US House Redistricting: Texas

[jimrtex]

Anybody know why the Republicans didn't create majority-black districts in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth?  The end result would be the same (i.e. four safe Dem districts), and there would be no room left to carve out a fifth majority-minority district within the two metropolitan areas.

Also, those fajita strips seem to serve no practical demographic or political purpose; why do that instead of making an equal number of more compact, more hispanic, and more Democratic districts out of southern texas and San Antonio?

It might not be practical to create a majority black district.   For example in Dallas.

TX-30 is 41% Black.  TX-3 is 17% Black, TX-5 is 18%, TX-24 is 17%, and TX-32 is 8% (these are numbers for the Dallas County portions).

Only 56% of Dallas County Blacks live in TX-30.   Dallas has a lot of small farm towns that have become suburbs, but most of them have a small area that is the black section of the old town.  So you would have to try to include those areas, and then you would have to pick up areas that Blacks have moved into.  These aren't necessarily adjacent to the traditional areas.  If you have a job at the airport, you might want to live in Irving, for example.  In the 1990s, the Democrats drew a majority Black district and it horrible tentacles as they literally went down to the block level to try to pick up enough people.

You might be able to draw one majority Black district in Houston, but not two.  Houston has 3 major Black areas (NW, NE, and South/SW).  They separate 4 major Hispanic areas, east, north, west northwest, and southwest.  These explain  the shapes of the districts, but also require districts to wrap around each other.

The legislature did increase the Black percentage a couple of percentage points, but it would really take a lot of intricate line drawing to get above that.

The DOJ calculates "opportunity to elect a candidate of minority choice" on a statewide basis.  So what is being disputed now is whether the number of minority districts has increased from 10/32 to 11/32.  Almost doesn't count.  It is the number of districts, not the concentration in the districts.

Many of the border areas have 90% Hispanic population.  So what you need to do is come north and pick up areas which don't have a majority Hispanic population.  Hardly anybody lives in the brush country once you get out of the immediate Rio Grande Valley.  Along the interstate and divided highways, there are no gas stations for 75 miles.   So you have to start out along the border and start drawing north simply to get enough population for 3 or 4 separate districts, and then you have to carefully pick which population you add to a district.   You can't start picking up a lot of areas that are 20% Hispanic, and you may have to zigzag into or around Corpus or Victoria because you might pick up too many Hispanics or too much population.



In the above map, TX-27 skips around Nueces County and Corpus Christi, because that is where the Republican incumbent is from.  Most of the area in that skip is water, and you would need an amphibious vehicle to drive from one end of the district to the other.  And because you want to make it look like a coastal district you extend it up to Matagorda County, and then it extends inland to get enough population.

The new district TX-35 takes in Nueces County, but has enough Hidalgo County to outvote it.  You can create a congressional district in Hidalgo County, but that would waste a lot of Hispanic votes.  So you have these pieces of TX-15 and TX-28 coming in to pick up enough Hispanic votes.  You also want to keep these districts further south so that TX-23 picks up the counties north of Webb County, such as Maverick, Zavalla, and Dimmit, as well as southern Bexar County.  This is also intended to show that you can create a minority majority starting in Travis County without coming south all the way to San Antonio.



This one takes a different approach.  It strips out the Anglo areas of Corpus Christi from TX-27 and adds a bit more of Cameron County.  This is placed in TX-10 which is converted from an Austin-Houston district with a representative in Austin to a Houston-Corpus district with no incumbent.

TX-33 takes in a more significant chunk of Hidalgo County.  That is because the area of Travis County it takes is the part that is currently in TX-10, and is plurality Anglo.  A similar district was ruled not to be a Hispanic opportunity district because it linked areas with different interests (eg solely on the basis of race).  Apparently, this one is OK because the Hispanic voters in then southern part of the district have the opportunity to choose their candidate of choice without worrying what the Anglo voters in Austin want.

This plan also avoids taking out too many minority voters in Travis County so Lloyd Doggett can be re-elected.  This means that TX-34 has to take more Hispanic voters out of San Antonio.   It also pushes TX-20 further north.

To make up for the loss of population, TX-23 takes in more of El Paso,  And then TX-16 which is currently in El Paso County extends east to Odessa.

[jimrtex]

Anybody know why the Republicans didn't create majority-black districts in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth?  The end result would be the same (i.e. four safe Dem districts), and there would be no room left to carve out a fifth majority-minority district within the two metropolitan areas.

Also, those fajita strips seem to serve no practical demographic or political purpose; why do that instead of making an equal number of more compact, more hispanic, and more Democratic districts out of southern texas and San Antonio?

