By Bill Burch
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Lets take a closer look at the numbers. First of 25145561 Texas residents 27.3 are children. The number
of population increase that came from children was 991893. This leaves an increase of 3301848 Texas residents of voting age. But according to the Census Bureaus American Community Survey 1678045 or 51.7
are not citizens. This begs the question Why are Democrats & MALDEF trying to give Congressional representation to people who are not Texas citizens?"
According to the United States Census Bureau Texas had an increase in population increase of 4293741 people over the past ten years.
Of the 4293741 people at according to the Democrats and MALDEF (the
Mexican America Legal Defense & Education Fund) a full 60 of this increase was Hispanic. They push this so as to get an increase in the number of language protected (Hispanic) seats. The assumption is also that these will be Democrat seats.
I can understand the desire to stand up for your assumed constituency but there should be a limit placed on the extent of their distortions.
You see it seems that they forgot to mention an important part of the equation.
Most of these new people can not vote. It seems to me that we need to look at representation for those who can vote rather than those who cannot.
The Hispanic citizen increase in the voting age population is not the millions the Democrats claim but rather 700186.- The Anglo increase was 459143.
- The Black population increase was 287139 (mostly Katrina victims and unlikely to have continued increase at this level).
- The Asian citizens increased 158525 to a total of 394298 (an almost equal amount are non-citizen residents).
Another distortion is the percentage of the population that is Anglo and the percentage that is Hispanic.
- The percentage of Anglo voting age population that is Anglo is 58.8.
- For Hispanics it is 24.7.
- The Black percentage is 12.7.
- And Asian is 2.6.
- The Other category is 1.1.
These change a lot when the non-citizens are included.
It is Article One of the United States Constitution that requires a census to be taken every 10 years to determine the number of Congressmen from each state. This brings to question the one man one vote rule.
As a result of many states not redistricting regularly the Warren Court issued rulings in the 1960s in cases such as Wesberry v. Sanders Reynolds v. Sims and Baker v. Carr that required redistricting every ten years and that all Congressional and state legislatures be of equal populations for Congress and roughly equal for the state legislatures. Prior to these rulings a District might contain 100000 people where the next door District might have 200000 people.
The argument was that in District one the voters votes counted for twice as much as in the second District.
Using the logic that brought this about then to insure that we have one man one vote each District should have an equal number of citizens of voting age (413753).
For example using the GRIT PLANC112 Congressional map (Texas Legislative Council District
Viewer site
http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/)
- In Districts 15 28 29 and 30 you have over 30 of the population that are children.
- In Districts 32 and 36 you have about 22 of the population that are children.
Thats an unfair voting advantage to each of these Districts (all of which are voting rights act protected Districts) of over 60000 people.
Now lets look at the citizen versus non citizen issue.
Over 30 of the voting age population populations in Districts 9 and 29 are not citizens. Yet in Districts 1 4 and 19 the non-citizen population is less than 10. This is a difference of over 125000 people.
We have Districts that range from a high of 486385 voting age citizens (District 1) down to 319125 (District 29). This is a difference of 167260 citizens.
In other words each voting age citizen in District 29 has one and a half times the impact as the voters in District 1. All the advantages are to the Voting Rights Act protected Districts.
This would give each person the proper representation and voice within the Districts. This would actually strengthen the minority Districts voice by giving them an equal amount of citizens to those in other areas of Texas.
The Democrats and MALDEF should back off from their distortions and tell the whole truth.
Please remember that it is much easier to win the seats in Congress and the down ballot seats through todays redistricting process than it will be to win after the districts are approved.
Mr. Bill Burch is Chairman of G.R.I.T (Grass Roots Institute of Texas).
