The three-judge panel in Washington released its interim map proposals for the state house and senate today.

The maps can be found here. The senate map is Plan S163.  The house map is Plan H298 (Judge Smith also has a dissenting state house proposal, which is H299).

The parties have been asked to submit any comments or objections by noon, tomorrow, November 18.  A final order on the interim state house and senate maps could come as early as tomorrow afternoon.

There’s a whole lot more analyzing to be done, but a few (very preliminary) highlights:

• State Sen. Wendy Davis got a competitive seat back.
• State Reps. Hubert  Vo and Scott Hochberg are unpaired and each will have a seat to run in.
• The Mexican-American Legislative Caucus is estimating that the map creates 58 minority opportunity districts, up from 49 in the state’s map.  Some sources are saying the map could create as many 15 new Democratic leaning seats.

Overall, it looks like a big day for the state’s growing minority population – and for Democrats.

Oh, no interim congressional map as of yet.  It could come tonight or later tomorrow. Then MALDEF’s statement on the changes included:

• Locates an additional House district (HD 35) in the Rio Grande Valley that will afford Latinos the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.  At trial, MALDEF argued that the significant population growth in Cameron and Hidalgo Counties warranted the addition of a House district.
• Increases the Latino population of HD 78 in El Paso so that it will afford Latinos the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.  At trial, MALDEF argued that the Legislature’s House plan intentionally gerrymandered the El Paso seats to ensure that Latinos would constitute an ineffective minority of voters in HD78.
• Increases the Latino population in HD 144 in Houston so that it will afford Latinos the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.
• Maintains HD 33 in Corpus Christi as a Latino opportunity district.  HD 33 was eliminated in the Texas Legislature’s redistricting plan when it reassigned the district to Rockwall County.  At trial, MALDEF argued that the elimination of HD33 as a Latino opportunity district violated the Voting Rights Act.
• Maintains HD 117 in San Antonio.  HD 117 is a Latino-majority district that was re-drawn in the Texas Legislature’s redistricting plan to minimize the ability of Latinos to elect their preferred candidate.  At the remedial hearing, MALDEF argued that the Legislature intentionally gerrymandered HD117 to protect the incumbent at the expense of Latino voters.

This article originally appeared on News Taco.

The state of Texas and the U.S. Justice Department presented arguments to a federal court on Wednesday regarding the state’s controversial proposed election maps which could potentially lower the chances of Latinos to choose candidates of their choice in several districts.

The three-judge panel’s decision will have tremendous impact: Texas stands to win four new seats in the U.S. House of Representatives due to the state’s population growth according to the 2010 Census figures.

But even though minorities accounted for 90 percent of the state’s population growth, only one of the state’s four new districts has been designated as a minority district.

Representative Trey Martínez Fischer, a Democrat and the first witness representing the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, argued yesterday that Texas gained those four seats because of minorities.

“The Republican Legislature that drew and passed this map, and the Republican governor who signed this map, and the Republican attorney general who’s defending this map in court chose this opportunity to expand their political power at the expense of minorities,” he said.

According to lawyers for the Justice Department, the new map lowers the chances of Latinos to choose candidates of their choice in districts based in San Antonio and Corpus Christi.

They also believe they uncovered evidence of discrimination by the state and federal lawmakers in Texas, who took race and ethnicity data into account for the redistricting.

Texas, on the other hand, says the emails being cited as evidence were actually an attempt to protect incumbents by taking into account Hispanic populations for the redrawing of district lines.

Because of a history of discrimination against minorities at the ballots, Texas is required to get permission from the federal government or a special federal court before making substantial voting changes like this one, under the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Voting rights experts say the issues are so complicated that the court might take a long time to consider all aspects and come to a decision.

“A trial will probably take a fair amount of time, a lot of effort by both sides, and I think will draw negative attention to the people who are accused of discriminating on the basis of race,” says University of Michigan law professor Sam Bagenstos.

With primaries beginning in March, however, there is not a lot of time.

“That’s everything from certifying precincts, to having a filing schedule for candidates to run in, and having enough time to print ballots to place them before different precincts throughout the state,” Martínez Fischer says.

