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10:45 am CST - March 29, 2011
Posted under The Scoop
Latinos & Redistricting 2012
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN, Texas – According to the Census Bureau, there were 308 million people residing in the U.S. in 2010, up 9% from 2000. Overall, based on 2009 population estimates, Hispanics accounted for more than half (51%) of that growth. Hispanic voters are nearly three times more prevalent in states that gained congressional seats and Electoral College votes in the 2010 reapportionment than they are in states that lost seats.
So says an analysis of Census data recently released by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.
Based on averages reflecting congressional gains and losses, 15.2% of the eligible voter (U.S. citizens ages 18 or older) population in states that gained seats is Hispanic, compared with just 5.4% of eligible voters in those states that lost seats.
With these reapportionment changes, Latinos likely will play a larger role in national politics in the coming decade. Two states that gained seats, Florida and Nevada, have been key swing battlegrounds in recent presidential elections (having voted for the Republican nominee in 2004 and the Democrat in 2008). In both states, Latinos are a growing share of eligible voters.
However, because many Latinos are either too young to vote or are not U.S. citizens, not all of their population growth translates into immediate electoral strength.
Among the nation’s 48.4 million Hispanics in 2009, a record 20.1 million are eligible to vote. Yet an even greater number are not eligible to vote. Some 15.5 million 
Hispanics are U.S. citizens 17 years of age or younger and 12.8 million of all ages are not U.S. citizens.
Even so, the number of the Latinos eligible to vote continues to grow.
Since 2000, nearly 6 million more Latinos have become eligible to vote. The bulk of this growth was attributable to the 5 million U.S. born Latino youths nationwide who turned 18 during this past decade.
That translates into an additional half-million U.S. born Latinos coming of age each year — a pattern that is certain to persist, and grow, in the coming decades.
The report, “The 2010 Congressional Reapportionment and Latinos,” authored by Mark Hugo Lopez, Associate Director, Pew Hispanic Center, and Paul Taylor, Director, Pew Hispanic Center, is available at the Pew Hispanic Center’s website.
The Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, is a non-partisan, non-advocacy research organization based in Washington, D.C. and is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
10 Comments
CWJensen
5:57 pm CST
March 29, 2011
REMEMBER when we were all AMERICANS?
Things were different then. I miss those days. My ancestors came from SCANDINAVIA BUT I never once remember being anything but an American.
I think this country would be much better if those new immigrants felt the same as the old ones.
Dan
8:14 pm CST
March 29, 2011
I’m getting sick of this census crap. I just really feel the numbers are inaccurate. From what I can tell in this story, it is saying there are 12.8 million. I really suspect it is more closer to 20 million.
Texas Nomad
10:07 pm CST
March 29, 2011
So when redistricting starts, you start in one corner of the state and draw the counties that are contiguous into a district until you reach the required population. Then you start on the next district until the redistricting is done. No race, ethnicity or anything else is involved..Just the total headcount. Then you will get it right.
GOPWinner
5:41 am CST
March 29, 2011
Hispanic voters don’t necessarily vote as a block. A particular family or group of friends may be influenced to vote as a block regardless of an issue.
The greatest Hispanic gains in the last Texas election came from candidates running on the Republican Party ticket. In one case, an Anglo Republican won a Hispanic Congressional Seat from a Democrat Hispanic.
The Republican Party is better poised to be the vehicle of power for Hispanic candidates than the Democrats except on the issue of granting amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Ken Dickson
8:12 am CST
March 29, 2011
When will this “groundswell” of foreigners begin to think of themselves as AMERICANS? They repeat their own language @ home, want us to teach in THEIR language, yet they never act as if they are here involved in anything but securing entitlements! To demonstrate with the flag of another nation will never allow them to assimulate into society!
Michael
8:44 am CST
March 29, 2011
Rick Perry and the Texas legislature is bound and determined to try to keep the Texas borders as porous as possible. His grand Trans Texas Corridor will facilitate this and ensure the flow of illegal aliens continues and the non assimilation of Hispanics into the American fabric of life remains as it is. English should be the official language in Texas, but this is continually blocked by Strauss and Perry – when are we going to throw these bums out. The Texas Republilcan Party is packed with RINO’s, so do not contribute to them.
TruthSquad
10:13 am CST
March 29, 2011
We need a Pew White Mans Research Center. Start a White Mans Chamber of commerce and run ads on TV saying “the new minority”, and seak special attention, recognitions, honors and awards.
wayne thorburn
10:47 am CST
March 29, 2011
To C.W., Ken and Truth Squad. Perhaps y’all are too young to remember this but let me remind you of the SPJST, the Sons of Italy, and the Hibernian Halls, let alone Praha and Castroville, Texas. I guess you have never visited a Chinatown in most of our major cities either.
The myth of us all once being only Americans probably ended with the grandchildren of the Mayflower settlers. The United States has always been a conglomeration of various ethnic and religious groups which came here in various waves of settlement – first associating in groups with their “own kind,” then slowly assimilating into the broader American culture with future generations.
My parents were born in Canada and individually immigrated to the US where they settled in an area with a large community of others with Canadian heritage and attended an “ethnic” church whose congregants all had relatives back in the old country (Canada). The only difference with Hispanics from Mexico is that my parents first language was English. Both have come here for work opportunity, for a better future for their children, and their offsprings will be as American as the Jensens, Dicksons, and Thorburns if we don’t isolate and alienate them by our prejudices.
Sonny
10:48 am CST
March 29, 2011
As long as Hispanics from all over Latin America and other countries can sneak into the U.S. and have their babies that will be automatic american citizens this will get worse before it gets better. They go to the emergency room get admitted to the hospital have thier baby at taxpayers expense, the baby is an american citizen with an american birth certificate. The 14th amendment was never meant for this and it needs to be changed to eliminate this problem. As long as we have liberal socialist in government this won’t happen. Illegal aliens are the root of most of our budget problems costing the american taxpayer $383 billion dollars per year and holding jobs that american citizens need, plus sending their money home to thier place of origin. This dosen’t contribute anything to our tax base. In 1964 we created welfarers who freeloaded off the system and now we have illegal aliens taking advantage of that same law. Is there no end to freeloading off the american taxpayer? especially when we’re broke and borrowing money to survive. If this continues we will be a third world government. Vote out the socialist/communist who have infilrtated our government or we won’t have a Republic left for long.
TruthSquad
8:59 am CST
March 29, 2011
Sonny is 100% CORRECT. Especially and unfortunately the last sentence is becoming correct.
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