Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D), a member of the House Oversight Committee, grilled Robert L. Santos, the director of the U.S. Census Bureau this week. According to Rep. Crockett, "Anglos" are overrepresented in Congress because minorities are underrepresented in the census. This has led to Republicans picking up two more seats in the House, which the Texas Democrat argues is not representative of the Lone Star state's population.
During the hearing, Rep. Crockett accused the state of Texas of taking part in gerrymandering, and she questioned the Census Bureau director over their census data as the bureau prepares to conduct another census in 2030.
Instead of working to fix the undercount of minority communities in the Census, Republicans are pushing legislation that would just multiply inaccuracies.
@RepJasmine notes the disproportionate impact of incomplete data on communities across the country: pic.twitter.com/cC6gb4kNB8— Oversight Committee Democrats (@OversightDems) December 5, 2024
"In 2020, according to the census, and we know there was a significant undercount... we know that specifically Texas added 4 million people," Rep. Crockett informed. "Of those 4 million people, do you want to take a guess at how many were Anglos?" she questioned Santos.
In response, he estimated "a majority." However, Rep. Crockett quickly answered that the answer was 180,000.
In 2021, Texas Republicans were scrutinized after their proposed congressional maps that allegedly reduced the number of districts where residents of color were the majority of eligible voters. In 202, the census concluded that the Lone Star state had gained the most residents of any state since 2010, and the increase in population was made up mostly by people of color.
Currently, the Hispanic population is now almost as large as the non-Hispanic white population. According to statistics, 95% of the 4 million residents that Texas added are people of color.
"We added 4 million people. They were people of color. Texas got two new seats, so they took those Black and brown and Asian bodies, and guess what? Do you think that we got a new Black, brown or Asian seat?" Rep. Crockett questioned during the hearing. "Somehow, the way that they do their Republican math in the state of Texas, that amounted to two new white seats.”
