Texas Senate approves congressional map that draws no new Black or Hispanic districts even as people of color fueled population growth
Texas gained two new seats in Congress based on population growth fueled by people of color. But the Senateโs proposal provides no new majority-Black or majority-Hispanic districts to reflect that growth.
Census delays will force Texas lawmakers into a special session to redraw political maps
The U.S. Census Bureau has again pushed back the release of the 2020 census results โ a delay that will almost certainly force Texas lawmakers into legislative overtime this summer to redraw the stateโs political maps. Greg Abbott would need to call lawmakers back for a special legislative session in the summer. Texas would have expected to receive the second set of numbers as early as mid-February while lawmakers were in Austin for their regular legislative session. โMy guess is you all will be back in a special session sometime this summer or early fall,โ Potter said. The state Constitution says state House and Senate seats must be redrawn by the Legislature during the first regular legislative session after the census is published.
Reversing Donald Trump policy, Joe Biden will include undocumented immigrants in critical census count
President Joe Biden on Wednesday planned to officially dissolve efforts to keep undocumented immigrants from being counted in the distribution of congressional districts. Texas lawmakers would ordinarily expect to receive detailed data from the census as soon as mid-February โ marking an unofficial kickoff to the redrawing of political districts so theyโre roughly equal in population. And it determines political power, with population figures tied to how many seats Texas gets in Congress, the stateโs count of Electoral College votes, and how people are distributed into political districts. Texas should post huge population gains, with estimates showing it has grown by more than 3.8 million residents since 2010. The detailed census results used to redraw districts come in a second dataset that must be delivered to states by March 31.