Sources:

The Houston Chronicle

Fox News Latino

LA Times

A report by the Pew Research Center released last week found that Latinos have been the worst hit by the current economic recession.

Researchers from the Social & Demographic Trends Project analyzed data from the Census Bureau and found that the median wealth of Hispanic households fell drastically from $18,359 in 2005 to $6,325 in 2009, a total of 66 percent, accounting for the largest decline of any minority group.  African American and Asian American households also saw steep declines, 53% and 54%, respectively.

Meanwhile, the median wealth of white households only fell by 16%, which means that the wealth of whites is now 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, marking this as the largest racial wealth disparity our nation has faced in 25 years.

“It’s a very stark reminder of the high share of minorities who live at the economic margins of this country,” said Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center and an author of the report. “These data really show their economic vulnerability.”

The report also found that the housing meltdown accounted for the primary decline in wealth of all groups. Hispanics were hit particularly hard by this downward trend in the housing market, since up to two-thirds of their net worth in 2005 came from home equity.

Overall, the number of Americans with zero wealth has increased during this recession.  In 2009, a third of Hispanics had zero or negative net worth.

This is the lowest reported median wealth for Hispanic since 1984, the year the Census Bureau first made such data available, according to the report.

Household wealth or net worth is defined as assets including a house, a car, savings and stocks, minus debts, like mortgages, car loans and credit cards. for purposes in this report.

NY Times

Pew Hispanic

The Hispanic population in the U.S. accounted for more than half of the total population growth in the country outpacing other demographic groups, according to a U.S. Census Bureau brief released last week.

The Census brief, Hispanic Population: 2010, shows that the Hispanic population grew by 43 percent, or at a rate of four times faster than the rest of the U.S.   Another finding was that Mexicans and Mexican Americans make up the largest Hispanic group nationwide and in 4o states.

The U.S. population increased by a total of 27.3 million from 2000 to 2010 and Hispanics accounted for 15.2 million.

The brief also lays out the distribution of Hispanics across the country.  The Hispanic population has continued to remain concentrated in the same three states: California with 27.8 percent, Texas with 18.7 percent and Florida with 8.4 percent.

The South and the Midwest saw the most increased numbers of Hispanics.  In the South, the Hispanic population grew by 57 percent, and the Midwest saw a jump by 49 percent.

In other trends within the Hispanic population, each of the following three groups surpassed the 1 million mark, Salvadorans, Dominicans and Guatemalans.

Puerto Ricans are the second largest Hispanic group at 9 percent and Cubans are the third accounting for 4 percent of the total Hispanic population.

In the report, the Census Bureau uses the terms “Latino” and “Hispanic” interchangeably to denote those citizens residing in the United States who define themselves as “of Latino, Hispanic, or Spanish” origin.  Demographics of the Hispanic population are consequently based on the roots people identify as their own and not on their place of birth.

The information provided by the Census on Hispanics will be influential both for legislative redistricting and for deciding on the distribution of resources and services to each community based on its makeup and needs.

2010 Census

The 2010 Census figures indicate increased diversity from 366 metro areas in the U.S. and showed that Hispanics now outnumber the number of blacks, becoming the largest minority group in 191 metro areas.

The data is significant because it could influence the political maps that are drawn during the restricting process and possibly shift the balance of power in the House of Representatives.  Ethnic voting is often taken into account by states in the redistricting process.

“From now on, local, state and national politicians will need to pay attention to Hispanics rather than treating blacks as the major minority,” William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, said.

Hispanics became the largest minority in 32 more areas since the 2000 Census- partially due to Black populations moving south.

Last month’s Census Bureau reported that 1 in 6 Americans were Hispanic while 1 in 10 American’s were Black.

“A greater Hispanic presence is now evident in all parts of the country – in large and small metropolitan areas, in the Snowbelt [northern states] and in the Sunbelt [southern states],” Frey added.

BBC News

Reflecting on the 2010 Census results and the dramatic increase in the U.S. Latino community, I ask myself how we once again find ourselves in the same predicament as ten years ago, with no national sense of urgency to fix Latino education when it has significant implications for our future workforce.

