Draw the Congressional Districts of the Alternate States!

[muon2]

Tried myself with a state, hope it's not an entire disaster

Rio Grande

With Legislature and Governor's Mansion in different hands, it will likely come to an agreement that will try to secure seats for one or another party. However, both the geographical distribution of voters and a likely strong democratic majority in both chambers will favour the Democrats, leading to the following proposal:

RG-01: (Obama: 65,7%-34,3%; Dem: 62,2%-37,8%)
The district containing all of El Paso and some parts of exurban El Paso County is as safe Democratic as it gets. More than two-thirds Hispanic, the district is basically the old 16th CD. Safe Dem

RG-02: (Obama: 55,0%-45,0%; Dem: 55,7%-45,3%)
Stretching from remaining parts of El Paso County until Laredo and the San Antonio Metro, the district is a more Democratic version of the old 23rd, but morphing into a fairly democratic one, likely only competetive in wave elections. Likely Dem

RG-03: (McCain: 60,9%-31,1%; GOP: 65,4%-34,6%)
Combining the areas to the north of both San Antonio and Austin, and taking a small portion of suburban Williamson County, Rio Grande's 3rd district is a natural stronghold for the GOP. Safe GOP

RG-04: (Obama: 61,8%-38,2%; Dem: 54,7%-45,3%)
This district encompasses Austin and Williamson County southeast of I-35. While Obama surely overperformed there in 2008, the district nevertheless is moving rapidly towards the Democrats, albeit partisan numbers are a little less democratic. Safe Dem

RG-05: (Obama: 58,9%-41,1%; Dem: 52,3%-47,7%)
Austin west of I-35 and Hays County. The less Democratic part of the city, nevertheless leans towards that party. Likely Dem

RG-06: (McCain: 64,0%-36,0%; GOP: 70,1%-29,9%)
The district inbetween San Antonio and Austin, taking conservative suburban areas from the first, is the most Republican district in the state. Safe GOP

RG-07: (Obama: 58,0%-42,0%; Dem: 53,9%-46,1%)
The greatest part of San Antonio, about everything west of I-35. Again did Obama overperform here, yet the district is sustainably Democratic, so just in play for the GOP in wave years. Likely Dem

RG-08: (McCain: 59,2%-40,8%; GOP: 56,6%-43,4%)
The east of the state, from the southernmost parts of the Austin Metro down to the Gulf Coast and until Corpus Christi. The least Republican of the three GOP districts, yet still far away from being in play for the Democrats. Safe GOP

RG-09: (Obama: 57,2%-42,8%; Dem: 56,6%-43,3%)
This is the district containing south-east San Antonio, and down the San Antonio River Valley until before Corpus Christi. Safe Dem

RG-10: (Obama: 66,7%-33,3%; Dem: 66,8%-33,2% )
Basically the leftovers south of Laredo and Corpus Christi, this heavily Hispanic area is certainly one of the most democratic areas in the country. Overall the most Democratic district in Rio Grande. Safe Dem

RG-11: (Obama: 67,9%-32,1%; Dem: 65,5%-34,5%)
This district encompasses Cameron County and some areas of Hidalgo County along the river, including McAllen. THis was Obama's strongest district in 2008. Safe Dem


Under normal circumstances one could except a 8D-3R delegation. In wave years, the GOP could possibly win the 5th and 7th district, maybe also the 2nd, resulting to a maximum 6R-5D map. The 3 GOP and 5 Democratic seats however are uncontestable.

It looks nice, but section 2 of the VRA needs to be considered. What are the HVAPs for the districts and for the state overall? I'm worried that RG-11 might be overpacked with Latinos.

[muon2]

How exactly do the VRA requirements work? I assume a state like RG would need at least 3 Hispanic-majority districts, but I'm not sure how that number is supposed to be calculated.

The VRA requires that racial and ethnic minorities have the ability to elect the representatives of their choice. Generally this means that when there is a minority population that votes significantly different than the white majority, and there is a compact district that has 50% or more of that minority of the citizens of voting age, then a district must be drawn to accommodate the minority.

In TX the state used the registered voters with Spanish surnames (SSVR) to determine the Hispanic population for the VRA. There are 6 CDs in TX that overlap your RG state that have a majority SSVR. Those districts have HVAPs that go from 64.9% to 79.0%. In addition a TX-35 that links San Antonio to Austin has a 44% SSVR and a 58.3% HVAP. MALDEF submitted its own plans in opposition to the TX plan, and those plans provide for seven CDs in south TX that would have the Hispanic strength sufficient to elect the candidates of their choice.

