US House Redistricting: Louisiana

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It looks like Jeff Landry would be happy with that map; the new LA-03 would probably favor him over Charles Boustany.

It seems like the way to ensure Landry takes the hit is to wrap CD-1 down the coast so that CD-1 takes St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes.

I just don't know if they do that.

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Gallot said some coastal legislators are proposing the design of a coastal congressional district that would stretch across the bottom of the state, arguing the parishes have many issues in common, such as hurricane protection and coastal erosion. Currently, two congressional districts contain coastal parishes.

Other lawmakers are arguing to merge north Louisiana parishes -- which are split between two congressional districts -- into one district that contains both Monroe and Shreveport. The chairman of the Senate redistricting committee, Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, has said he objects to such a plan, however.

http://house.louisiana.gov/H_Redistricting2011/NewsPDF/1221_10_Gallot_PressClub.pdf

Gallot said something similar to today’s majority black PSC district that runs from New Orleans to
north Baton Rouge, including communities near the Mississippi River, “certainly is a reasonable
footprint to look at.”
Gallot said two north Louisiana-based congressional districts could undergo substantial changes.
The Shreveport-based 4th Congressional District would have to extend to the Gulf of Mexico to pick
up needed population, Gallot said. And, he said, the Monroe-based 5th District would expand to
Plaquemines Parish instead of just to outside Baton Rouge.


I'll have to try to draw that first plan later today. That would effectively combine Boustany and Landry, but the populations of all those southern coastal parishes seem to add up to too much.





If powerful people are keeping both northern districts, and of course Lafayette/Lake Charles together, well, the only district that seems to be left to chop is Cassidy's 6th.

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This was my first shot at it.

The problem is you end up over population. You either don't cover the full coast, or you have to split either Calcasieu or Lafayette. Plus I didn't cover St Bernard or all the population in Jefferson that probably should be covered.

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It's lovely, isn't it. Republicans have full control and still have to screw one of their own.

This is also why they're talking congressional before state house... it's the controversial part.

Well, technically the same is true in Massachusetts. The difference is they have a senate race and a bunch of old people there who might retire.

I also don't think they're quite as keen on regional interests.

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This is the best I could do to keep everyone happy. Well, 5/6 of the state anyway.




The Cajuns will be pretty happy here, as will the guys in the red district.

Scalise gets a fairly compact and solid district, but he's safe under any map.

The Republicans in Livingston might cry bloody murder at getting represented by Rodney Alexander, though.

But that's the problem with the 2 cajun/2 north configuration. By definition it means crunching the 6th, but someone has to take that territory.

I can't blame Jindal for running away from this.

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This is the best I could do to keep everyone happy. Well, 5/6 of the state anyway.




The Cajuns will be pretty happy here, as will the guys in the red district.

Scalise gets a fairly compact and solid district, but he's safe under any map.

The Republicans in Livingston might cry bloody murder at getting represented by Rodney Alexander, though.

But that's the problem with the 2 cajun/2 north configuration. By definition it means crunching the 6th, but someone has to take that territory.

I can't blame Jindal for running away from this.

Not too bad really.  Change it so the 3 NOLA districts are Purple, Yellow, and Green, with the two that reach up to Baton Rouge, purple and yellow. 

Close up of New Orleans. I left Orleans Parish intact.





Its odd how Rodney Alexander (elected 2002) is the senior member of the delegation here. Boustany was elected in 2004, the rest of them are over the last 2 years. They have a combined ~20 years of seniority.

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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?

I can't see Scalise willingly bumping his district up to 35% black or so.

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.

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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.

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Since LA has a 32% black population, I wonder if the DOJ will want to see roughly 1/3 of the CDs drawn with a black majority? I drew a hypothetical map that achieves that result. All districts are within 100 of the ideal. CD 2 goes from New Orleans to Houma district with 51.4% black VAP. CD 6 takes in Baton Rouge, Alexandria, and Lafayette with 50.6% black VAP. CD 3 ends up wrapping from east of Baton Rouge to the southern suburbs of New Orleans. The Shreveport area parishes are split to avoid a district that runs from Monroe to Lake Charles.

CD-6 there looks even more problematic than  CD-2.

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I'm not sure why it would be problematic. Other intentional VRA districts are often as badly shaped, and in NC one can argue that they are worse than my example here.

Mostly because I don't expect any court to actually require that, and I don't expect newly empowered LA Republicans to roll over for the Justice department.

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

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This ugly map has
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.

The other issue is that Monroe and Shreveport combined have too many blacks to become a safe R district.

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http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/04/5_louisiana_congressmen_call_f.html

With just days remaining in the Legislature's post-census redistricting session, five members of Louisiana's congressional delegation are calling for state lawmakers to postpone drawing new U.S. House districts.



Bottom line: Boustany is being a huge d-bag and trying to sink Fleming as well as Landry. Rest of the GOP delegation is pissed.

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Not bad.

I could see the 5th and 6th being competitive with the right wave.

4th and 5th you mean? I can't imagine the Baton Rouge district being competitive anymore now that the black population was removed.

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Looks pretty solid. LA-05 is 62% white/36% black, but not that big an issue.

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Congressional map precleared.

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I always wondered what the story behind that funky district was.

But surely a cleaner district could be drawn...

Doubt it. The blacks are too spread out.

http://www.legis.state.la.us/archive/111es/HB42Original.pdf

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http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/08/legislative_black_caucus_will.html

Rep. Patricia Smith, D-Baton Rouge, said unless an individual wants to challenge it or a national group wants to fight the new districts in court, they will probably remain as they are. The map was cleared last week by the U.S. Department of Justice. "We've got our hands full with the (state) House seats," Smith said.



Not surprising.

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New Orleans is the fastest growing city in the nation. Does anyone know if they are on pace to regain the 7th district?

I am contemplating how the legislature can cleave New Orleans to create another Republican district.