Voting 93-48 along party lines, lawmakers approved the plan offered by Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, after rejecting six changes attempted by Democrats who argued the plan failed to recognize that minorities account for 90 percent of Texas' increase of 4 million residents over the last decade.

The House is expected to give final approval to the map Wednsday and return it to the Senate to approve slight changes from that chamber's version.

The plan creates a new district that stretches from Travis to Bexar County which will be dominated by Hispanic voters, and a second district favorable to Hispanics from Corpus Christi to the Valley. Republican-leaning districts are created in the Houston and Fort Worth areas.

While it was a foregone conclusion that the Republican majority in the Texas House would approve a GOP-friendly map, Rep. Roberto Alonzo, D-Dallas, invoked the Dallas Mavericks' NBA championship in his attempt to sway lawmakers to create more Hispanic-dominated districts.

"We got four new congressional districts," Alonzo said. "Why can we not create Hispanic opportunity districts? The Mavericks won because they said the time is now. The time is now for us to create more Hispanic districts."

During the four-hour debate, Alonzo and other Democrats warned that Republicans were flirting with legal intervention because the Voting Rights Act requires Texas to assure the Justice Department or a federal court that districts have not been drawn in a way that decreases the impact of minority voters.

Solomons argued against Alonzo and other Democratic plans, saying that his plan guaranteed the election of more minority and minority-backed candidates. He said the Democratic plans, in trying to maximize minority voting strength, actually diluted the impact of Hispanic and African-American voters.

Rep. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, offered an amendment she said was designed to create a second Houston district in which Hispanics had the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. Solomons argued it would weaken the impact of Hispanics by spreading their votes across two districts.

The debate diverted to a tangential issue when state Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, offered an amendment that Solomons said addressed a "personal matter" between two Houston-area Republican congressmen, Ted Poe and Kevin Brady, over a mostly uninhabited 300-acre tract in north Harris County. With only 28 residents, the tract became the subject of arm-twisting between the two congressmen because it is the site of the proposed Exxon Mobil world headquarters, Solomons said.

"We have gone out of our way to listen to the incumbents," Solomons said. "I think this is overreaching. You'd be absolutely surprised at the amount of nickel and diming that is going on in these districts."

Riddle countered that the tract currently falls in side Poe's district and accused Brady of a "power grab."

"Basically, Kevin Brady is coming and grabbing this crown jewel, this 300 acres where Exxon is going to be located," she argued. The House voted with Solomons' plan after he reminded them that Brady is a former member of the Texas House.

Spokeswomen for Poe and Brady jointly issued a statement on the debate: "There is no animosity between Rep. Poe and Rep. Brady over the current map. These Members of Congress have a close relationship and share the belief that the Texas Legislature, not the Congress, should be drawing redistricting maps."

State Rep. Trey Martinez Fisher, D-San Antonio, offered three proposals to increase minority representation, including one that would create four Hispanic-dominated districts in the Rio Grande Valley.

A smart policy would be to create four districts in the Valley that extend to the Mexican border, he said, to increase the attention of Washington on the issues of illegal immigration and drug cartels.

"Those who care about securing our border, you put another member on the border and you've increased our congressional presence there," he argued.

His plans were rejected.

patti.hart@chron.com