You might be able to draw one majority Black district in Houston, but not two.  Houston has 3 major Black areas (NW, NE, and South/SW).  They separate 4 major Hispanic areas, east, north, west northwest, and southwest.  These explain  the shapes of the districts, but also require districts to wrap around each other.

The legislature did increase the Black percentage a couple of percentage points, but it would really take a lot of intricate line drawing to get above that.

The DOJ calculates "opportunity to elect a candidate of minority choice" on a statewide basis.  So what is being disputed now is whether the number of minority districts has increased from 10/32 to 11/32.  Almost doesn't count.  It is the number of districts, not the concentration in the districts.

You misunderstand, I'm referring to the creation of one black district and one hispanic district in each metropolitan area, for a combined total of four majority-minority districts.  Its very easily done, and the gerrymandering looks no worse on the map than what the Republicans already produced.  Doing everything I said in my previous post, I was able to produce 12 majority-minority districts, including two hispanic Republican districts.  Of the other 8, 5 were along the Mexican border (one stretching from Laredo to San Antonio, but still more compact than the official map), one in the urban core of San Antonio, one in Austin, and one along the Gulf of Mexico.

I'll add the district profiles later, and if I can figure out how*, I'll post the map.

*The first part of my name is sadly quite accurate, and I already failed at my first attempt at posting my maps.

You have to get around 58% HCVAP for a district to be considered an effective minority district.  Texas is in court now defending TX-23 which is 63.8% HVAP,

[jimrtex]

http://www.kwtx.com/centraltexasvotes/localheadlines/_Panel_Says_Temporary_Texas_Voting_District_Map_Unlikely_133004788.html

A three-judge federal panel in San Antonio says it's unlikely that it will approve district maps to be used temporarily for next year's congressional primaries while legal challenges to Texas redistricting proceed.

The state suggested using the maps approved by the legislature, and the maps proposed by the plaintiffs are crap.  So the judges are stuck with siding with one of the parties, or drawing its own map.  And the court denied intervention by a person who could likely draw a reasonable map.

Filing for the primary begins on the 12th of November.

[jimrtex]

http://www.kwtx.com/centraltexasvotes/localheadlines/_Panel_Says_Temporary_Texas_Voting_District_Map_Unlikely_133004788.html

A three-judge federal panel in San Antonio says it's unlikely that it will approve district maps to be used temporarily for next year's congressional primaries while legal challenges to Texas redistricting proceed.

Interesting.

The court bounced the map. The Pubbies think they will have another bite out of the apple. I assume they counted on that when they over-reached. If they didn't, or don't get another bite, they are in a word, colossal dumbs.

The order by the DC Court said that Texas had used an "improper analysis" in determining whether a district was a minority opportunity district.

The USDOJ latest brief says that Texas erred in using a bare majority to determine whether a district was a minority opportunity district (being a lawyer, you probably recognize a 58% HCVAP as being a bare majority), and that Texas should have used a "functional analysis" which means looking at election results, and mandates political gerrymandering.

The USDOJ expert drew a plan for TX-23 that only required modifying 6 neighboring districts that the USDOJ liked better.  After it was pointed out that she had drawn Canseco out of the district, she drew another map.

[jimrtex]

To my knowledge, all 435 House districts have a non-Hispanic white person over the age of 25.  Thus, every district in this county is a minority opportunity district.

I'm sick of hearing the Latinos and blacks complain that they need "minority opportunity" districts

So you're saying that the one black guy in Wyoming has an equal opportunity to get elected as one of the hundreds of thousands of black people living in Houston or Dallas?

This country has a long history of racial discrimination and despite electing a black president there are still pockets where it is going strong.  Protecting minority voting rights unfortunately still mandates that minorities be concentrated enough within a district to elect a member of their choosing.

Barack Obama couldn't get elected in a VRA district.

[jimrtex]

To my knowledge, all 435 House districts have a non-Hispanic white person over the age of 25.  Thus, every district in this county is a minority opportunity district.

You only need to live in the state, not the district.

The "opportunity" is not for the candidate, but for the class of voters.

[jimrtex]

Opprotunity districts are drawn so that minorities have a chance to actually elect a candidate of their choice, as opposed to just voting for one (as your last post implies).

But you then end up with voters of the wrong race for their district.  So a Hispanic in a majority white district is not disenfranchised even thought he decided to go fishing on election day, because somebody somewhere else was able to elect the candidate of choice of the fisherman's race.  You've transformed voting into a collective right.

