New Blog 1: Harris County Precinct Map

Sunday 9 December 2012

Harris County Precinct Map

The new Harris County boundaries bring significant changes in the population of the four precincts. According to the 2010 Census, there were too many people in precincts represented by Commissioners Steve Radack and Jerry Eversole, and too few in Commissioner Jack Morman and El Franco Lee's precincts. Harris County gained about 680-thousand people, but Dr. Murray says they didn't gain them evenly across the four precincts. "The Anglo population has gone down. Minority population, Hispanic particularly, has increased, but it's spread throughout the county, which creates some interesting redistricting issues, and to a lesser degree, the same with the African American population, which is more dispersed now than it was 10 years ago. This creates some issues in trying to draw districts that are opportunity districts for protected minorities." The map moves roughly 100-thousand residents from the two fast-growing precincts in the county's west, north and northeast — represented by Commissioners Radack and Eversole — to two slower-growing precincts in the south and east--represented by Jack Morman and El Franco Lee.