Latino Voters And New Congressional Seats

Some really interesting articles coming out about how Latino population growth and voter growth have affected the way House of Representative seats are being apportioned, how the district lines will be drawn for these seats and whether the GOP or the Democrats will be able to get their hands on them.

• Texas is getting four new House seats, but “growing Hispanic population is set to challenge Republican party dominance in some districts” and “Hispanics will dominate two or three of the new Texas districts.”
• Even though Illinois lost one seat, “Analysis from the Latino Policy Forum indicates that two seats would have been stripped from Illinois, had the state’s Latino population not grown as dramatically as it has over the past decade.”
• The Atlantic’s Chris Good had this to say about the national impact: “Lost Electoral College votes in New York and Pennsylvania will hurt Democrats in presidential elections for the next decade, but the big Census winner — Texas — is likely to be gaining Democratic Hispanic voters, not Republicans, and the same is true in John McCain’s bright-red home state of Arizona, Harry Reid’s purple Nevada, and the quixotic Florida, where national elections are a push.”
• Good also notes that gerrymandering will probably go hog wild as a result.
• Some think Georgia’s new House seat was due to Latino growth.

Stay tuned to NewsTaco for more information about the Census and how Latinos will be shaping the future of this country.