[jimrtex]

Here is my attempt at a map based on the Jimtrex parameters.

http://www.redracinghorses.com/diary/1348/a-least-change-texas-map

I did the DFW area and got tired.  I think it really works out to create the Frisco district.  In some cases, I didn't follow my instructions since I saw I could move population directly into the new district, so you kind of pull TX-4 eastward so it more or less goes north from Rockwall, and then take the northern part of TX-3 and leave it as a Plano district.  Take the Denton part of TX-24, and the northern part of TX-26 (staying out of Denton city).

TX-30 and TX-5 didn't move.  TX-32, TX-24, and TX-26 moved west, TX-26 is a lot more compact since it lose Cooke as well.  TX-6 becomes definitely an Arlington district, with Ellis and some of Navarro.  Arlington-Johnson makes more sense, but that would count as a population shift.  So TX-17 moves some to the east.

TX-31 and TX-10(west) was a problem because if I did what I suggested, you would pair Carter and McCaul.  So instead TX-31 becomes Williamson-Bell, and the district becomes Travis part of Williamson, and then swings up through McLennan and points north.   This of it sort of like the current TX-31, but with Travis instead of Williamson.  And you did move Orange directly from TX-8 to the new district, so it is a direct shift.

[jimrtex]

DOJ's proposed remedy basically modifies the same 3 districts again; TX-23, TX-20, TX-21.

Both TX-23 and TX-20 become ~57% Obama districts and TX-20 doesn't even sit in Bexar County.

http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/?PlanHeader=PLANc219

The USDOJ claimed that the Hispanic turnout would be reduced substantially in TX-23.  What they failed to mention was that current TX-23 has 150,000 persons too many, and that turnout of all races would be reduced.

[jimrtex]

I don't understand why the TX GOP wouldn't make Gene Green's seat a swing seat by doing something like this in the Houston area:



TX-29 (in grey-green) INCREASES its Hispanic VAP from 66.1 to 66.9%, it better respects municipal boundaries (no longer splitting the major cities of Pasadena and Baytown in half); and Obama still won the district (50.4%) so it's not like Democrats can argue that their candidate will be shut out. 

Yellow is SJL's district which is now up to 49.6% black, 33.9% Hispanic; Al Green gets cyan (where whites are the 4th largest race! 29.9% black, 40.6% Hispanic, 14.1% Asian, 13.9% white - is there anywhere else outside of NY and LA where one can do that in such a compact fashion?); and as a further bonus, a new majority-minority (49.9% white) entirely-in-Harris district in purple (which happens to be 63.1% McCain). 

With all of these minority-friendly modifications I can't see how there could possibly be any legitimate VRA issue.  But I'm sure you'll let me know. 

The grey district to the west is TX-07 for Culberson (unchanged in PVI: 58% McCain); Pete Olson's TX-22 in bright green gains a point of Republican PVI (now 59.4% McCain).  Both of these keep their previous shape, for the most part.  TX-02 in Green still has Humble for Ted Poe and still goes out east to Beaumont; and then there's a Galveston district to the south in bronze.  (Outer districts aren't complete, but they're obviously safely Republican.)

Harris County is in court now with regard to a commissioners precinct that is somewhat similar to TX-29 (except it has about 1 million people) and must extend further north or somewhere.

[jimrtex]

At least 10 districts wander into Harris County. I don't understand what they did with TX-2.

The legislature drew TX-36 and included the eastern part of Harris County, which is not particularly heavily populated.  TX-2 was northeastern and northern Harris County, and then came down the western edge of TX-18.

The court instead connected TX-36 to SE Harris County, which makes absolutely no sense.  And then they drew TX-29 a little further east.  into Baytown, and shifted TX-18 northward and added to the NW of arm of TX-18 which is a fairly Hispanic area.   Since TX-18 went west, TX-2 had to swing out even further, and so it gives that strange hook on the western end.

Given that they were supposed to simply add 4 districts and equalize population, they made an awful lot of changes.  They also started from the legislature drawn map, which seems odd since it hasn't been precleared.

I don't see that they really changed TX-23 that much and it took in a more Republican area of El Paso.  It certainly wasn't a big enough change to support a claim that TX-23 couldn't be prceleared.  So that means they changed the San Antonio-Austin district for the sake of change.

[jimrtex]

And suddenly it all made sense.



See what they did there?

Took a district that had about the right population and transferred territory to a district that was already overpopulated?

BTW, one of the judges is a brother-in-law of Sen.Leticia Van de Putte, who was one of the quorum busters back in 2003.  When the judge left the Texas House, Van de Putte took his seat.

[jimrtex]

Lewis, what did you have in mind with your query?

What query?

