Irving Redraws District Lines

Irving—The city of Irving realigned its district boundaries in November. The city is required to update the borders of all six of its districts at least every ten years, coinciding with the United States Census.

From 2010 to 2020, Irving’s population grew from 216,290 to 256,729 people, an 18.7 percent increase. Dallas County’s population went up by 10.3 percent, while the state of Texas grew by 15.9 percent.

The objective of redrawing district lines ensures each district is represented as fairly as possible on the city council. The ideal is the populations of all six districts are as close to one-sixth of the city’s population as can be. One-sixth of Irving’s population is 42,788 people.

Per an ordinance from the city council, “[Irving] requires redistricting to comply with the ‘one-person, one-vote’ (equal population) principle established by the U.S. Constitution and to make them nearly equal in population as possible.”

The lines drawn to equal the districts in 2010 had become uneven as the population grew and changed.

The old and new populations of each district are as follows (Districts 2 and 8 are at-large districts, meaning they represent the city’s entirepopulation).

2010 lines       2020 lines

District 1

34,645             40,720

District 3

45,791             44,262

District 4

37,832             41,134

District 5

55,869             43,737

District 6

44,266             43,676

District 7

38,326             43,200

Irving has grown slightly in its Asian populations, while its, Hispanic, White, Black/African American, Native American, and Hawaiian Pacific Islander populations have slightly decreased. The numbers are below.

2010                2020

Hispanic

42.3%              41.09%

White

21.6%              21.03%

Asian

19.7%              22.33%

Black/African American

14.2%              12.36%

Two or more races

2.8%                2.34%

Native American

0.6%                0.29%

Hawaiian/Pacific Islander

0.2%                0.1%

Councilman Phil Riddle represents District 4, which includes south Irving to its southern border, from Belt Line Road to the Elm Fork of the Trinity River.

“The primary objective is to try to have each district have an equal number of voters, so each council spot represents basically the same number of people,” Riddle said. “We also had districts we wanted to be strongly Hispanic, so they could possiblyelect a Hispanic representative. We ended up with two districts that are majority Hispanic, District 1 and District 4. District 1 is 78 percent. District Four is 50 percent Hispanic.

“We tried to make sure we kept District 1a strong Hispanic district. In the last 10 years, there’s been an influx of Hispanics in that district, and in south Irving in particular, that District 4 also ended up majority Hispanic.

“I don’t think it really accomplishes much, in my personal opinion, [when] folks have very little in common with the rest of the people in [their district].

“District 7 is almost exactly what it’s supposed to be,” Riddle said. “It is 0.96 percent over the 42,788. The district is almost exactly what we needed to be.

“We wanted to get [the overall deviation] as low as we could, and it ended up at 8.28 percent.”

Overall deviation is the deviation of all six districts from 42,788 added together. Riddle’s reference to ‘8.28 percent’ means the average is just 1.38 percent from being exactly even.

Riddle says the staff involved in drawing the redistricting lines included all of the council, the city manager, city attorney, city secretary, other city employees, and a legal firm called Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta LLP that specializes in optimizing district lines.