Senate Panel Caps Off Patrick Plug
with Rural Hybrid Seat in New Map

Capitol Inside
September 28, 2021

A Texas Senate committee approved a plan for its own members' voting districts on Tuesday with an apparent gift for a veteran Republican state representative who Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has enthusiastically rallied behind in a bid for the upper chamber in 2022.

The Special Redistricting Committee gave its blessings in a 12-2 vote to a new Senate map that's designed to give the ruling Republicans at least one additional seat with a shot at another despite population growth that should favor the Democrats.

The committee alterations would turn a proposed suburban version of Senate District 10 in the Fort Worth area into a hybrid seat with the addition of five rural counties to offset the loss of 90,000 residents in Parker County, which would be split into two parts with 58 percent of the population there remaining in Senate District 30.

Sponsored by GOP State Senator Joan Huffman of Houston, the revised redistricting plan would boost Republican State Rep. Phil King's odds in a quest for the SD 10 seat that Democratic State Senator Beverly Powell of Burleson plans to seek again. King is a resident of Parker County with his home base in Weatherford.

SD 10, which is currently contained in Tarrant County exclusively, would have all of a half-dozen rural counties including Brown, Callahan, Palo Pinto, Shackelford and Stephens, which were added to SD 10 in committee to make up for the deductions in Parker County.

The Senate proposal also divides the Wichita Falls area into two districts with the severing of 58 percent of Wichita County from SD 30 where GOP State Senator Drew Springer of Muenster expects to run again next year. Republican State Senator Charles Perry of Lubbock would inherit the Wichita residents who Springer loses on the committee map.

The panel's map would add a couple of rural districts in West Texas to a newly configured version of Senate District 24 where Republican State Senator Dawn Buckingham of Lakeway isn't running again as a candidate for Land Commissioner instead in 2022.

SD 24 would have about 11,000 fewer Williamson County residents in the committee plan than the proposal that Huffman filed initially in Senate Bill 4. The district was drawn at Patrick's direction for Pete Flores - a Pleasanton Republican who'd been ousted at the polls last year by Democratic State Senator Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio.

more to come ...