipulation,” Adams mentioned.
Andrew Schneider is the senior reporter for politics and authorities at Houston Public Media.
