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Re-redistricting: Interim map brings changes to Collin County
Image courtesy of the Texas Legislative Council - A federal court proposed interim state House and Senate maps on Thursday after the Legislature's maps were rejected by a judicial council. This map shows the changes that the court's House map calls for in Collin County.
By Conner Hammett, chammett@acnpapers.com
A federal court has proposed a set of temporary district lines to replace those created by the 82nd Legislature.
New maps for Texas House and Senate, released Thursday, were proposed after a judicial panel ruled that the Republican-controlled Legislature's redistricting maps used an "improper standard or methodology" to determine which districts would give minority voters the most voting power.
Though Collin County does not contain any of the disputed districts, the interim map shows significant changes to the county's House lines.
Most significant are the changes in western Collin County, which split the Collin side of Frisco in half between District 70 and a transplanted District 3, which encompassed Waller County and part of Montgomery County in the Legislature's redistricting map. District 3 now snakes around the top and eastern boundaries of the county before dipping into Rockwall County.
Madden, who served on the redistricting committee that developed the map, said the court's decision to divide Frisco goes against what the citizens of Frisco and Collin County asked the Legislature to do -- keep the city's Collin side in one district.
"The critical factor, I thought, was we were trying to keep communities of interest together. In the case of Frisco and Richardson, they certainly didn't do that," he said.
The maps were approved by two of the three federal judges who met in San Antonio to draw the interim maps. The dissenting vote came from Judge Jerry Smith, who drew his own maps that called for little to no change to Collin County House districts -- a proposal Madden said he preferred.
"I've asked the attorney general's people to at least express the concerns about why they changed Collin County at all," he said. "I'm not sure there was any purpose in making the changes that they did in our area."
The new maps are intended to be a placeholder while lawsuits over the Legislature's maps move through the legal system. As a result of the changes, the filing period for the March primaries has been changed and will now be from Nov. 28 to Dec. 15.
The county's Senate lines, which were released at the same time, extend District 8 further to the central-eastern part of the city Wylie. In addition, Saint Paul will now be wholly represented by District 8.
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