Texas State Rep. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, is widely considered a potential candidate for Congress from Houston.
At present, the Houston area is represented by nine members of the U.S. Congress, five of whose districts are contained entirely within the 10-county region (Republicans John Culberson and Pete Olson and Democrats Al Green, Gene Green and Sheila Jackson Lee) and four of whose respective districts contain a portion of the region (Republicans Kevin Brady, Michael McCaul, Ron Paul and Ted Poe). Preliminary analysis of the 2010 Census data suggests the Houston region will receive one of the state’s four additional U.S. House seats (increased from 32 to 36). Beginning in 2013, the Houston region will thus, in all likelihood, be represented by 10 members of Congress.
The 2010 Census data indicates that more than one-third (35 percent) of the Houston 10-county metropolitan region is Hispanic; 40 percent Anglo; and 17 percent African-American. Not a single one of the region’s current representatives in the U.S. House, however, is Hispanic (Gene Green’s district is the region’s sole Hispanic-majority district, but, of course, is represented by an Anglo). This contrasts notably with the presence of two African-American representatives (Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee), which is roughly proportional to the region’s African- American population, and the presence of seven Anglo Representatives, which is not at all proportional.
Given the above reality, one might expect that a second Hispanic-majority district would be created in the Houston area during the current redistricting process. This is unlikely to happen for four principal reasons.
First, any Hispanic-majority district created in the Houston area would be expected to elect a Democrat. However, the redistricting process is already expected to produce two additional Hispanic majority districts, which will elect Democrats. One district will be in the lower Río Grande Valley, where any district is by definition a Hispanic-majority district, and one will be in the DFW Metroplex which presently lacks a Hispanic-majority district and where suburban Republicans are eager to make their districts safer by packing Democrats into a urban minority-majority district. As a result, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature (along with Governor Rick Perry) is unlikely to support the creation of a third Democratic district in Houston.
Second, Houston-area Republicans strongly back the creation of a new Republican majority district in the Northwest portion of the region. Furthermore, this district could be created rather painlessly (from the perspective of Republican incumbents) from some combination of portions of the current districts represented by Representatives Brady, Culberson, McCaul, Olson, Paul and Poe.
Third, to create a second Hispanic majority district would require significant changes to the districts presently occupied by Representatives Al Green, Gene Green and Sheila Jackson Lee, while the creation of the Republican district in the Northwest suburbs would leave these representatives’ districts relatively untouched. As a result — at least privately — none of these three Democratic representatives is likely to be overly enthusiastic about the creation of a second Hispanic-majority district (especially Al Green and Jackson Lee).
Fourth, given the relative lack of residential housing segregation among Hispanics in the region, it would be difficult to draw a second compact and contiguous district in which Hispanics comprised a strong majority (55 to 60 percent) of the district’s population. Recall, that the creation of minority-majority districts depends on residential housing segregation. If a certain demographic group is well-integrated residentially, then it is much more difficult to draw a district where it comprises a majority of the population.
In sum, in spite of the fact that Hispanics account for more than one-third of the Houston area’s population, it appears entirely likely that in January 2013 when the region’s 10 new members of Congress are sworn into office in Washington D.C., not a single one of these representatives will be Hispanic.
Mark P. Jones is the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy’s fellow in political science as well as the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.