Texas GOP Redrawing Congressional Districts

The Republican-dominated house is redrawing congressional districts.

One possible change could have most of Fort Bliss and parts of the westside … being represented by a Congressman 600 miles away in San Antonio.

“The redistricting affects everyone. This is a process that happens every ten years when the new census comes out, ” said Congressman Silvestre Reyes’s press secretary, Vincent Perez.

He says, historically, the party in power attempts to draw new lines to help it stay in power,”They’re creating lines that benefit them over the next ten years.”

The proposed new map calls for the district represented by San Antonio’s republican Francisco Canseco to cover a large portion of Fort Bliss and part of the westside. Right now, Canseco only covers the far eastern part of El Paso county.

“There’s about 60,000 people in the northeast and westside that would be represented by a representative in San Antonio,” said Perez.

In El Paso county, the northeast, west side and upper valley are the only areas of the city where there is a strong republican vote.

“The way you draw the lines gives you an advantage of which populations you have in your boundaries and which populations you keep out,” said Perez.

The new lines would mean El Paso will now be represented by two congressmen. Perez says we probably won’t get any more attention, “I think from a customer service stand point, it’s not good for our constituents.”

But he thinks the political move to carve out more republican sections won’t get far,”Last time, we saw this thing will go all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court actually struck down some of the districts that were drawn by the state legislature and we suspect that this will end up in the courts again,” said Perez.

This is the first step in the process. The boundaries must comply with the voting rights act and pass a review by the U.S. Department of Justice.