Even though the last census correctly predicted Latino growth of more than 50 percent; even though compelling and substantive books have been published making the case that the future success of America is tied to the nation’s fastest growing demographic – “Latinos and the Nation’s Future,” edited by Henry Cisneros; and even though Latino leaders have worked very hard to improve the education and economic well-being of Latinos, we continue to have a Latino education crisis and major underrepresentation of Latinos in all sectors, especially at senior levels.

2010 Census numbers and subsequent reports from key agencies quantitatively affirmed the dramatic growth in the Latino population:

• Hispanic growth accounted for more than half of the nation’s growth in the past decade and the Hispanic population now totals 50.5 million, or 16.3 percent of the U.S. population. (U.S. Census Bureau)
• Hispanic youth account for 23 percent of the nation’s youth under 18 and that population is growing at a much faster rate than other demographics, increasing by 39 percent over the past decade (U.S. Census Bureau)
• Hispanics currently make up 15 percent of U.S. workers and are expected to comprise half of all new entrants into the labor market by 2025. (Dept. of Labor)

These impressive numbers are alarming when we consider the implications for Latino education attainment and the future workforce and economic health of the United States:

• Employed Hispanics are much less likely to have a college degree than are either whites or blacks. (Dept. of Labor)
• Approximately one in six employed Hispanics aged 25 and over have completed a bachelor’s degree, less than half the proportion among employed whites; and the share of Latinos with college degrees versus whites has widened over the past decade.  (Dept. of Labor)

What can we do today to so we don’t find ourselves again unprepared to lead ten years from now?

First, heading into the next decade, we cannot simply depict Latinos as being one in six Americans, rather we must emphasize that Latinos already make up the future of our nation, as already one in four Americans are under the age of 18. Furthermore, nine in ten Latino children in America are native born, reinforcing the fact that Latinos are a core part of this nation’s future. (NCLR)

Second, given that Latinos are the fastest growing segment of consumers, employees, and the country’s tax base, more significant and focused investments are needed by all sectors including the philanthropic community. Without significant change in high school completion and college attainment rates, the country faces a shortage of 23 million college-educated adults in the workforce in the next 15 years – a crippling blow to U.S. economic competitiveness. (Lumina Foundation)

The focus must move away from sheer numbers and turn to how those numbers will impact the future of the nation if we don’t change the Latino education dilemma. Without addressing low Latino high school and college completion rates, President Obama’s goal of 60 percent college attainment rate by 2025 – already aggressive – has no chance.

The spotlight must shine on increasing the visibility of and enhancing discussion around Latino educational attainment and the U.S. workforce, promoting the understanding in the national community about the local economic impact created by Latino educational attainment, and engender a vested interest to achieve the 60 percent college completion goal.

Success means that all of us understand the imperative and invests in the country’s future. From leading non-profits and foundations to the federal government, to think tanks and school boards, to teachers and parents, to employers large and small in all sectors – everyone must be invested and not only grasp the urgency of this issue, but take bold actions today to stall if not avert the future collapse of the U.S. workforce and our global competitiveness.

Esther Aguilera is President & CEO of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI), the nation’s premier Hispanic youth leadership development and educational organization.  CHCI launched a national dialogue, Partnerships for Latino Education Success, on April 8, 2011, to examine the unique education challenges facing young Latinos, define the barriers to higher education attainment, and identify best practices for addressing these to help reach the 60 percent goal by 2025.  This initiative is in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, California State University, Dominguez Hills, Excelencia in Education, the Lumina Foundation, NALEO, and Univision.

New Jersey was one of the first states to receive its redistricting data and as such, is ahead of the pack in redrawing its districts.  It is also now taking the first crack at how to best represent the Hispanic population in the state.

The state is deliberating over two approaches.  The first, “packing” would concentrate Hispanics in one district and the other, “cracking,” dilutes them over many districts.

“It’s a national strategy,” David A. Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C., said. “Democrats want to spread out minorities. Republicans want to create white districts, or ones with a small enough minority population that it won’t have an effect on the vote.”

