Georgia Republicans plot doing a Texas

[Filuwaúrdjan]

AP

ATLANTA - A top leader of the GOP-controlled Georgia Legislature said Monday that chances are better-than-even and "moving up" that lawmakers will draw a new congressional district map this year.

"There has been at least consensus that perhaps we should address the congressional maps. How we do that, we're working through," House Majority Leader Jerry Keen, R-St. Simons Island, told reporters.

The current maps feature an assortment of bizarre shapes and were drawn in 2001 when Democrats were in control of the statehouse. They admitted they designed the districts to help them elect more Democrats to Congress.

Currently, the state has seven Republican and six Democratic members of Congress.

With both houses of the Legislature now under GOP control, some Republican congressmen are pressing state lawmakers to change the map, hoping that will make their next election campaigns easier.

"I don't think there's any secret we've looked at two or three maps," Keen said. "Our chairman has been working on a map."

Keen said the first step would be to pass a "principles of redistricting" resolution through the House which would spell out the rules for making any changes to the map.

The resolution likely would specify that districts should be compact, contiguous and avoid bizarre shapes, as Republicans have contended for years.

"If that goes through the House and people buy into that, then I think the next step would be to go ahead and begin looking at the possibility of changing the map," he said.

All that could fall apart if the Senate balks, he said. "There's no reason to go through the exercise of redistricting in one chamber if the other chamber's not on board. If we introduce a map, it would be with the intention that both chambers are going to debate it."

Sen. Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, the Senate redistricting chairman, said, "I do know there has been discussion about it. But no definite decision has been made."

With the session not yet half over, Keen said there is plenty of time for lawmakers to take up redistricting, "as long as we get moving this week."

Waiting until next year is not an option, he said, because there wouldn't be enough time before the election cycle began to get approval of the changes from the U.S. Department of Justice

[A18]

Neat

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

At least they are offering some justification beyond the “let’s use our power to make a mid-census redistricting” that was used in Texas.  However. I’m still leery of doing this, and would prefer that the principles that they are proposing to put forth were codified in law, which would be harder to ignore if they later prove inconvienient for Republicans than a mere resolution would be.

[A18]

At least they are offering some justification beyond the “let’s use our power to make a mid-census redistricting” that was used in Texas.

Because the congressional delegation was ing tied, and that's pretty ing ridiculous for Texas.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The people of Texas in their districts liked it that way. If they didn't, they would vote them out. We aren't complaining that Connecticut has more Republicans than Democrats, and Illinois and New Jersey are almost tied.

[A18]

The people of Texas in their districts liked it that way. If they didn't, they would vote them out.

The people of Texas in their new districts like it this way. If they didn't, they would vote them out.

Again, the only reason we changed it mid-decade is because the courts redrew the original plan.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

that seems more fair than just having one party do so. Would you whine if Illinois or New Jersey decided to do a mid-decade gerrymander now?

[A18]

If a court had drawn the districts, or it had recently been gerrymandered by the other party, it'd only be sensible.

Of course, I wouldn't be upbeat about it, but I wouldn't whine either.

[TeePee4Prez]

that seems more fair than just having one party do so. Would you whine if Illinois or New Jersey decided to do a mid-decade gerrymander now?

They should gerrymander in their favor.  Maybe we can knock Hastert out while were at it.  NJ and IL are too nice.  Our Speaker in PA, John Perzel (our equivalent of Dennis Hastert), wasted no time in chopping up PA in the GOP's favor.  Unfortunately for him PA 13 and PA 17 bit him in the ass.  If all went as planned, PA was supposed to be 14-5 GOP instead of 12-7. 

[minionofmidas]

The people of Texas in their districts liked it that way. If they didn't, they would vote them out. We aren't complaining that Connecticut has more Republicans than Democrats, and Illinois and New Jersey are almost tied.

I am.

[jimrtex]

The people of Texas in their districts liked it that way. If they didn't, they would vote them out. We aren't complaining that Connecticut has more Republicans than Democrats, and Illinois and New Jersey are almost tied.

