US House Redistricting: Texas

[krazen1211]

Finally incorporated my bust-a-green move into the overall texas map.



Texas is a 67.5% McCain state after the 9 Democratic districts (and some small pieces of some neighboring Republican districts) are drawn. It's just a matter of arranging the Republicans; you probably want to keep Williamson, Mcclennan, and Bell County split apart; figure out how much you want to run Sessions into the rural areas, and you're good to go.



TX-23 is 59% VAP Hispanic and 53% McCain, TX-27 is 63% VAP Hispanic and 51% McCain, and TX-29 is 59% VAP Hispanic and 55% McCain, probably for Orlando Sanchez. Even TX-18 hits 45% VAP Hispanic.

[krazen1211]

Damn.

GRIT has drawn what they claim to be a 29-7 map. No new district in Dallas, Gonzales and Doggett are merged. Bexar county is shattered.

http://gritnewsletter.org/?p=72

[krazen1211]

Damn.

GRIT has drawn what they claim to be a 29-7 map. No new district in Dallas, Gonzales and Doggett are merged. Bexar county is shattered.

http://gritnewsletter.org/?p=72

No surprise that it is possible. It is probably possible to go one further, maybe even two further. Does not mean it will meet VRA review; nothing less than a Hispanic district in Dallas (plus making a Hispanic district to "replace" Farenthold's) will do for that.

That map claims to have 19 majority minority seats. Probably more than the Democratic plans. I wonder what the demographic distributions are.

I doubt its wise, as a Democratic vote dump in DFW is very smart, but its quite interesting. As drawn there TX-30 probably becomes a majority Hispanic district.

Although, the Maldef plans also slice and dice Bexar, so I doubt they care about that.

[krazen1211]

the supreme court should invent a term. A VRA district has to be one where hispanics make up a majority of REGISTERED VOTERS. In case a hack like krazen starts drawing the maps, it can stop them from enacting them.

I don't know if that's true. Your own state has very few districts where hispanics make up a majority of REGISTERED VOTERS. Not sure why you're complaining about GRIT.

[krazen1211]

How on earth are they claiming that their District 25 (Travis County - Austin) is a Republican district? 

Pull up the 112 plan. The Dem districts are 16, 20, 9, 18, 27, 28, and 30, I think. 25 barely touches Travis.

[krazen1211]

Doggett found a proposed Republican map.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2011/04/28/a_proposed_redistricting_map_w.html

The long and short of it:

1. Doggett's district turned into a Travis-Bexar district, presumably Hispanic VRA.
2. Hispanic 33rd in Metroplex.
3. Corpus-based 35th and points north for Farenthold or someone else, his old district reverting to VRA.
4. 2nd district moves all the way into Harris County, and what used to be the 2nd in East Texas is now the 36th.
5. 34th district looks bizarre, linking Parker County to the Hill Country across the remains of Edwards' pre-Delaymander district. Presumably picking up leftover territory after the 21st and 31st districts shrink and expand into Travis.

You can't see the bottom of that map. It depends on how Hidalgo is split; 27 there is almost certainly a Dem district, but 15 might not be.

That 31st is really bad. Williamson and Bell need to be split.

[krazen1211]

No, it really wouldn't.  its not like these districts are R-leaning because most of the Hispanics aren't registered/don't vote ()though that helps), its because they vote 60-40 Democrat while the ~40% white voters vote 75-25 Republican.

In South Texas, if you chose the correct Hispanics, you could probably do even better than 60-40.

[krazen1211]

Link?

[krazen1211]

That might end up being a 27-9 map. The 15th isn't very dem there. Though they need to smash gene green still and plop a new dallas Hispanic district, which also nicely completely eliminates the last 2 white liberals.

[krazen1211]

That might end up being a 27-9 map. The 15th isn't very dem there. Though they need to smash gene green still and plop a new dallas Hispanic district, which also nicely completely eliminates the last 2 white liberals.

There is no conceivable way the 15th survives a court challenge.  They struck down a Hidalgo-Austin Map, what makes you think they'd approve of a Hidalgo-HOUSTON map?

The question is whether the 15th has a separate distinct hispanic population on the Houston side, and the vap issue. Texas GOP won't mess up vap again, former I can't tell.

The dallas map probably holds through the decade though. Did they at least get the black population out of the 29th?