New Jersey is under pressure to meet a deadline of April 3 with a final map due to upcoming elections in the fall.

Both options can have negative consequences.

The practice of packing minorities into a district can give the group increased strength as a voting bloc, allowing them to elect a minority but also runs the risk of decreasing the strength of the party overall if the opposing party wins the majority of the rest of the districts.  While Republicans have never said they formally support packing this is their favored strategy.

If minorities are spread out over several districts, this can give the party (Democrats more often than not) a competitive advantage, but minorities have less power to select their candidates.

“For us, it’s not about parties, it’s about whether Latinos are going to have Latinos in the Statehouse,” Martin Perez, president of the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey, said.  ”If the party doesn’t want to give us the line, we can go out and get our own on the ballot.”

Census results show that New Jersey’s Hispanics population grew by 13 percent since 2000 and now surpasses 17 percent.  Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the state, beating out blacks for the first time in the state’s history.

Fox News Latino

We are witnesses today to an historic period in the civic engagement of Latinos in the United States. Latinos have become a permanent fixture of the American political experience, and the Census is an integral part of that. Every issue – healthcare, the economy, jobs, funding for schools, hospitals and roads — is affected by the Census. Most importantly, the Census is at the core of our democracy. Census data are used by the federal government to distribute $440 billion annually in funds to states and localities. Each one of us is worth $1,400 to our community every year for ten years, until the next Census, so every person missed in the Census means less in resources for schools and clinics, transportation and jobs. It’s like throwing money out the window.

In establishing our federal government system, the Founding Fathers determined that a count of the population was needed to see how truly representative the government was going to be, and that’s why a Census undertaking every ten years was written into the Constitution. In the past, slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person in the Census, and Native Americans living on reservations were completely excluded. However, now that all persons are included, we need to ensure all Latinos are counted.

In 2000, up to three percent of Latinos were missed in the Census, representing unrealized political power and nearly $2 million in lost resources to the communities. The Census is about two simple things: Money and Power. Two things that no one freely gives up. And two things we must insist our community gets the share of resources and political influence we have earned and deserve.

There are some who have called for a Latino boycott of the Census until Congress approves immigration reform. But that effort has fallen on deaf ears in the immigrant community because immigrants understand how important it is to be included in the Census. They realize what is at stake, and they understand there is power in numbers. That is something we in the Latino community understand. How can we tell Congress what we need if we don’t tell the Census Bureau who and where we are? The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund considers that the 2010 Census will be the Latino Census because it will be the first Census in the history of the United States in which Latinos are the nation’s second-largest population group, and it is the first time the U.S. Census Bureau mailed out 13 million bilingual (English/Spanish) forms to make sure ALL Latinos are counted. Latinos are 15% of the U.S. population and number 47 million strong. We account for 50% of this country’s population growth, and we need to be counted.

The NALEO Educational Fund, along with the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Mi Familia Vota Education Fund, Univisión Communications, Entravisión Communications and ImpreMedia coordinates the ya es hora ¡HAGASE CONTAR! (It’s Time Make Yourself Count!) campaign, which focuses on promoting the importance of the Census and educating individuals to fill out their forms and mail them back. The campaign is the largest and most comprehensive non-partisan effort to incorporate Latinos as full participants in the American political process.

A recent survey by Pew Hispanic Research shows our outreach is working. The study finds an overwhelming majority of Latinos – 70% — believe that Census participation is good for the community. The poll highlights that most Latinos know the Census Bureau cannot give out personal information, nor can the information the Bureau gathers be used for law enforcement or immigration purposes. Nonetheless, the poll shows a greater understanding of the Census among foreign-born Latinos compared to their native-born counterparts. The NALEO Educational Fund has said and we will continue to maintain that the U.S. Census Bureau needs to invest more in reaching English-dominant Latinos, especially as the Bureau moves to its phase of reaching out to those who haven’t mailed back their forms. We will be there all the way, making sure all Latinos are counted. We have a national toll-free bilingual hotline, 877-ELCENSO (877-352-3676) so that the public can call with questions about the Census and assistance in completing the form. Our outreach will continue through the rest of April and the month of May to help ensure we are all included in this very important decennial count.

