After intense infighting and multiple delays, Tuesday’s Texas primaries proceeded under a compromise map intended to hand two of the state’s four new House districts to Latinos. It now appears as if neither of the new Hispanic-majority districts will send one of their own to Washington.
Texas’s population ballooned over the last decade due to the state’s rapidly growing Hispanic population. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of Hispanics grew by 2.8 million in the state; the group now comprises almost 40 percent of the population. But they make up less than one-fifth of its congressional delegation — and after November, that contingent could shrink, even after advocates fought tooth and nail to open the doors for Latino candidates with the state’s redistricting map.