You mean "see what they did there?" Extending the 23rd into more densely built up parts of San Antonio explains why it became marginally more Democratic overall despite the changes to it elsewhere being helpful to Canseco.
It also means the district remains much more Bexar-y than it looks like at first glance.

Canseco carried the part of Bexar County that was moved into TX-21 TX-23 by 75% margin.  Canseco's brief says that the area in west central is an Anglo area that is more likely to vote Democratic.

Charlie Gonzalez has announced he isn't running for re-election.  Joaquin Castro says he is going to run in TX-20.  So guess who that leaves for the new district?   C..o R...

Supposedly, the new district is less effective than the district drawn by the legislature.

[jimrtex]

One of the things that I think is likely in the back of the mind of any DOJ official right now is the fact that preclearance may not be long for this world.  Go read Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, which basically ignores the constitutional arguments, in connection with other recent Section 5 jurisprudence, and you see that five Justices are pretty far down along the road of striking down this section.  A questionable use may be all they need, really.

That being said, the stronger arguments for denying preclearance based in precedence were not in Alabama (really weak) and South Carolina (well, South Carolina would been ok, except Clyburn would have never supported it), but rather in Louisiana and Virginia.  Problem is that the arguments there are still not that strong.

Anyway, the Texas GOP screwed up royally in not creating a Dallas Hispanic CD, and then going to the three-judge panel and not the DOJ.

Partially yes, and partially no. The DOJ made is clear that they weren't going to give Canseco a fair shake in their remedial plan. He got a much better one through the court.

The 3 judge panel in its briefings specifically noted the difficulty in drawing a 50% HCVAP district there. Plan C216 (the Canseco plan that Jerry Smith wanted implemented) didn't reach it at least, and its the standard prone sniper rifle district.

The Canseco and State plans had a higher HCVAP (58.5%) than that drawn by the court.  The court put more blacks into the district and swapped out some more Republican Anglos in NW Bexar for more Democratic Anglos in west central San Antonio.

The legislature increased the HCVAP from that in the current district.  The plaintiffs and USDOJ lied about the the Republicans putting "less mobilized Hispanics" into TX-23.  What they looked out was the number of voters.  If a district is 60% Hispanic and has 150,000 too many people, it is likely to lose 90,000 Hispanics.  Since the district had to gain at the El Paso end, there were even more at the San Antonio end to move into the new San Antonio-Austin district.

[jimrtex]

Canseco carried the part of Bexar County that was moved into TX-23 by 75% margin. 

Something's wrong here. "TX-21" instead of "TX-23"?

Yes.

Judge Orlando Garcia's sister-in-law, Sen. Leticia Van de Putte is going to be at the official kickoff of Castro's congressional campaign in the TX-20.

[jimrtex]

The Canseco and State plans had a higher HCVAP (58.5%) than that drawn by the court.  The court put more blacks into the district and swapped out some more Republican Anglos in NW Bexar for more Democratic Anglos in west central San Antonio.

The legislature increased the HCVAP from that in the current district.

And as the court rightfully pointed out for the umpteenth time, this is not a valid argument, at least not in and of itself...

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The district was overpopulated to begin with.  It had to add population in El Paso County.  The portion in southern Bexar County was needed for the new district.  There was no reason to remove the NW area from the district, and then add territory from TX-20.

See that odd little finger in TX-23 that goes across the top of TX-20.  Guess who lives in the tip of the finger.  So the court moved Canseco's residence barely into TX-23 (he currently lives in TX-21), but moved a good chunk of his constituents into TX-21.

Now looking at the districts on the lege council's redistricting web site.  Use the current district as the base plan and the interim map as the overlay.  TX-20 is only 13,000 from the ideal population, so it really doesn't need much change.

But because TX-23 was pushed in on the west side, TX-20 had to expand.  This was mostly to the north and widening of the eastern arm of the district.  But it also took in a very small are of TX-23 to the northwest.   Guess who lives in that very small area?  Joaquin Castro.