Thanks to the American Constitution Society for sharing this piece which originally appeared in their blog.

Arturo Vargas is the Executive Director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, a national membership organization, and the NALEO Educational Fund, a national nonprofit civic participation and civic research organization. The NALEO Educational Fund is the leading organization that empowers Latinos to participate fully in the programmatic activities include U.S. citizenship outreach and assistance, civic participation, campaign training, technical assistance to elected and appointed Latino officials, youth leadership development, research on Latino demographic and electoral trends, and policy analysis and advocacy on access to the democratic process.

Census Bureau director Robert Groves kicked off the national mail-in campaign in Phoenix on Monday, urging cities and states to promote the census and improve participation rates. A reported only 72 percent of U.S. households returned their forms during the last census.  Arizona is a state that could gain up to two Congressional seats because of population growth fueled by immigration.

Groves explained that real-time census data showed public awareness of the 2010 count had improved since January to levels similar to 2000’s census count. Groves called that “good news.”

The Census Bureau predicts that two-thirds of U.S. households will mail in the form.  The decrease may be due to growing U.S. apathy towards surveys, residents displaced by a high number of foreclosures, and immigrants who have become more distrustful of government workers amid a crackdown on illegal immigration.

Starting in May until July, the Census Bureau will send census-takers to each home that doesn’t reply by mail. Failure to respond to the census carries a fine of up to $5,000, although that law is rarely enforced.

In 2000, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Texas and North Carolina each had below-average mail participation rates of less than 70 percent. All of these states have seen higher rates of foreclosures and rapid growth of minorities, who are often more reluctant to turn in their forms. Each of these states could potentially gain at least one U.S. House seat, with Texas possibly picking up as many as four.

This year for the first time the Census Bureau is mailing out bilingual English-Spanish census forms to 13 million households. Census forms are also available by request in Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Russian, and assistance guides are available in 59 languages at http://www.2010census.gov.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gEoTQb3c7ewKKKNz5aAT8lL1PVmgD9EF9B7O1

“Census projections suggest America may become a minority-majority country by the middle of the century. For America’s children, the future is now,” said Kenneth Johnson, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire who researched many of the racial trends in a paper being released Wednesday.

Demographers expect that this year the number of babies born to minorities will outnumber those born to whites.  Increased immigration, which has lead to a larger demographic of Hispanic women in their prime childbearing years, is a major contributing factor to this change in population.   Hispanic women tend to have higher fertility rates than their non-Hispanic counterparts.  Furthermore, white women are waiting longer before having children, a trend whose impact is not fully understood but which would suggest a reduction in births.

Minorities made up 48 percent of U.S. children born in 2008 according to the latest census estimates available, compared to 37 percent in 1990.

These numbers point to the growing divide in age and ethnicity in the United States, particularly in certain regions and likely will have a profound effect on policy debates including immigration reform, healthcare, education, and Social Security.

There are also implications for the 2010 census, which will begin next week.  The Census Bureau has been undertaking a campaign to encourage full participation, especially among minorities.  Public service announcements are being produced in both English and Spanish, and a special partnership with Nickelodeon will feature ads with Dora the Explorer, the  bi-lingual children’s cartoon who is seen helping “mommy fill out our census form.”

Census figures are used to distribute federal aid and redraw legislative boundaries with racial and ethnic balance, as required by federal law.

“The adults among themselves sometimes forget the census is about everyone, and kids should be counted,” said Census Bureau director Robert Groves. “If we fail to count a newborn that is born this month, that newborn misses all the benefits of the census for 10 years.”

While whites are expected to remain the majority in the U.S. until at least 2050, many indicators are pointing to the growth of minority populations.  Roughly 1 in 10 of the nation’s counties has a minority population in excess of 50 percent, but 1 in 4 has more minority children than white children.  Hispanic women have 3 children on average, while white women have approximately 2 children.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/10/AR2010031000010.html