HARLINGEN — The city commission’s balance of power could change while about 1,000 residents won’t be able to vote for their local representatives in the May election after a split city commission shifted population blocs in redrawing the city’s five single-member district lines.
Earlier this week, Commissioners Richard Uribe, Frank Puente and Rene Perez voted to redraw the district map while shifting much of District 2’s upscale bloc into District 3, which includes the Treasure Hills area.
Commissioners Michael Mezmar and Frank Morales opposed the new district boundaries.
On Thursday, Puente said shifting the affluent bloc out of District 2’s working-class area makes District 3’s demographics more uniform.
“It’s more fair representation,” he said, referring to the new district map during an interview.
Meanwhile, about 1,000 residents who moved from District 2 into District 3 won’t be able to vote in the May 7 election because District 3 won’t have a commission election until about five years.
“I’m heart-broken this many people won’t be allowed to vote in an election in Harlingen,” Mayor Chris Boswell said Thursday.
Mezmar claims ‘political gerrymandering’
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.
“This is clearly political gerrymandering to destroy me,” Mezmar, who represents District 3, argued during a Tuesday workshop.
As a result of a population shift, DawnRae Leonard, a Minnesota Street resident who last month announced her candidacy to run against Uribe, District 1’s commission, called off her year-long campaign after moving from District 1 to District 2.
Now, officials have placed the new map on display at City Hall, the Lon C. Hill Building and the Harlingen Public Library to give residents a chance to view the changes.
Boswell charges ‘voter suppression’
Earlier this week, Boswell argued the plan to shift voter Precinct 32 and part of Precinct 35 from District 2 into District 3 smacks of “voter suppression,” arguing about 1,000 residents won’t be able to vote for their representative on the commission in the May 7 election.
“I don’t understand why that’s fair to rob a large segment of our population of the opportunity and the right to vote for representation in this city,” Boswell told commissioners during Wednesday’s meeting. “Now, two entire voting precincts are being disenfranchised and not allowed to vote in an election. Any sense of common fairness and decency or morality or desire to really represent the people of the city of Harlingen is not being accomplished. I would urge you not to think about politics but I would urge you to think about the people of the community.”
Then, Boswell turned his comments to Puente, who oversees District 2.
“Commissioner Puente, who represents this district, ought not to support a plan that disenfranchises this many of his constituents of being able to vote in this election,” he said.
In response to Boswell’s charge of voter suppression, Perez argued the mayor stopped some working residents from voting in last May’s election when he supported an early voting schedule which ran the city’s polls from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“That’s voter suppression against the working people who have to choose between coming to work or voting,” Perez told Boswell.
In turn, Boswell said the city also kept its polls open during until 8 p.m. on two evenings during the early voting period that closed with a Saturday election.
Original map proposal
The law calls on commissioners to realign boundaries to try to balance the five districts’ population numbers.
During Tuesday’s workshop, commissioners argued they faced a Wednesday deadline after city officials failed to present them with redistricting proposals until last month.
Amid discussion, San Antonio-based attorney Rolando Rios, whom the city contracted to help draw up the district map, said the coronavirus pandemic delayed Census workers’ data collection until its release in September.
Based on the new Census, Rios 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 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.
Background
The city’s new Census figures showed the districts’ biggest population boosts since a previous commission drew up the city’s original map more than 13 years ago.
Census figures show District 5, running along the city’s west side, had 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.
