AUSTIN — This year more than ever, the once-a-decade fight over new legislative and congressional districts emphasizes the growing clash between the “old” Texas and the “new” Texas, with the state's older, whiter establishment trying to stave off a push by newer forces — buoyed by dramatic minority population growth — eager for a bigger slice of the political pie.

For the GOP, it could be the last best chance for an Anglo-dominated party to preserve its political power. For minority groups, it is a chance to elect more Latino candidates.

As the redistricting showdown heads to court in San Antonio Tuesday, all of the lawyers representing minority groups are Hispanic. Most of the lawyers representing the state are Anglo.

One difference from previous redistricting fights: Two of the three federal judges who will hear this year's lawsuit are Hispanic: U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez and U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia. None of the federal judges in previous statewide redistricting cases in Texas have been Hispanic.

It is a reflection of the changing face of Texas. The once majority-Anglo state has become one in which minorities collectively now are the majority. Soon, Hispanics will surpass Anglos as the largest population group.

Beaten badly in the legislative arena, where minorities make up only 20 percent of the 181-member Texas House, minority groups “have a new set of referees” in a courtroom, said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, which has raised about $2 million to help challenge the redistricting map. “Now, we argue as equals.”

But having Hispanic jurists overseeing a Texas redistricting case for the first time doesn't tip the scale any particular way, because “the law is what the law is and the facts are what the facts are,” said veteran voting rights attorney José Garza of San Antonio, who represents MALC.

“Intelligent thinking jurists and lawyer advocates can look at a set of facts and interpret legal precedent, and both of them will be true to their obligation and see it differently,” Garza said. “That happens all the time. These issues are tried by human beings who hear the evidence and read the law, and you can have, in the law, differences of opinion — and that's why you have 5-4 decisions at the Supreme Court.”

Minorities, who accounted for 89 percent of the state's population growth over the past 10 years, helped Texas get four new congressional districts. But minority groups contend the Republican-controlled Legislature came up with a congressional district map that won't net them a single seat.

The new map carving Texas into 150 state House seats will actually result in a decline in Latino-opportunity districts, they say.

“I am not surprised at what I think essentially is a power grab by a demographic that is declining in the state of Texas at the expense of the growing minority community,” Martinez Fischer said.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and his staff, preparing to defend the redistricting maps, categorically reject any notion of discrimination or unfairness.

They point out that while Hispanics now are 37.6 percent of the state's population, they make up 24 percent of voting-age Texans and only 20 percent when non-U.S. citizens are removed from the voting-age population.

The 2010 Texas House election produced two African American Republican lawmakers and five Hispanic Republican House members, while two GOP Hispanics were elected to Congress that year.

“Given the historic nature of the November 2010 elections, any analysis of old vs. new Texas must keep in mind that a given population of people is not monolithic,” Abbott spokesman Jerry Strickland said.

“In terms of determining the outcome of elections, the plaintiffs' challenge presupposes that all Hispanics and African Americans would prefer to be represented by Democrats rather than Republicans. ... The reality is more complicated.”

Nina Perales of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said the group doesn't address partisanship in the redistricting case.

“We focus on ensuring that Latino voters have the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice, regardless of race or political party,” she said.

“Our challenge to the current House and congressional redistricting plans is based on the fact that the plans diminish Latino voting strength across the state, fail to draw the correct number of districts in which Latinos have the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice, and purposefully discriminate against Latinos because of race.”

Lawyers for the minority organizations contend that Republican lawmakers yanked out high-turnout Latino voting precincts from some districts to swap with low-turnout Latino neighborhoods while also cutting the African American populations.

“It's like a sleight of hand. If you only look superficially at the numbers, it looks like the district is unchanged,” said Garza, the MALC attorney. “That's so calculated it can't be anything else but intentional discrimination.”

Minority lawmakers challenging the map were asked for evidence of intentional discrimination during pretrial depositions, and couldn't provide any, said Strickland, the attorney general's spokesman.

While some minorities feel empowered by the new makeup of the federal bench, others urge caution.

The Hispanic judges may bring certain sensitivities toward election barriers facing minorities, but “you have to be very cautious how you describe that,” said Garza, noting the pushback during hearings on her nomination that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor got over statements about experiences that could benefit a “wise Latina” jurist.

Other sensitivities might be at work.

Rodriguez was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush. He already had been appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to the Texas Supreme Court and spent nearly $600,000 to run in 2002 against a little-known challenger, Steven Wayne Smith, who spent about $9,000. But Republican primary voters choosing between a candidate named Rodriguez and one named Smith chose Smith.

Judge Garcia is a former state House member from San Antonio who was chief of staff for then-Rep. Matt Garcia, no relation, who helped form MALC in the early 1970s. Orlando Garcia won a special election after his boss died.

“Matt was a very fierce advocate and very persistent and very tenacious. He was all those things on critical issues affecting the Hispanic community in Texas,” Judge Garcia said. “He was very influential in focusing and narrowing the critical issue within the issue so that you didn't waste time on peripheral or tangential matters and you only get excited about the core of a subject.”

Memories of his mentor might occasionally drift into Garcia's mind, the judge acknowledged.

“Of course, those times were much simpler times than they are presently,” he said.