State Legislatures and Redistricting

[jimrtex]

In California, Measure 20 appears to have passed, taking Congressional redistricting out of the hands of the legislature and giving it to a commission.

Same thing passed in Florida. 

Not hardly.

[jimrtex]

More chat about the party switcher is here.  The 95th district does not look all that Dem to me, but I could be wrong. That party of New Orleans is kind of complicated, as the Garden District begins and ends somewhere in or near it.

In 2007, there were 9 candidates, with the lone Republican squeezing into 8th place (330 votes vs. 317, and 5% of the total).  Hines came from way back to win the runoff.

Does Louisiana redistrict before the 2011 election, or do they wait until 2015?  NOLA will probably lose a bunch of seats.

[jimrtex]

Louisiana is redistricting next year for the 2011 elections, same as Virginia. I believe New Jersey is doing the same, and I can't find anything on Mississippi, except that last time they didn't adopt new maps until spring of 2002.

That's a pretty interesting schedule.  They will hold an extraordinary special redistricting session before the regular session.  Not only does Louisiana hold its elections in odd years, they hold them in October - though because the Open Primary takes the place of partisan primaries, that is actually later than most states,  When Louisiana switched back to the open primary for congressional elections earlier this year, the legislature considered making it effective for 2010, until they realized it would be impossible to get VRA pre-clearance.

Mississippi has regular partisan primaries in July, and some really ugly legislative districts

http://www.msjrc.state.ms.us/ms_house.html

So they might not be able to get it done in time.  It would be interesting if someone were to challenge the existing districts, and force new elections before 2015.  The census bureau can compile population for existing districts if the state submits boundaries in time.

[jimrtex]

Mississippi has regular partisan primaries in July, and some really ugly legislative districts

http://www.msjrc.state.ms.us/ms_house.html

So they might not be able to get it done in time.  It would be interesting if someone were to challenge the existing districts, and force new elections before 2015.  The census bureau can compile population for existing districts if the state submits boundaries in time.

The Mississippi Constitution, last I checkd, actually says that redistricting takes place in 1982 and every 10th year thereafter, but it seems like that was igored in 1991, which was a Legislative election year in Mississippi like 2011 will be.  Legislative redistricting was delayed but because of Justice department non-preclearance (which may have been prompted by a lawsuit from Black legislators and civil rights activists under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act).  And there ended up being Legislative elections in 1992 for a three-year term.  See Mississippi Redistricting Cases:  the 1990s (Watkins v. Maubus and the first Watkins v. Fordice).

I suppose failing to hold an election on new boundaries until 5 years after the census could also be considered a violation of Section 2.

Mississippi has submitted its current legislative districts to the Census Bureau (which has retabulated the 2000 Census on the post-2000 boundaries).  So it is conceivable that someone could also sue on equal protection grounds.

The 38 (of 122) Black majority House districts average 70% Black.  Once you get that high, it may be hard to back off, if you've connecting a bunch of small concentrations of Blacks.  How do you decide which get shifted into a White district, and which White areas get placed in the Black district, if you were trying to drop it to 60?

[jimrtex]

http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_16653887

Looks like Colorado Republicans have both House and Legislature control.  That was the last race called, and it was close.

In 2001, the Republicans had control of the House, Democrats had control of the Senate, each drew their own congressional plan, and the Senate refused to appoint conference committee members.  They wanted to split Denver, so might have lost some votes on a conference committee report.

A district court then drew the redistricting plan at the time appointed in the Constitution, even though nobody had ever heard of that interpretation, and it had never been followed before.

[jimrtex]

The GOP in the Texas House will pick up either one or two seats this week, giving them a 2/3 supermajority.

[jimrtex]

The GOP in the Texas House will pick up either one or two seats this week, giving them a 2/3 supermajority.

In what way are they picking up seats? Run-off, party switches?

What does a 2/3 majority bring?

It's basically a done deal.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/12/will-republicans-claim-100th-s.html

Basically, it means that the Republicans can do anything procedurally.

In cross-referencing threads, what happened is that any Democrat outside of the major metro areas in Texas (or South Texas) who was not uncontested got beat, as Republicans encouraged the rural voters to vote straight-party, and they did.  You see, Democrats, prior to this election, still dominated local offices in all of these rural areas.  They got completely wiped out.  This has all Democrats left in these areas running scared (for obvious reasons).

