From the Right: Redistricting

After a few weeks off, I had planned on continuing my writing on President Biden's failures and the huge crisis going on at the boarder. I planned to discuss Biden's attempts to force vaccination mandates on Americans while currently allowing as many as 200,000 illegal immigrants to enter our country each month without Covid testing or vaccination.

Sometimes plans change and on Saturday, September 18, Senate Bill 4 was released to be debated and possibly passed in the 3rd called special session of the Texas Legislature. Governor Abbott's call for the 3rd special session included re-districting. SB4 covers the redistricting of the 31 Texas Senate Districts.

Some time in this special session, we should also see a Bill or Bills to re-district the Texas House. For now we only have the Senate Bill so that is where I will start.

As many of you know, Guadalupe County has been split since the last re-districting in 2010 between Republican Donna Campbell's Senate District 25 and Democrat Judith Zaffirini's Senate District 21. Currently SD 25 is for the most part, the North Eastern part of Guadalupe County while SD 21 includes the balance of the County.

OK, here is the big proposed change under Senate Bill 4. Guadalupe County will be split into three Senate districts including the current SD 21, SD 25 and the soon to be added SD19. Looking at the proposed map, SD 25 will still have the NE portion of Guadalupe County but will include the McQueeney area. The new SD 25 will begin at IH10 and the Bexar County line traveling East to Hwy 46 turning North for a short distance then moving again East to Hwy 123 again turning North to near the Comal County line. Senate District 21 will begin near Hwy 123 and the Comal County line and proceed South to near Geronimo, looping around the Eastern boundaries of Seguin again contacting 123 South a short distance and then heading South West to near the Lavernia Area. The final Senate District 19 will come out of Bexar County following IH10 going Eastward to Hwy 46, encompassing the City of Seguin then following the SD 21 line to near Lavernia. The new Senate District 19 will include all of Seguin and the New Berlin area. Roughly the Eastern half of Guadalupe County will be SD21, the South Western quarter of the county will be SD 19 and the North Western quarter will be SD 25.

Having said all that, Senate Bill 4 all depends on passage in the Senate and any legal battles that might be fought in the courts and we can all expect that to happen.

Some of you might ask why do we do this and the best explanation is population growth. Texas has grown from 25 million in 2010 to 29 million in 2020, an almost 16% increase. Under re-districting laws, demographics must be near the same for all 31 Senate Districts. After 2010, a Senate district should have contained about 800,000 citizens. After 2020, each Senate District will contain about 935,000 people. All other demographics must be considered also keeping a balance in race and economics as much as possible.

Senate District 19 includes Crockett, Val Verde, Edwards, Kinney, Maverick, Dimmit, Zavala, Uvalde, Real, Frio, Atascosa, a good part of Bexar County and part of Guadalupe County including the City of Seguin.

Senate District 25 will include part of Bexar County, part of Guadalupe County, Comal, Kendall, Blanco, part of Hays, Travis and Burnet Counties

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Senate District 21 will include all of Webb, Zapata, Starr, LaSalle, McMullen, Duval, Jim Hogg, Live Oak, Karnes, Wilson, Caldwell and parts of Guadalupe, Bexar, Hays and Travis.

Hopefully by next week, We will know the plans for House District 44 which currently includes Guadalupe and Wilson Counties. In House re-districting, we will be splitting the additional 4 million people into the 150 House Districts which means each House district will gain about 26,500 new people. Currently all of Guadalupe County is in Republican John Kuempel's House District 44. Next week, hopefully I can share the changes that will be made there.