HARLINGEN — The city’s demographics are shaping Harlingen’s five voting districts.
Across the new map, factors such as income helped the City Commission’s new majority carve out the single-member districts’ boundaries.
While members of the commission’s majority believe the new lines more fairly define the districts’ make up, redistricting has moved more than 3,000 District 2 residents into District 3, costing them their vote for their representatives in the May election.
Last week, commissioners voted 3-2 to redraw the city’s single-member district map, shifting population blocs based on demographics as part of a plan aimed at making districts more uniform in their make up, Commissioner Rene Perez said.
While Perez and Commissioners Richard Uribe and Frank Puente voted to adopt the map, Commissioners Michael Mezmar and Frank Morales opposed the move.
“This plan is fair,” Perez, the map’s architect, said. “The goal is to truly represent the demographics of Harlingen to have true representation.”
Numbers or demographics?
In his home on East Woodland Drive, Jay Meade raised the question, “When you’re redistricting, are you supposed to look at population or demographics?”
While redrawing the map, commissioners moved part of Meade’s upscale neighborhood from District 2 into District 3, including Treasure Hills, which won’t elect a new commissioner until 2024.
“I was sort of blindsided when they took my right to vote for a few years,” Meade, an advertising agency owner who served three terms on the City Commission, said.
At Sunshine Country Club Estates, DawnRae Leonard believes the city’s voting maps should be drawn based on districts’ population numbers.
When commissioners redrew the city’s voting map, they moved her neighborhood from District 1 to District 2, killing her year-long campaign aimed at toppling Uribe, District 1’s representative.
“I worked very hard on this,” the Navy veteran said. “I wanted to take a deep dive into the city of Harlingen. That’s what I’ve been spending my year doing. I feel like they really took away a great opportunity from me. I felt I should be allowed to run my race.”
The price of redistricting
Based on a 2016 list of 800 registered District 2 voters, Mayor Chris Boswell on Thursday estimated the new district map stripped about 1,000 eligible voters of their vote in the May 7 election, charging “voter suppression.”
Then on Friday, Boswell released a District 2 voter registration list showing 3,820 registered voters live in the area casting ballots in Precincts 32 and 35.
High numbers
Redistricting often leads to cases in which residents moved to new districts lose their vote in the next election cycle, Perez said.
“It’s an unfortunate byproduct of redistricting,” he said. “This is happening all over the state and all over the country.”
In the upcoming May 7 election, residents moving from District 2 into District 3 will still be voting in the mayor’s race while they’ll be able to cast ballots deciding the fate of proposed amendments to the City Charter, Perez said, adding 561 District 2 residents voted in last May’s election.
“The mayor saying it’s voter suppression — that’s ridiculous,” he said. “When he says voter suppression, that’s just pure politics.”
However, Boswell stood by his charge of voter suppression.
“Taking away the right of one person to vote is not right,” he said. “Every vote is precious. The issue is, taking away anybody’s right to vote is wrong. The motives are bad and the results are bad.”
Demographics shaping up Districts 2, 3
The decision to base redistricting on the districts’ demographics helped lead commissioners to move part of District 2’s upscale area into District 3, Perez said.
“A lot of District 2 is low income,” he said.
Now, the upscale area moves into District 3, which includes the Treasure Hills area.
“Treasure Hills is affluent,” Perez said. “They will have better representation.”
Political cluster
Perez also said District 2’s upscale neighborhood has spawned residents who’ve won election to the City Commission including Boswell, a former commissioner; Meade, who ran at-large when he won election in 2000; and Tudor Uhlhorn, who won his district seat in 2013.
“In that little area, how many city commissioners are there — Tudor Uhlhorn, Jay Meade, Chris Boswell?” Perez asked. “When you have a neighborhood with all the leadership, there’s some disparity.”
Puente, District 2’s representative who lives blocks away, said the new lines will help open the door for more residents to run for office.
Meanwhile, Meade said “coincidence” led to his neighborhood’s political inkling.
“I can’t help where Boswell, Tudor and I live,” he said. “It was coincidental that three of us from the same neighborhood stepped up to the plate and ran for office. I can’t control where the candidates live and they can’t control where I come from.”
Changing districts
As part of the move to redraw district lines, commissioners shifted a bloc of Treasure Hills area residents from District 3 to District 4, changing part of the districts’ demographics.
“I’ll do everything possible to address their issues,” Morales, who represents District 4, said.
Across town, commissioners redrew lines along the city’s five districts, shifting District 5’s northern portion into District 2; District 5’s south-eastern portion into District 4; District 4’s northern and central portion into District 2; District 4’s south-eastern portion into District 3; District 3’s northern portion into District 1; and District 2’s southern portion into Districts 3 and 4.
Background
The law called on commissioners to realign boundaries to try to balance the five districts’ population numbers.
Based on the new Census, San Antonio-based attorney Rolando Rios, whom the city contracted to help draw up the district map, first proposed shifting population blocs from fast-growing Districts 3 and 5 into Districts 1 and 4, where figures show slower growth during the decade in which the city’s total population climbed from 65,074 to 71,829.
Such a move wouldn’t stop residents from voting in the May election, he said.
However, Perez said he opposed Rios’ proposal to move the so-called U.S. Homes subdivision, which he described as a critical voting bloc, into District 4.
The city’s new Census figures showed the districts’ biggest population gains since a previous commission drew up the original map more than 13 years ago.
Census figures show District 5, running along the city’s west side, picked up the biggest population boost, pushing its total numbers to 17,733, according to Rios’ proposal.
During the last 10 years, growth also swept across District 3, which numbered 14,757 residents, and District 1, with 14,135 residents.
Meanwhile, growth remained stable across much of Districts 2 and 4.
In his proposal, Rios described each district’s “ideal” population as totaling 14,366 based on the new Census that set the city’s population at 71,829.
After voters adopted single-member district representation in 2008, Rios helped officials draw up the city’s original five-district map before helping a previous commission revise its boundaries following the 2010 Census.
