opinion

Election exposed Texas GOP's Hispanic problem

Of all the surprises buried in the results of the Texas primary election, here's one of the most startling that should vex the Republican Party:

District 43 State Rep. J.M. Lozano may be the only Hispanic Republican in the Texas House as of January.

Or there'll be none. Lozano has a Democratic opponent in November, DeeAnn Torres Miller. And while her chances against a four-time incumbent may be iffy, she is not insubstantial. She's a lawyer and a Portland resident who grew up in Kingsville, Lozano's current city of residence.

Having only one Hispanic, or none, in the Texas House in 2019 won't just be a bad optic for Republicans. It's a path to the party's eventual extinction. Hispanics were 39 percent of the Texas population in 2016. And since 2010, their population growth rate in Texas has been triple that of non-Hispanic whites. More than 52 percent of Texas public school enrollment is Hispanic, which means we're destined to be a majority-Hispanic state.

Lozano is one of three current Hispanic Republican House members. Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas, just got primaried (a popular verb these says despite spellcheck's failure to recognize it) and Rep. Larry Gonzales, R-Round Rock, didn't run for re-election.

The Democrats don't have this problem. A story by Alexa Ura of The Texas Tribune pointing out the dearth of House Republicans noted that 41 of the current 66 House Democrats are Hispanic.

If we were to pick one sentence from Ura's story as the Texas Democratic Party's likely favorite, it would be this: "Party leaders, including Abbott, have long rejected the notion that the Texas GOP struggles with diversity."

Can't get much more flat-Earth about it than that.

Ura sought Gov. Greg Abbott's response to the prospect of Lozano being the lone Hispanic House Republican, and the answer from the governor's staff was downright lame: He supports Hispanics and he's working throughout the state to help some turncoats (our word choice, not Abbott's staff's) who are new to the party.

There are no Hispanic Republicans in the Texas Senate (although Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, flips often enough to fool us). There is only one elected Hispanic Republican head of a statewide agency, the General Land Office, and his non-Hispanic name is George P. Bush.

The solution, recruit and groom Hispanic candidates, is frightfully obvious but will always be out of the reach of a party that doesn't think it has a diversity problem. Also, a frightfully obvious solution doesn't mean it's easy — especially not for the party of the new show-me-your-papers law and other Hispanic-unfriendly policies.

The next election cycle, 2020, would be a good one for Republicans to show more vision, pun intended.