Ritter's HD is 66% McCain.  Pena's HD is 77% Obama, so me no understand that one.  But the simple point, is that rural Texas Dems were eliminated, basically in one fell swoop, in this election.  That's the "real" realignment that Al mentioned.  Ritter is the last one in the Texas House.

The only other (sort of) one left is Eiland (McCain 53%), though that's really not rural district.  And Gallego (McCain 51%), but that district is strange.

Boyd Richie issued a rant about Ritter, so that one is a done deal.  Pena is still considering it.  But it pretty odd to have speculation, and then make a public confirmation that you are considering it.

[jimrtex]

Is Peña angling for a gubernatorial appointment after he's served his purpose in this term of the legislature? Was he paid off somehow? He won't be reelected in this district, so it won't serve his political career, but I could see him finding an alternative to being a minority party legislator appealing.

"What I learned as a child and learned from my parents are reflected in the Republican party." -Aaron Pena, now an R.

HD 41 was only 57% for Obama, and Hidalgo County should have 4+ districts, with the partial district going into Cameron County.  HD 43, the district that is partially in Cameron County was 58% Obama, but might have been fairly competitive in Cameron county, so it might be possible to create a district that Pena could win.  He almost got beat in the primary in 2008, so he didn't necessarily have a save seat anyhow.

Legislators only get paid $7600 per year, and ordinarily only meet in odd years.  So almost all legislators have a real income elsewhere.

An appeals court seat is a possibility.  The district goes up along the coast past Corpus Christi, and is competitive for a Republican, at least in gubernatorial election years.   Another possibility is SOS, which has a function dealing with border affairs.

[jimrtex]

Is Peña angling for a gubernatorial appointment after he's served his purpose in this term of the legislature? Was he paid off somehow? He won't be reelected in this district, so it won't serve his political career, but I could see him finding an alternative to being a minority party legislator appealing.

Pretty interesting interview.  Listen to the sound clips.

Aaron Peña Explains Decision to Join GOP Party

[jimrtex]

Are the current Texas state legislative districts the ones drawn following the 2000 census?  I did not think that Delay's redistricting plan affected them--I thought his plan only redrew the Congressional districts.

The current districts were drawn following the 2000 Census, by the Legislative Redistricting Board (LRB).  Under the Texas Constitution, if the legislature fails to redistrict, the LRB draws the districts, which was what happened in 2001.  The LRB is comprised of the Attorney General (then John Cornyn); Lt. Governor (Bill Ratliff who had been chosen by the senators when Rick Perry became governor following George W. Bush becoming president); Speaker of The House (Pete Laney); Commissioner of the General Land Office (then David Dewhurst); and Comptroller (then Carole of the many names).

The reason that the legislature failed to draw legislative district boundaries in 2001, was because the House and Senate were under opposite party control, plus the Democrats had already decided to push congressional districting into the courts.

There are no equivalent provisions for congressional redistricting, which falls on the legislature under terms of the US Constitution that times, places, and manner of congressional elections is prescribed by the legislature of each State (subject to congressional override).

I suspect that the legislature will manage to redistrict the legislature in 2011, since there is no advantage to let the LRB do it if you are a Democrat.

[jimrtex]

There is a Texas House seat in Travis County that is being contested after a recount left it with a 12 vote margin.

Among issues are:

Overseas ballots where straight ticket votes for non-federal contests were not counted.  If a voter is permanently non-resident (residing overseas) they are only allowed to vote in federal races.  But they were sent regular ballots, with some races crossed off (it appears in somewhat haphazard fashion).  When the ballots were returned, new ballots were created with only the federal races marked.  This may have been improperly done, if a voter was eligible to vote a full ballot.

It appears some mail-in votes were not counted based on perceived signature mismatches, but where a signature appears to match that on the voter registration.

One ballot was not counted because it was mailed from within Travis County (in Texas, you can only vote by mail if you intend to be out of the county for both the early voting and election day; or are over 65, physically disabled, or incarcerated).  In this case the ballot was sent to Germany, but then the voter apparently returned and mailed it from inside the county.

Ineligible voters.  This claims up to 1900 ineligible may have voted.

In Texas, an election contest for the legislature is treated as a legal case, but is heard by the legislature.