Texas GOP advances new maps that would tighten slipping grip

Texas Republicans on Saturday night closed in on redrawn U.S. House maps that would shore up their eroding dominance as voters peel away from the GOP in the state’s booming suburbs.

But in a preview of legal challenges to come, Democrats spent hours blasting the maps as discriminatory and all but blind to the state’s surging number of Latino residents, who made up more than half of the nearly 4 million new Texans over the past decade. Many live around Dallas and Houston, where, under the GOP-engineered maps, there would be no new districts that give Latinos a majority.

Republican state Rep. Todd Hunter, who has presided over the redrawn maps in the House, defended the changes and said they comply with the law.