New Braunfels Edition | January 2022

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REDRAWING THE BOUNDARIES

the way to College Station in the east, according to the new map. Splitting constituencies Jonathan Packer, president of the Greater New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce, said having new repre- sentatives will require some eort to develop new relationships. “Our goal is to have active lines of communication regardless of who is in our delegation [and] to facilitate a productive working relationship with the business community in New Braunfels,” Packer said in a statement. “In this case we are going to have some relationship development to do, but that is OK. There are pluses and minuses to any conguration of representation.” Jesse Crosson, professor of polit- ical science at Trinity University in San Antonio, said the redistricting changes in New Braunfels follow a similar pattern to the rest of Texas. That is, creating maps that have fewer politically competitive dis- tricts than in the past. “Previously, New Braunfels had several toss-up districts in Congress. It really only has one now,” Crosson said. “The upside is that it has one of the only toss-up districts in the entire state of Texas on the map.” The 15th district, being vacated by Gonzalez, might be the only compet- itive district left. In the 2020 elec- tion, Gonzalez won with 50.2% of the vote according to the Texas Secretary of State’s Oce. Projected changes show that district slightly favoring a generic Republican candidate, but it would remain a tossup. “The other thing that’s worth not- ing is that Chip Roy’s district, which was previously Lamar Smith’s dis- trict … it wasn’t a toss-up but it was a

To accommodate for population growth across the state and in Comal and Guadalupe counties, Texas House seats and congressional seats representing New Braunfels now have altered boundaries and possibly new representatives.

District 44 District 45 District 49 District 73

FORMER STATE REP. DISTRICTS

NEW STATE REP. DISTRICTS

BLANCO COUNTY

290

HAYS COUNTY

281

KENDALL COUNTY

COMAL COUNTY

NEWBRAUNFELS

GUADALUPE COUNTY

SOURCES: TEXAS LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL, TEXAS SECRETARY OF STATE’S OFFICECOMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER

New Braunfels Mayor Rusty Brock- man said. “Where people live, that’s going to be a change for some of them, and they’re going to have to get used to creating new friendships, new rela- tionships,” Brockman said. “We’re going to have to get used to seeing or talking to someone dierent.” On the Texas Legislature side, District 73 became an open seat, as current incumbent state Rep. Kyle Bie- dermann, RFredericksburg, no longer resides in the district and declined to run for reelection. District 73 covered Comal, Gillespie and Kendall counties on the previous map. Now that district covers all of Comal County and the

western half of Hays County. House District 44 changed as well but not on the Guadalupe County side of New Braunfels. State Rep. John Kuempel, RSeguin, led for re-election in the district. New Braunfels also saw changes at the State Board of Education level. New Braunfels is currently repre- sented by board member Rebecca Bell-Metereau, DSan Marcos, in Dis- trict 5. The new map for the board draws New Braunfels out of that dis- trict into District 10. Where District 5 included New Braunfels in a district that encompassed Austin, San Anto- nio and much of the Hill Country, the new district wraps around Austin all

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represented by retiring U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, DBrownsville, and District 28 will again be part of New Braunfels. Incumbent District 28 U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, DLaredo, previ- ously represented a portion of New Braunfels prior to the redistricting that resulted from the 2010 census. Changes at the state and congres- sional levels will be in eect for the primary elections slated for March 1. With the city divided four ways and mostly new faces in its congres- sional delegation for residents to get to know, it will create an opportunity for developing new relationships,

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