From the San Angelo Standard Times.
As an indicator of what may be coming, state demographer Karl Eschbach said Texas increased in population from 2000 to 2008 by about 3.475 million, an increase of 16.7 percent, but most of that growth has occurred in major metropolitan areas such as San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and Austin, he said.“All of rural Texas is going to lose. That’s the bottom line,” said Rep. Delwin Jones of the 83rd District, R-Lubbock, chair of the House Redistricting Committee.
Jones said on average, the 150 House districts will need to increase their population by 24,000 and the 31 Senate districts by 120,000 to absorb the population growth.
“West Texas hasn’t generally kept pace,” Eschbach said about the population growth. “If you’re not growing at the same pace of the state, you have to expand geographically those districts.”