SocraticGadfly: Rafael Anchia –Dallas Congressman? Elba Garcia?

December 22, 2010

Rafael Anchia –Dallas Congressman? Elba Garcia?

Update, Dec. 22, 2010: Texas will get FOUR new Congressional seats.

Because Texas is under the Voting Rights Act, because much of its population growth is Hispanic, and because part of the Texas GOP still dreams of recruiting more Hispanic voters, or even Hispanic elected officials like Texas State Rep. Aaron Peña, a taco -- or whatever other Hispanic variant on "Oreo" you prefer, there is very likely going to be a Hispanic congressional district in DFW.

Here’s why I say that about the man D Magazine called “the Hispanic Obama.” Or about the woman who became the next Dallas County Commissioner, unseating Ken Mayfield.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is expected to get one of the two new Congressional seats Texas picks up from redistricting after the 2010 Census.

It’s very possible to make a Hispanic-friendly, if not Hispanic-safe, district out of that.

Include much of his west Dallas state House district, and pieces of east central Dallas near downtown. Go into Southwest Dallas and perhaps the suburb of Duncanville, the most Hispanic of the south Dallas suburbs. Include most of Grand Prairie and all of south Irving. Find any other bits and pieces necessary to get to the population total for the district and there you go.

Of course, the the D Mag story notes Anchia has been rumored to have an eye on Kay Bailey Hutchison’s Senate seat.

And, the last page notes that not all Dallas Hispanics consider him a “Hispanic’s Hispanic.”

On the other hand, Garcia has to carry the stuffed to the gills baggage of her husband, state Rep. Domingo Garcia.

On the flip side to that, she, albeit at the local level, has probably actually gotten a better record of accomplishments than Anchia.

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