So the court issues its map; Castro talks to Gonzalez; Gonzalez announces his retirement; and Castro announces that he is going to run in the district that the court had barely drawn him into (coincidentally, Castro was introduces at the press conference where he announced his switch by Judge Orlando Garcia's sister-in-law Sen. Leticia Van de Putte

Ahem. A question and an observation.
Observation: Giving everybody a safe seat, splitting the new districts two-and-two and making sure they're not competitive. You can't give Canseco one, legally, so you at least give him a seat that's no worse than before - though it would have been very very easy to do so - and to treat the 23rd as just another Dem-reserved seat. Or maybe they just read LULAC vs Perry as mandating a marginal seat here. -_- Compensating his accidency Mr Farenthold for the fact that you treat his district as a Dem seat by making sure he lands in one of the new districts, taking the Legislature's plan as a blueprint even though that's far from the ideal place for the new district. But then you can't really put the new district where it logically belongs because of the residences of both Carter and McCaul. So, yeah. Bottomline. This looks like a bipartisan compromise map, not like a court map. It also looks not too unlike a non-greedy Republican map, actually - given population trends around Austin and its proximity to the VAP seats, giving up on Doggett is the sane thing to do, and the court positively packed him in.
And that is why it's such an odd map.
Makes you wonder what could have been without Ortiz' and Rodriguez' defeats...

Oh, and the question. Just for McCaul's and Canseco's precise residence. And ideally Sessions' and Hensarling's too...

Canseco is barely, barely on the finger tip of TX-23.  He currently lives in TX-21, and the legislature had drawn a finger tip down from the north (since it had expanded TX-20 northward to make room for the new San Antonio-Austin district).

Find the southeastern corner of TX-32.  See how TX-5 and TX-32 sort of interlock.  Hensarling and Sessions live about a mile apart.  Sessions had been elected from TX-5.  When the district court created TX-32 in 2001, it was an open seat, but Session ran for it even though he lived about a mile east, and Hensarling ran in TX-5.  When the legislature districted in 2003, the boundary was adjusted.  Martin Frost ran campaign ads about Pete Session not living in the district until recently before the election.  Pete Sessions ran campaign ads about Martin Frost not living in the district, and not bothering to update his homestead.

McCaul lives in the hook at the tip of the current TX-10 in the only part of the district that is south of the Colorado River.  TX-21 used to come south of that area into Austin, but that was trimmed back in 2006.  And now it has been pushed back.  The tip of the hook of TX-10 has been cut off, but McCaul lives just north of that.  And the whole boundary of TX-10 has been "squared off" which is really pretty funny since it totally ignores where the river is.  If on Redviewer, zoom in enough to locate the river meanders, and then display the precincts.  Precincts that are on the north side of the river but in a meander to the south are put in TX-21.  You'd have to swim, and there are northward meanders like where McCaul lives that are in TX-10

[jimrtex]

The Canseco and State plans had a higher HCVAP (58.5%) than that drawn by the court.  The court put more blacks into the district and swapped out some more Republican Anglos in NW Bexar for more Democratic Anglos in west central San Antonio.

The legislature increased the HCVAP from that in the current district.  The plaintiffs and USDOJ lied about the the Republicans putting "less mobilized Hispanics" into TX-23.  What they looked out was the number of voters.  If a district is 60% Hispanic and has 150,000 too many people, it is likely to lose 90,000 Hispanics.  Since the district had to gain at the El Paso end, there were even more at the San Antonio end to move into the new San Antonio-Austin district.

In addition, this right here is pure legislating. Especially considering the last legislature specifically fractured a district on this type.


Because much of the growth that occurred in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex was attributable to minorities, the new district 33 was drawn as a minority coalition opportunity district.

56% of the growth in Collin, Denton, and Rockwall was minorities.  That is where the new district should have been placed.

[jimrtex]

Canseco carried the part of Bexar County that was moved into TX-23 by 75% margin. 

Something's wrong here. "TX-21" instead of "TX-23"?

Yes.

The area is, of course, heavily Anglo and doesn't belong in the district really.
I believe it's "always" (ie, before 2004, and also before 2002) been in it, though.

It was moved into the district in 1991 by Martin Frost and Ann Richards.  The southern part of Bexar County was placed in the new TX-28.

[jimrtex]

Canseco is barely, barely on the finger tip of TX-23.  He currently lives in TX-21, and the legislature had drawn a finger tip down from the north (since it had expanded TX-20 northward to make room for the new San Antonio-Austin district).

Fun fact: They added three precincts there (in the court map, not sure how different the lege map was in this area).
SW to NE:
3113, 54% Hispanic, 33% White, 64% Obama
3112, 52% Hispanic, 38% White, 55% Obama
3115, 66% White, 28% Hispanic, 65% McCain

Railroad tracks between 3115 (and one other precinct that stayed in TX-23, and most of the area shifted out) and 3112 (and the remainder of TX-23, well its Bexar portion at any rate).
Somehow I'd be surprised to hear that 3115 is not Canseco's home precinct.

3112.  I said barely.  Like on the southern edge.

The legislature would have shifted 3070, 3115, and the eastern part of 3112.  The difference is that the legislature would have kept the current district on the NW side of Huebner Road (SW to NE).  The court only kept the long corridor to reach Canseco's house, while dismantling the Bexar County portion of a VRA district.

