AUSTIN, Tex., Aug. 4 (AP) — A three-judge federal panel drew a Texas Congressional district map on Friday that gave new muscle to Hispanic voters in South Texas and solidified the partisan makeup of several others.
Representative Henry Bonilla, a Republican whose district the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional, could face a tougher re-election battle, however, now that his district has more Hispanics who have overwhelmingly voted Democratic in the past.
The Supreme Court ordered the map — engineered by former Representative Tom DeLay, a Republican, and drawn by state Republican legislators — redrawn because the sprawling 23rd Congressional District had diluted Hispanic voting strength in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
The district stretched from Laredo to El Paso County in the west and to San Antonio in the north, but split Webb County, which includes Laredo, into two districts.
“All we want as Hispanics is for everyone’s voting rights to be respected,” said State Representative Richard Raymond, Democrat of Laredo. “Not just ours but everyone’s; and when you trample ours, we won’t stand by. I hope the Republicans learned a lesson.”
The judges emphasized that they had made the minimal changes necessary to fix the violations as ordered by the Supreme Court.
“These changes restore Latino voting strength to District 23 without dividing communities of interest,” said the judges, Lee H. Rosenthal, T. John Ward and Patrick E. Higginbotham of Federal District Court.
Judges Rosenthal and Higginbotham were appointed by Republican presidents; Judge Ward was appointed by President Bill Clinton.
On the new map, Webb County is entirely in the 28th Congressional District, represented by Henry Cuellar, a Democrat.
The judges also added parts of Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, to the 23rd District and moved Kerr, Kendall, Bandera and Real Counties out of Mr. Bonilla’s district and into the 21st Congressional District, represented by Lamar Smith of San Antonio, a Republican. That still gives Mr. Smith a solidly Republican district.
Before the Republican-led Texas Legislature redrew the lines in 2003, Mr. Bonilla’s support among fellow Hispanics in his district was slipping. The lines were reconfigured, scooping Laredo Hispanics into a neighboring district, to give Mr. Bonilla an edge over a Democratic candidate. He won re-election under that plan in 2004.
The new 23rd District has a 61 percent Hispanic voting-age population, compared with the 51 percent Hispanic voting-age population in the district in which he was elected.
Former Representative Ciro D. Rodriguez, who lost the 2004 Democratic primary to Mr. Cuellar under the DeLay map, said he was considering challenging Mr. Bonilla.
“We’re crunching the numbers right now,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who represented parts of South San Antonio pushed into the new 23rd District.
Under the new map, Mr. Bonilla’s district includes the heavily Hispanic and Democratic neighborhoods of southern Bexar County. It also will be more evenly divided between Democratic and Republican voters.
“The court has given me the opportunity to represent my old neighborhood, the school I attended, the house I grew up in and so many old friends,” Mr. Bonilla said. “Perhaps most importantly it has given me the opportunity to be my mother’s congressman, and, trust me, she will make me work to earn her vote.”
Under the new plan, all incumbents remain in their current districts.
“This was not a good week for Tom DeLay,” said former Representative Martin Frost, a Democrat felled by the redistricting. “He still managed to get the state redrawn, although it cost him his own seat.”
Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat, will get a slightly more Democratic population in his 25th Congressional District because the court moved a largely liberal section of South Austin into his territory. Travis County, which includes Austin, remains split among three Congressional districts, as it was under the Republican redistricting map.
The new map also makes Mr. Doggett’s district more compact. Previously the boundaries snaked from South Austin down to the Rio Grande Valley in an oddly shaped district nicknamed the bacon-strip district.
The reconfigurations also slightly changed the 15th Congressional District, represented by Rubén Hinojosa, a Democrat. It remains heavily Democratic.
Because the districts were redrawn after the primary elections, the seats are open now to anyone who wants to run. Candidates have until Aug. 25 to file for the race. A special election will be held alongside the Nov. 7 general election for Congressional seats in the affected districts.
In 2003, Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, called three special sessions in 2003 to complete the new map of Texas districts. Democrats fled the state in two quorum-breaking walkouts as they tried to stop a vote on the map.
Republicans eventually won the battle, and four of the five Democrats singled out for defeat with the new districts lost their House seats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/05/us/05texas.html?_r=2&ref=washington&oref=slogin&oref=login