The people of Texas in their legislative districts approved of the redistricting.  If they didn't, they would vote the legislators out. 

And the people approved of the new districts, because in every one of the 32 districts, every elected candidate received a majority of the vote.

[jimrtex]

At least they are offering some justification beyond the “let’s use our power to make a mid-census redistricting” that was used in Texas.  However. I’m still leery of doing this, and would prefer that the principles that they are proposing to put forth were codified in law, which would be harder to ignore if they later prove inconvienient for Republicans than a mere resolution would be.

The federal district court that did the redistricting in 2001 said essentially that they were incompetent to consider the sort of factors that could legitimately be considered by the legislature.  All they could do is patch up the existing districts removing the more egregious elements of the 1990s monstrosity (*) and balance the population.

(*)USSC justice Paul Stephens characterized the districts as "committing geographical atrocities", while the District Court in 2001 called them "patently ridiculous" (and this was after the 1996 redistricting cleaned up the boundaries).

What is the justification for splitting Tyler and Longview apart?  Or keeping the split of Kaufman County that tied Dallas to an area of Central Texas (in a district that was drawn in an attempt for John Bryant to keep his seat)?  What is the justification for splitting a single city council district in Houston among 6 CDs (7 parts?).

The Democrats filed suit as soon as the Census Bureau released its population totals (in December 2000) on grounds (d'oh) that it only had 30 districts for Texas' 32 representatives to be elected from in 2002.  Of course they didn't file in the district that had drawn the boundaries in 1996 after the Democrat plan of 1991 had been declared unconstitutional.  Their whole plan was to prevent the legislature from enacting redistricting, in hopes of a favorable decision in a hand picked federal court.

The Texas Legislature is the competent body for defining congressional district boundaries for the State of Texas.  They have only redistricted once on the basis of the 2000 decennial census.  To deny that authority to the Texas Legislature is to deny to the State of Texas its right to a republican form of government under the United States and Texas Constitutions.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Jim: is there something in the water in Texas that makes lawmakers there inclined to gerrymander? I've just had another look at both the old (pre-2002) districts and the the new (post-2004) districts... and both are horrible (but in different ways (there's more horrible little fiddly stuff in the old map, and more horrible elongated districts in the new map)...
Could you draw a non-gerrymandered TX map?

[Dave from Michigan]

I'm sure the democrats would love to redraw michigan's districts.

[The Man From G.O.P.]

Good for them, democrats please stop whining you did it to us many times before, it's fair game

[Q]

The GOP claims it's looking only for geographic fairness (no mention of whether or not political data will be used).  I'm hopeful they'll keep their word.  A big reason the Dems lost the state House this year was over the redistricting nonsense they pulled.  I would expect some humility from the GOP on this one.  Everyone knows that the current boundaries are a joke; maybe this will actually improve things, so long as it doesn't become so political again.

I've looked at some of the proposed new maps.  They really change things around.  A lot of the districts are no longer grounded where they used to be.  I'm surprised all 7 GOP Congressmen signed off on a new plan since apparently at least a few of them would get thrown together into the same districts.

Currently 7 R, 6D.  Before the last redistricting, it was 8R, 3D.
So focusing on the Dems:
The 3 Dem Atlanta-area seats remain solid, as does the Southwest GA seat.
Jim Marshall (D) won for the first time in 2002 51-49 or so, IIRC.  In a rematch with the very same opponent in 2004, the result was 63-37 in favor of Marshall.  I believe he would be well positioned to win the Middle GA district even if it does get changed around.
Freshman John Barrow (D) got 52% this year in THE competitive GA district.  He'd be the easiest target, especially because his district is the one most likely to be abolished.

So overall, we're looking at a result of 8R, 5D (or, per some maps, maybe even 7R, 6D again) with the greatest changes made.  I'd heard that numbers for each party probably wouldn't change a whole lot, no ridiculous gerrymandering or anything, just making the geography more reasonable.