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By White Rock Lake?
[/quote]
By the shore of gitche gumee.  I don't think right on the shore, but both are pretty close, so the north/south split of the two precincts is needed.

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You're not supposed to legislate.  I assume you mean Dallas County, and not Denver City or Denver Harbor, Texas.  Arlington deserve a district just as much as lesser cities like Pittsburgh or St.Louis or Buffalo or Cincinnati.  Arlington is almost as populous as Mesa and Colorado Springs.

The new district belongs in Denton and Collin counties.

Move the Cooke piece of TX-26 to TX-13

Move 25K from TX-1 to TX-4 (Cass (remnant), Marion, Upshur (part)
Move 27K from TX-5 to TX-4 (you can swap Rains and Wood, and get rid of that near point contiguity).

Create the new district from:

TX-4 200K (Collin) keeping the eastern part above Rockwall.
TX-3 144K (Collin) Allen and McKinney (Johnson lives in Plano)
TX-26 190K (Denton) If you keep out of the city of Denton, Burgess is OK.
TX-24 43K (Denton)
TX-12 121K (Wise) and (Tarrant, Parker)

TX-32 gets replenished from:

TX-30 8K
TX-24 50K

TX-32 could also get some from TX-3 instead of TX-24.  It just switches the contributions from TX-3 and TX-24 into the new district.

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Doggett said he lives 4 blocks from TX-35 in the legislature plan.  They left him in TX-25.  So somewhere in that final eastward finger into central Austin.

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Ugh. That makes things hard. Only one precinct btw (seeing as they cut back the other one.) Quite the Republican enclave, btw, what's up with that?
[/quote]
Westlake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Austin

Click on the picture.

The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) was a Depression era project to build flood control and hydroelectric projects on the Colorado River.  Congressman LBJ was probably involved.

The two big dams are Lake Travis (in the western part of the county) and Lake Buchanan which is on the Burnet-Llano border.

Lake Austin is just west of the city of Austin proper, and Town Lake (Lady Bird Lake) is just south of the Capitol, UT, and downtown.  I think they were really more flood control.  If you look on the map below, just east of downtown you can see the bluffs that define the floodplain.  The Black (and now Hispanic) areas of Austin are to the east.

Austin is just east of the Balcones Escarpment that defines the start of the Hill Country, so the city proper is on the flatlands.  Remember that Austin has grown a lot.  At the time the dams were built, it would be more on par with Waco.

At one time when the government was building dams, they would just buy/condemn the land where the water is.  And so the land along the shore line would be private land.  If the lake is somewhat remote, people would build lake houses (equivalent to beach house) which could be used on weekends, and some people might retire to, or if they have a job like fireman or airline pilot could commute from.

But in this case, the flood control made it possible to develop into a rather exclusive close-in suburb.   It happens to have its own school district (Eames ISD, though the high school is Austin Westlake).   During the school funding disputes it would be cited as an example of a school district that money for extravagance vs its poorer city schools (see Highland Park vs. Dallas; and Alamo Heights vs San Antonio and Edgewood).  The comparable areas in Houston don't have a separate school district, so the students have to go to private schools.

http://maps.google.com/?ll=30.314209,-97.766819&spn=0.102844,0.209255&t=p&z=13&vpsrc=6

[jimrtex]

Scalia to the rescue!

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/state&id=8461770

The Supreme Court has blocked the use of Texas state legislative and congressional district maps that were drawn by federal judges to boost minorities' voting power.

Supreme Court Stays Court Drawn Maps

[jimrtex]

And the double standard continues, unbelievable.

I hope it is realized that the court could just let the court map go through, since the GOP map was illegal and cannot stand.

The US Constitution says that the legislature draws the maps.  PERIOD.  Not some judges from the central government.  In extreme cases they can follow the legislative intent and match the existing (2000) maps as close as possible.  They didn't do that.  The maps from the legislature and Judge Smith were much closer to the current maps.

[jimrtex]

I wonder if this portends that SCOTUS is going to chop back on the VRA (as interpreted by prior courts), something that would not surprise me at all. The VRA in my opinion is out of control. Scalia must have enjoyed issuing that stay.

The Scalia/Thomas position is that the Voting Rights Act cannot challenge a reapportionment plan.

So if that went through, everything from at large districts to multi-member districts would be legal again?  Talk about chaos...

One man one vote district rules would apply. 1967 congressional law still bars multi-member districts.

So it would actually be quite a bit simpler.

