US House Redistricting: Louisiana

[Bacon King]

The conventional wisdom here seems to be that the VRA district must extend all the way to Baton Rouge. I just made one that's 53% black and only extends up to take in parts of Iberville and Ascension Parishes. I used 2009 ACS, but something like that should still end up being majority VAP black by census numbers, right?

[Bacon King]

Couldn't the state of Louisiana just argue that the African American populations of Baton Rouge and New Orleans are two discrete and distinct population groups, geographically distant enough that the Gingles test wouldn't apply for creating a minority district in the area? They could initiate preclearance with the DC District Court rather than waiting for Eric Holder's move, and cite Miller v. Johnson and such for the three judge panel.

Then the legislature could just put all of the NOLA metro neatly into a single district that would put Richmond in a tough fight against Scalise. That would also let the Baton Rouge district take in some GOP-heavy North Shore territory from the current 1st district to shore up Cassidy. All six Republican Congressmen keeping their seats sounds great for them, no?

[Bacon King]

Couldn't the state of Louisiana just argue that the African American populations of Baton Rouge and New Orleans are two discrete and distinct population groups

At which the first judge they not picked specifically for the purpose by them laughs so hard that the state is blown right into Lake Maracaibo, right?

Well, most likely, yeah, but it doesn't mean that the blind opportunists populating the Louisiana state government wouldn't try to do it anyway.

Especially considering the local unpopularity of a BR-NO district (among NOLA whites, anyway), the legal history of previous districts in the state that connected black cities with narrow strands, and the fact that Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in some arguably relevant case law. IMO there's just enough of an impetus here that I could see 'em actually trying to do it.

[Bacon King]

What you could do is make sure you hit only 50.000001% VAP and pair New Orleans with, say, Livingston parish for Joseph Cao to make a comeback. But I highly doubt they do it.

I would guess that New Orleans includes some of the only liberal non-minority neighborhoods in the state which would make a non-corrupt Democrat viable even at that level.

That seems to be the case, given how Orleans Parish voted 77% Kerry and 79% Obama, and New Orleans is something like 65% black or so. Might be less now.

You would have to gerrymander liberal whites out into Scalise's district.

Yes, New Orleans has plenty of liberal whites, probably the only in the state.

As a vague/general rule of thumb if you're going to be trying a map of this, you can assume the only Orleans Parish whites that will vote reliably Republican are those living directly west of City Park (the really big north-central precinct in the redistricting app).

That's just a generalization of course but if I start going on about the exceptions I'll probably end up writing an essay.

[Bacon King]

Update here.

Special Legislative session to handle redistricting is starting in 8 days. The proposed deadline to submit everything for preclearance is May 2nd. Fun fact: Louisiana has never qualified preclearance on the first try before! This can be a problem- state legislature's districts have to be finalized by the end of August for the 2011 elections.

Looking pretty clear that two districts will remain in the north while the lost district will be one of the coastal ones; Boustany's already gearing up to fight a primary against Landry (even holding events in what's still the latter's district). Traditionally, the US House delegation submits it's own redistricting proposal for the state legislature to consider; everyone except Landry agreed on the principle of mostly gutting Landry's district but changing the others as little as possible.

Also, the Louisiana legislative Black Caucus has hired a consultant to draw a map with two majority-black districts.

[Bacon King]

This was the two-district black map plan. It stretched the 2nd District from New Orleans to Lafayette (56.6% black registered voters) and the 5th district from Baton Rouge to Monroe (51.8% black registered voters). Didn't make it out of committee in the House because of universal Republican opposition: the map chopped up every Congressman's political base except Boustany, put Alexander and Fleming in the same seat, cut Landry's hometown between the districts of Boustany, Scalise, and Richmond, and I think forced Bill Cassidy to move, too.

One has to wonder how on earth this can be that difficult. Jindal I hope would veto any map like the Senate one.

A Jindal spokesman has said that the governor disagrees with a horizontal "I-20 district" that covers the north of the state and puts Shrevport and Monroe into the same district, so yeah, I'm not really sure what the Senate is doing passing that map.

[Bacon King]

This ugly map has been the most popular with the House redistricting committee (passing fifteen to five). It keeps two vertical districts in the north, keeps Boustany's district nice and compact, makes the 2nd district 61.6% black (registered voters) with a New Orleans-Baton Rouge connection (that's actually kind of tidily designed coming out of New Orleans but then becomes only a single precinct wide on the outskirts of Baton Rouge). The 1st district covers most of both shores of Lake Ponchartrain but then cuts across Lake Borgne (no connection of any sort exists there) to cover the eastern bayou as well. Most strangely, the 5th district comes south to the northern edge of Baton Rouge then cuts across to the east in a two precinct-wide line between the 6th district and the state line to the north, as if for some reason it had to include as much of the Mississippi border as possible. I don't know why they did that.

Other than eliminating an incumbent (which has to be done somewhere), why is putting Monroe and Shreveport in the same district so controversial?

Well, first off, neither Alexander nor Fleming want to run against each other at all, while Boustany has no problem running against Landry if given favorable conditions. Also, nobody wants to mess with Alexander because he's the only member of the delegation on the Appropriations Committee. Besides that, though, there's a pretty strong community of interest argument- the northwest has several big army bases and Fleming's on the Armed Services Committee, while the northeast is mostly farmland. There's also a tradition argument because both districts have been historically shaped that way, with the two cities serving as the centers of two separate districts.

[Bacon King]

HB 1 (which redistricts state House seats) and SB 1 (which redistricts the Senate) have both passed the the opposite chambers today without amendment, meaning all that's left now is for their originating chambers to send them to the governor.

The U.S. Congressional districts are the only thing still left to consider.

[Bacon King]

So they screwed Landry and gave Scalise some nasty Cajuns to deal with. Which is pretty much what it takes to save Cassidy. They must like Cassidy.

The only representatives they really like are Boustany and Alexander, hence why their respective districts changed so little. Keeping Boustany comfortable is what forced them to screw over Landry (which was inevitably going to happen from the start). Boustany's district is also what forces the 1st District to pick up the rest of cajun country. Scalise may have dislike his new district but he should be comfortable because his base in East Jefferson will always outvote the bayou. I don't think the map really gives Cassidy any sort of preferential treatment in particular, especially considering that he has to deal with +50,000 angry cajuns as well (note how Houma's basically split in half).

[Bacon King]

Are you aware of the Cleomander

Personally, I prefer to call it the "mark of Zorro"

[Bacon King]

There was absolutely no reason not for the Obama DOJ to push for a new black majority seat here, in Alabama, and in South Carolina.  I guess he and black Bob Saget(Holder) love having a Republican House. 

Because 201 to 204 Democratic Congressmen is the difference between whether there's a Republican House or not?