[krazen1211]

Dgov, what do you think of this plan to create 2 hispanic districts? Not that I buy the nonsense that you can't remove the blacks from the 29th district, but its quite easy to push the 18th over the edge anyway.

[krazen1211]

enjoy trying to get rid of Gene Green. Even if it has minority VAP, that probably won't stand up in court.

New Jersey Democrats did a very similar thing to LD-33.

[krazen1211]

Rep. Barton files in state in Navarro County, at 12:01 A.M. Sunday.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/05/23/3097836/facing-legislative-inaction-barton.html

http://jacksonvilleprogress.com/local/x108199430/Congressional-redistricting-likely-in-special-session

Congressional redistricting likely in special session





These clowns basically need someone to tell them what to do and I'm glad Barton is stepping up to the plate.

Politico though is throwing out the numbers. Smith plan is apparently a 25-11 plan, which is somewhat lame, but they claim Barton's plan is also a 25-11 plan, which is just silly as the Barton plan doesn't create the most important Dem district to make. Looking at that plan, Barton's is 26-10 that gives back the Farenholdt district.

[krazen1211]

Perry says he'll call a special session once they have a deal.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-redistricting/redistricting/perry-session-on-congressional-maps-possible/

[krazen1211]

Perry says he'll call a special session once they have a deal.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-redistricting/redistricting/perry-session-on-congressional-maps-possible/

Apparently its a go. Dewhurst is putting it on the special session, under majority vote  rather than 2/3.


http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2011/05/31/redistricting_map_splits_travi.html?cxntfid=blogs_postcards


Hispanics of course are getting the Doggett district. That looks like a done deal. They definitely took a play from the Will County playbook.

At least among the leaders of the House and Senate, this plan looks like consensus.





Travis County would be split into five congressional districts, up from three, under a redistricting map proposed this morning by the leaders of the Texas House and Senate Redistricting committees.

[krazen1211]

And, wow.

http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/

Plan 125 - PLANC125 - SOLOMONS-SELIGER CONGRESSIONAL PROPOSAL
 
This might just be it. And it is glorious in its own way. This could be the 27-9 map we're looking for.

The 33rd connects Arlington with Parker County. Safe R.

The 34th is the new Solomon Ortiz district that bypasses Nueces County and picks up some Hidalgo County Democrats.

The 15th might go Republican at a glance. The 28th experty snakes into Bexar County to grab what I think are the Bexar County blacks, which keeps the Hispanic VAP down. The 20th moves into the Leon Valley. The 23rd grabs a lot more conservative whites and ditches the most liberal hispanics.

The 35th is the vacant Austin to San Antonio district, probably Hispanic, while the 25th becomes a safe R.

The 36th is an absurdity connecting downtown Houston with Grimes County, Tyler County, and Beaumont/Port Arthur. Safe R as well. The 36th is pretty much the height of absurdity.

Tarrant is cracked 5 ways. Travis is cracked 5 ways. Dallas is cracked 5 ways. Harris is part of 9 Congressional districts....

[krazen1211]

This is what results when you try to do a least-change map for incumbents and add four new districts and when you despise one particular congressman.

You referring to Ron Paul? Or Doggett?

They didn't have to do anything like this, though. I don't know why they just didn't split Montgomery County between Brady and Poe, and kept the 36th looking sane.

[krazen1211]

The 15th might go Republican at a glance. The 28th experty snakes into Bexar County to grab what I think are the Bexar County blacks, which keeps the Hispanic VAP down.

I cheated and looked at the reports. The 15th is 80% VAP Hispanic (similar to 16th) and the 28th has a trivially small Black population, FWIW. Doggett could still win the primary in the 35th, I believe.

Oh, I did not even know they had those reports. That makes things so much easier, thanks.

[krazen1211]

Wasn't there some kind of Barton vs. Smith fight over redistricting? From the looks of Barton's district, he lost. His district looks like Sessions's. Winnable, but with a large number of Democrats.

He won the battle but lost the war. Barton always wanted to avoid the Dem district in DFW. Naturally that means that he would have to grab some areas somewhere. Smith never had that issue as there are 2 Democrats in that area.

I have to imagine though that Barton is not happy with THAT many of those areas.


http://www.texastribune.org/texas-redistricting/redistricting/texas-state-lawmakers-unveil-congressional-map/


Edit: You are right about the 15th though. It's about 59% Obama. Might be enough to beat Hinojosa for a cycle, but that's about it. Moving Harlinglen in would drop that to about 57%.

[krazen1211]

They don't have to always vote for the preferred Hispanic candidate. Just often enough that the Hispanic voting influence is not clearly being diluted. (And what they did with Farenthold reflects that; he got a safe seat, and they created a new Hispanic seat to replace the Farenthold seat.)

TX-23 is similar; it can elect Republicans sometimes, it just has to generally reflect Hispanic voter will. Which the old probably does, but the new one probably does not and may get thrown out. (It would be easy enough to up the Democratic percentage anyway--Corpus has a bunch of Hispanics who could be taken, for example, and the new TX-28 and TX-15 are packed more than they need to be.)

And, yes, the map does have to be 24-12. Or, at least, it has to be at least 24-10-2 or so.

Even the current Court map has no real possibility of a 12th dem district without Chet Edwards. They're capped at 11.

[krazen1211]

As to the map, not too crazy in some parts, just plain lol in others. (Have a look at what they drew for Granger! )
How safe are some of those DFW seats going to remain over the decade, though? Barton's seat is actually plurality Hispanic. (So is Farenthold's new district of course, but that looks safe to me.)

They don't have to always vote for the preferred Hispanic candidate. Just often enough that the Hispanic voting influence is not clearly being diluted. (And what they did with Farenthold reflects that; he got a safe seat, and they created a new Hispanic seat to replace the Farenthold seat.)

TX-23 is similar; it can elect Republicans sometimes, it just has to generally reflect Hispanic voter will. Which the old probably does, but the new one probably does not and may get thrown out. (It would be easy enough to up the Democratic percentage anyway--Corpus has a bunch of Hispanics who could be taken, for example, and the new TX-28 and TX-15 are packed more than they need to be.)

And, yes, the map does have to be 24-12. Or, at least, it has to be at least 24-10-2 or so.

Even the current Court map has no real possibility of a 12th dem district without Chet Edwards. They're capped at 11.

This is a 24-10-2 map. Only, the two (23 and 25) are lean R seats, not pure tossups. This is assuming the DFW carveup is belived to be certain to hold - I can't judge that. I assume the 10th would be fool's gold in 2006/8 repeat conditions, just like its previous incarnation.

I don't see that 25th as particularly competitive at R+8 or so. Travis County Democrats will likely keep nominating liberals that will get drenched in the rural areas and Ft. Worth suburbs. That seat is not a VRA seat anyway, so they could technically crack away with the Conaway district.

[krazen1211]

Wasn't there some kind of Barton vs. Smith fight over redistricting? From the looks of Barton's district, he lost. His district looks like Sessions's. Winnable, but with a large number of Democrats.

Actually, interesting.

The Smith map (allegedly) was splitting the new districts 2-2, while the Barton map was always the 3-1 split. The proposed map closely mirrors the Barton map.

But now Doggett is calling this map the Smith map. So it looks like Smith just took the Barton map, put Barton in an ugly district, and submitted it away.



Of course, that ugly district is 58% McCain, so its not like he will lose it any time soon. The Barton district is deceptively conservative in a manner that its demographics might not suggest.

[krazen1211]

remember the old 46th district in California? It went from being a 62% Bush 41 district in 1988 to a 54% Gore district by 2000. Hopefully the Texas Republicans are stupid enough for another CA 46 to happen.

Kind of have to pick your side, champ. If they did what you suggested earlier and threw every Democrat from Ft Worth to West Dallas into a single 75% or so district, you kind of lessen the chance of that happening.

[krazen1211]

I really doubt this map will pass muster with the DOJ.  It only creates a net of one new Hispanic majority district, and splits up Hispanic communities in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston that could be used to create at least two more Hispanic majority districts. 

The DFW Hispanic district is the issue.  I've looked at the numbers, and I haven't found a way to create a second Hispanic district in Houston other than the touch-point thing krazen mentioned way back.  The Hispanics are simply too spread out, and it would come at the expense of Al Green anyway.

The Veasey guy in the state legislature didn't bother with a new Hispanic district in Harris presumably for that reason. Instead, he put a bunch of whites in the Bernice Johnson district and chopped Arlington into 3 pieces to draw himself a district, and then rounded up all the Hispanics in a district that looks like a scorpion.

[krazen1211]

James White is a tea party black Republican from Tyler County. I'm guessing they accommodate him; the new district already overlaps him well. In a very interesting observation, all 4 new Texas districts are reasonably likely to go to minorities.

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/?district=12