The Supreme Court says that is not entirely true since Congress did not repeal existing statutes regarding transitions after censuses.

[jimrtex]

The courts already intervened by drawing a map out of loin cloth.

Whatever that means.

And the double standard continues, unbelievable.

I hope it is realized that the court could just let the court map go through, since the GOP map was illegal and cannot stand.

The US Constitution says that the legislature draws the maps.  PERIOD.  Not some judges from the central government.  In extreme cases they can follow the legislative intent and match the existing (2000) maps as close as possible.  They didn't do that.  The maps from the legislature and Judge Smith were much closer to the current maps.

But, if the maps drawn violate the law, the court must step in. If the legislature could do anything they wanted with the maps, there would be more tricks with deviations like there were in the past to stifle opposition strength.

There has been no court ruling on the maps drawn by the legislature.  The State of Texas is seeking to preclear the maps.  The USDOJ is stalling (they wanted the interim maps drawn by out-of-control district court to become the baseline).

1. Texas files for preclearance with DC court, that they have not retrogressed from 2000 maps.
2. DC court dawdles along and still has not set a trial date.
3. DC court tells district court to draw "interim plan"
4. District court violates US and Texas constitutions with interim plan, and since it is a federal court it doesn't need preclearance.
5. USDOJ argues that the interim plan is the benchmark, and not simply an interim plan and so the preclearance trial should be delayed to allow them to delay further.

If the legislature had not drawn any map, like happened in 2001, the federal court could only make minimum changes to bring map into compliance into line with OMOV.

If the DC court had ruled on preclearance, any remedial plan would only have had an impact on certain districts.  They wouldn't have license to redraw districts all over the State.

[jimrtex]

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The Supreme Court says that is not entirely true since Congress did not repeal existing statutes regarding transitions after censuses.

Ah, interesting. Although I suspect the current 435 members of Congress would be very quick to repeal such to protect themselves.

2 U.S.C. § 2c   is the provision that requires election from districts, and was passed in 1967.  The exception was to permit Hawaii and New Mexico to elect at large for one last time in 1968.  Hawaii did so, New Mexico districted before 1968.  Because, of this special transition it was assumed that 2 U.S.C. § 2a(c) had implicitly been repealed.

2a(c) has been around since 1941, and there were similar versions before then.  It provides a number of transitional arrangements until a state got around to redistricting.  The basic concept is that if a state gains representatives the new representatives may be elected at large; and if they lose representatives, all should be elected at large.

Wesberry v Sanders was strictly limited to district elections.  The SCOTUS reasoned that if representatives are chosen by the People of a State, and they are elected by districts, that the electoral authority must be shared out equally.  If they are elected at large, then they are obvious chosen by the People.   If you read Justice Harlan's dissent he calculates the number of representatives whose election might be considered legitimate, and specifically includes at large representatives.

After Wesberry there were lawsuits in practically every state that had more than two representatives, and the federal courts and the states struggled with how equal, equal was, and whether the courts could even craft districts.  There were 6 federal courts that were about to order at large elections for some fairly large States (Texas was one).  Texas traditionally had elected its new representatives at large for a few years before bothering to add some districts, but this would have meant all 26(?) representatives at large.

So Congress was pressed to action.  Originally, they had considered more extensive changes, including the amount of deviation that was allowed.  Since Congress was the one who mandated districts, they could presumably mandate the standards for drawing them.  Congress could even draw the districts itself if it chose to.  The legislation would have repealed the existing transitional 2a(c) provisions.  But the Congress being the Congress did what Congress usually does, nothing.  Finally, they stuck 2c into a totally unrelated bill, about the citizenship status of a single person, with no record votes.  You will come across conspiracy theories that this was a sneaky outlawing of proportional representation.

But within weeks of 2c, all the federal courts backed off of ordering at-large elections, and everyone though 2a(c) had been effectively voided.  Until 2003 and Branch v. Smith.

Mississippi lost its 5th representative and the legislature was unable to redistrict.  Blacks wanted to maintain their district, and influence in a second.  Whites could decide on whose district to carve up.

The Branch party filed in Mississippi chancery court (Branch was the head of the Mississippi NAACP).  The Smith party filed in federal court (Smith was a former mayor of Meridian or some such, so there is some political and racial alignment of the parties, but I'm not sure if Smith=Republican and Branch=Democrat, is totally valid).