[jimrtex]

Jim: is there something in the water in Texas that makes lawmakers there inclined to gerrymander? I've just had another look at both the old (pre-2002) districts and the the new (post-2004) districts... and both are horrible (but in different ways (there's more horrible little fiddly stuff in the old map, and more horrible elongated districts in the new map)...
Could you draw a non-gerrymandered TX map?

The Voting Rights Act requires gerrymandered districts, so my districts would be illegal.

Anyhow, I would divide the state into 6 regions:

Greater Houston: Harris county and surounding suburbs.
Greater Dallas-Fort Worth: Dallas and Tarrant counties and surrounding counties.
Central: I-35 counties from Bexar (San Antonio) to McClennan (Waco), plus Coryell, Bastrop, and Guadeloupe.
Border: From Corpus up to just south of San Antonio, west to Del Rio, and the Trans-Pecos (Big Bend and El Paso).
East: Everything east of DFW, Central, and Border regions, excluding Houston region.
West: Everything west of DFW and Central Regions, and North of the Border region.

Based on 2000 census, the apportionment should be:

Houston (6 counties) 7.076
DFW (11 counties) 7.858
Central (10 counties) 5.070
Border (34 counties) 3.970
East: (77 counties) 4.722
West: (126 counties) 3.303

To balance the populations:

Houston to East 0.076 (Liberty)
Central to East 0.202 (Bastrop and Guadeloupe)
West to DFW 0.142 (north and west of Fort Worth).
West to Central 0.131 (west of Waco, Temple, Killeen)
West to South 0.030

While the West gives up population to more urban areas, it really isn't feasible to preserve a 4th seat.  You end up with a couple of seats which are potentially dominated by more urban areas (this has happened in the state senate (Texas has 32 congressmen and 31 state senators so that the districts are of similar size).

Houston region (7 seats): Harris County is entitled to roughly 5 seats, Houston  to about 3 of those.  Divide Houston from west to east in 3 parts.  The other two seats would be Eastern and Northeastern Harris County and Northern and Northwestern Harris County.  The other two seats would be Montgomery, far Northwest Harris, and norther Fort Bend; and Southern Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston.

DFW region (8 seats): Dallas County 3 seats.  probably the most compact would be a NE, NW, and Southern districts.   The city of Dallas is around 1.5 districts, if you made a city district, the others might have to wrap around the city.  Tarrant County 2 seats, based in Fort Worth and Arlington.  To get population balance, you'd probably need to include northeast Tarrant county with Arlington, and have the Fort Worth district include areas more to its north, west, and south.  The other 3 seats would be based on Collin; Denton; and Ellis&Johnson counties.

Central region (5 seats): Bexar County 2 seats, probably North and South.  McLennan, Bell, Coryell, and the areas transferred the West region and a bit of McLennan.  Williamson and about 1/2 of Travis.  Comal, Hays, and about 1/2 of Travis.

Border (4 seats): El Paso.  Coastal Strip - Nueces to Cameron.  Valley: Hidalgo and neighboring counties to the north and west.  (Note the lower Rio Grande has a population equivalent to about 1.5 representatives).   All the rest, estending from El Paso to Laredo to near San Antonio.

East (5 districts): Northeast; East (Tyler-Longview to Lufkin), these are similar to the current districts.   Southeast (Golden Triangle and points north and west).  East Central, including Huntsville and Bryan-College station.  Upper Gulf (roughly centered on Victoria but would extend to periphery of San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and Corpus Christi.

West (3 districts): North (Amarillo and Wichita Falls), Central (Lubbock and Abilene), South (Odessa-Midland and San Angelo).  Similar to the current districts, but more regular.

Long term, most of the growth will occur in the Houston, DFW, and Central areas.  New seats will be added as they are gained, with the boundaries of the regions extending outwards while a seat is gained, and then contracting.  The East and South regions will be fairly stable.  The West region will continue to lose representation.  For now, they will take back their 0.3 excess to maintain 3 seats, but eventually will start to east into suburban areas in the DFW area orthe  Waco-Killeen-Temple area.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting