US House Redistricting: Louisiana

[Tintrlvr]

JBE's case doesn't rest in the courts, it rests with the census data. If the AA pop is high enough, he's going to make the case that AAs deserve 2/6 rather than 1/6. Presently AA pop is near 33%, and NOLA rebounded hard after Katrina, but the AA pop in the belt is shrinking, like everywhere. There's a few ways you can draw that second seat, but it always involves going from BR to Caddo. This is less a case for common cause and fair Redistricting groups, and more a case for NAACP. I'm going to have a LA thread up tomorrow if JBE win, but the simple explanation is that this is going to be a battleground, no matter if the GOP has a supermajority or not.

It's also possible to draw a black district with Lafayette+Baton Rouge and then draw a non-majority Black New Orleans district which would still very likely elect an African-American.

I think this is a much more likely outcome than a Baton Rouge-to-Shreveport district.

[Tintrlvr]

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/louisiana/#Dem

Eh you can make a reasonably compact 2nd black district.

On 2010 racial figures. I'm skeptical that will continue to be the case in 2020.

[Tintrlvr]

Assuming the court isn't completely full of hacks, one has to remember even if they don't order a 2nd Black District, any natural Baton-Rouge based seat would likely be black opportunity at least and be at the very least competative if not D leaning

The only way 5-1 survives is most likely if some conservative Dems/Inds join the GOP to override Edwards which is very possible, or the court somehow finds the LA-02 snake as is reaching all the way up into Baton Rouge as the best representation of LA's electorate.

Ironically, the reddest "fair map" Baton Rouge seat would prolly be the most metro based taking in West Baton-Rouge Parish, Livingston Parish, and Ascension Parish, with 50k extra people. This district would be around Trump + 10. This is thanks to Louisiana's extreme racial polarization and the fact Livingston and Ascension are full of white suburbs and exurbs.

Huh?

A "natural" Baton Rouge seat would be similar to the Trump +10 seat you described above. Splitting the suburbs of Baton Rouge from Baton Rouge itself is clearly not natural, and that's the only way to make the seat black-opportunity or D-leaning.

It's really a question of how much you prioritize VRA.

The Trump + 10 seat may be the fairest when not considering race as a factor, but it's pretty much one of the "least black" Baton Rouge seat possible without outright splitting the black community down the middle. By connecting Black parts of Baton Rouge to rurals and smaller cities with black populations, it splits the metro but increases BVAP.

Feels sorta like the new AL-07, CA-22 or VA-04. Both seats could've been drawn to be more based around a single metro, but instead reach into rurals to increase their minority functioning ability. Why shouldn't the same precedent apply here.

If the seat won't be black majority either way, there's no legal requirement, and if there's no legal requirement it is best to respect communities of interest.

"Communities of interest" can mean all sorts of things. Surely black people in Baton Rouge have more of a community of interest with black people in Lafayette than with white people in Livingston Parish. Metro areas and county/parish lines are not the be-all, end-all of what makes a community have common interests, although they can and are relevant or even, in the absence of other countervailing considerations, determining.

[Tintrlvr]

Assuming the court isn't completely full of hacks, one has to remember even if they don't order a 2nd Black District, any natural Baton-Rouge based seat would likely be black opportunity at least and be at the very least competative if not D leaning

The only way 5-1 survives is most likely if some conservative Dems/Inds join the GOP to override Edwards which is very possible, or the court somehow finds the LA-02 snake as is reaching all the way up into Baton Rouge as the best representation of LA's electorate.

Ironically, the reddest "fair map" Baton Rouge seat would prolly be the most metro based taking in West Baton-Rouge Parish, Livingston Parish, and Ascension Parish, with 50k extra people. This district would be around Trump + 10. This is thanks to Louisiana's extreme racial polarization and the fact Livingston and Ascension are full of white suburbs and exurbs.

Huh?

A "natural" Baton Rouge seat would be similar to the Trump +10 seat you described above. Splitting the suburbs of Baton Rouge from Baton Rouge itself is clearly not natural, and that's the only way to make the seat black-opportunity or D-leaning.

It's really a question of how much you prioritize VRA.

The Trump + 10 seat may be the fairest when not considering race as a factor, but it's pretty much one of the "least black" Baton Rouge seat possible without outright splitting the black community down the middle. By connecting Black parts of Baton Rouge to rurals and smaller cities with black populations, it splits the metro but increases BVAP.

Feels sorta like the new AL-07, CA-22 or VA-04. Both seats could've been drawn to be more based around a single metro, but instead reach into rurals to increase their minority functioning ability. Why shouldn't the same precedent apply here.

If the seat won't be black majority either way, there's no legal requirement, and if there's no legal requirement it is best to respect communities of interest.

"Communities of interest" can mean all sorts of things. Surely black people in Baton Rouge have more of a community of interest with black people in Lafayette than with white people in Livingston Parish. Metro areas and county/parish lines are not the be-all, end-all of what makes a community have common interests, although they can and are relevant or even, in the absence of other countervailing considerations, determining.

Black people in Baton Rouge have more in common with white people in Livingston Parish than black people in Lafayette from a congressional redistricting standpoint.

Firmly disagree. But this in fact shows why your argument about communities of interest doesn't work: We won't agree on what communities of interest are.