The chancery court drew a map (there is no explicit authority in Mississippi for judicial intervention in redistricting, so they were acting under some general judicial authority).  The state court plan was going under preclearance (maps drawn by state courts are not exempt from Section 5, because it says before a State or jurisdiction puts into effect a new procedure it has to be precleared.  It is OK for a legislature to draw a plan.  It is not OK to use the plan for an election without preclearance.  And then the USDOJ decided that the actual drawing of the map by the chancery court had to be precleared - that this was a change in the baseline procedure of the legislature drawing the map.  The Mississippi Supreme Court made a decision that it was OK for the chancery court to draw the map, but never issued a formal opinion, and the state stopped seeking preclearance.

The federal court then ruled that (1) the state court did not have authority to draw a map, that under the Constitution, only the legislature (subject to Congressional override) has the authority to prescribe the manner by which representatives are elected, including drawing of districts.   This doesn't mean that the legislature has to draw the districts, but that they have to explicitly give that authority to another body, such as redistricting commission or a court. (2) and that neither the chancery court's map nor their map drawing had been precleared.

The federal court then drew a 4-district map, which is the one currently being used.

The Supreme Court has ruled that federal court's should give deference to state redistricting efforts (that is the core issue in Texas) and should only draw a map as a last resort.

The Smith party appealed the federal court decision, adding in a claim that rather than drawing a map, the federal court should have ordered at large elections under 2a(c).  The Branch party intervened

The Supreme Court ruled that the federal court was correct on the VRA issue, but that its finding on the state court was vacated (see part II C of the decision).   "holding that the District Court specified was set forth to cover the eventuality of the principal stated ground’s being rejected on appeal–and therefore we vacate it as a basis for the injunction."

Actually the district court had ruled the other way - the VRA was a back-up if its main finding was rejected.  But the Supreme Court didn't want to rule on that issue.  If you listen to the oral arguments, there are references to the "constitutional issue" which as used as shorthand to mean they couldn't even specify what the issue was (aka "elephant in the room")

In Part III, the court addresses the at-large election issue.  The Stevens-Souter-Breyer concurring opinion is quite clear that 2a(c) was implicitly voided,  The O'Connor-Thomas concurring opinion is quite clear that 2a(c) is still part of the US Code, and there is no problem reconciling 2a(c) and 2c.   The plurality (Scalia-Rehnquist-Kennedy-Ginsburg) says that 2a(c) is still alive, but mumbles on for pages, which I think means that there might never actually be occasion for its use, since the district court had drawn a 4-district map.

During oral arguments the Smith lawyer suggested that at-large elections did not have to be conducted as a simple multi-member election for 4 representatives, but because of the VRA the court could order cumulative voting or other procedures.  Under cumulative voting, each voter is given 4 votes, which they can spread among 4 candidates, or bullet vote for one, etc.

PS Since the Mississippi legislature has not drawn a 2010 map, the district court has re-opened the case.

[jimrtex]

One man one vote district rules would apply. 1967 congressional law still bars multi-member districts.
So it would actually be quite a bit simpler.

The Supreme Court says that is not entirely true since Congress did not repeal existing statutes regarding transitions after censuses.

Ah, interesting. Although I suspect the current 435 members of Congress would be very quick to repeal such to protect themselves.

What does that mean?  That states wouldn't formally have to redistrict every 10 years anymore?  Isn't that in Baker v. Carr and unrelated to VRA?

Wesberry v Sanders is the relevant decision for congressional districting.  It actually says that at-large elections are fine, because every voter in a State is choosing the representatives.

It used to be that after a census and new apportionment, states could continue to use their old districts "until" new districts were drawn.  Some states went decades until they drew new districts.  If they gained representatives, the additional representatives could be elected at large.  If they lost representatives, all would be elected at large.  I don't think any state ever went two elections at large, it was always enough incentive to redistrict.

These transitional provisions are still law 2 U.S.C. § 2a(c).

After Wesberry, there were lawsuits in almost all states, and no one knew how equal "equal" was.  Courts were reluctant to draw maps, so they started looking at the at-large provisions.  If a state's 25 districts were malapportioned, a court could simply order an at-large election for 25 representatives.   Congress was alarmed, and considered broader legislation but eventually stuck 2 U.S.C. § 2c as a stopgap but left the older provisions in place.

Most of the provisions under 2 U.S.C. § 2a(c) are unconstitutional following a census.   A state could not continue to use malapportioned districts.  It could not continue to use malapportioned districts plus some at large districts.   

But if a state lost representatives it could use at large elections.   These might be unconstitutional.  If there is a significant racial minority, they would be.   And the Supreme Court has hinted that this might apply to political minorities as well.  But there are ways to conduct at large elections that are constitutional such as cumulative voting.

And Congress could always step in and repeal the VRA 2 U.S.C. § 2a(c).