Using those a plan like MALDEFs would probably leave a map with 7 Latino seats and 4 Pub seats in your RG. There is a SCOTUS decision that says that one need not maximize the minority seats as long as the number of such seats are in rough proportionality to the minority population in the state as a whole. Your state of RG has 41.8% SSVR and 53.4% HVAP. This corresponds to 4.6 out of 11 seats, so the Dems in RG could definitely get by with 5 Latino seats and maybe get by with only 4 seats, but certainly not less than that.

[muon2]

As I look at TX more closely, I'm not sure there would be a Dem gerrymander. Obama got 53.2% of the two party vote there in 2008, which is fractionally less than the 53.7% he got nationwide. The DRA election average gives the Dems 49.96% of the vote, so RG would be a very swingy state. Since 2010 was a GOP wave, it's likely that the Pubs would hold at least the Gov or one chamber of the legislature, so it is highly unlikely that the Dems get their best map. If no compromise is reached, the large Latino population makes a court-ordered map a strong possibility.

[muon2]

There are 6 Hispanic Minority Majority districts under my plan, 5 if we even just count the SSRV, so it should be very consistent with the VRA. That's quite funny considering I completely forgot about it and didn't draw my districts with that intent
Anyways, I added the numbers to the districts.

As I look at TX more closely, I'm not sure there would be a Dem gerrymander. Obama got 53.2% of the two party vote there in 2008, which is fractionally less than the 53.7% he got nationwide. The DRA election average gives the Dems 49.96% of the vote, so RG would be a very swingy state. Since 2010 was a GOP wave, it's likely that the Pubs would hold at least the Gov or one chamber of the legislature, so it is highly unlikely that the Dems get their best map. If no compromise is reached, the large Latino population makes a court-ordered map a strong possibility.

I modelled the districts under Antonio's "orders" - Governor a Republican, both chambers Democratic majority. Given that constellation, I find it highly likely to come to a incumbent-projection, little competition map, which this map is. I don't think the Republicans would have captured a chamber even in 2010, given that South Texas is basically the opposite of the rest of the nation when it comes to electoral geopgraphy - Democrats are distributed over a far larger area than Republicans, and also strong in rural areas.

There's no way a Pub Gov would sign onto a plan with only 3 of 11 seats for the GOP. More likely, he'd cut a deal with the Latinos to strengthen their chances in the SSVR majority seats, so that they are all at least D+8 (61.2%+ Obama '08), in exchange for swing seats that lean GOP.

Here's an example that has few county splits and has all districts within 1000 of the quota.



RG-1 (HVAP 77.9%): O'08 65.3%, D+12
RG-2 (HVAP 81.8%): O'08 61.3%, D+8
RG-3 (HVAP 78.3%): O'08 70.5%, D+17
RG-4 : O'08 49.0%, R+5
RG-5 : O'08 31.2%, R+23
RG-6 : O'08 70.4%, D+17
RG-7 : O'08 53.1%, R+1
RG-8 : O'08 40.1%, R+14
RG-9 : O'08 40.6%, R+13
RG-10 (HVAP 83.4%): O'08 64.3%, D+11
RG-11 (HVAP 85.9%): O'08 66.9%, D+13

[muon2]

That seems like an excellent redistricting plan, Cranberry. The borders look very nice, so if it's also VRA-compliant there's no need to look any further!

Muon, it might seem surprising in light of statewide results but yes, local Democrats tend to have the upper hand in this area of Texas. Just look at the House results: Democrats hold 7 of 11 seats even despite living in a nominally R-gerrymandered map. The same is true in the State Legislature. According to my calculations, Democrats hold almost 3/4 of the Texas House of Representatives seats in the area corresponding to RG.

The Dems might well be down one additional US House seat but for the VRA requirements on the state of TX as a whole. It would be easy to take my map and make both of the swing seats, solid R without compromising any of the R seats or changing the VRA seats, which a Pub gerrymander certainly would do. The Texas HoR is a court-ordered map and after the favorable 2012 election the Dems hold 30 of the 47 seats in the RG counties (64%). I don't know how many of those are in play for 2014.

Edit: It looks like statewide VRA compliance also affects the TX HoR. For example Bexar county is 43.1% SSVR, but 7 of the 10 House districts are drawn with an SSVR majority, this leads to the current 8D-2R margin. Yet overall the county is close to national average, being about 1% more R than the nation in 2008. That would project a roughly equal split of House districts between the parties. Given the numerous easy VRA districts that can be drawn along the Rio Grande, I doubt that RG would have to gerrymander Bexar to meet the VRA.

[muon2]

Edit: It looks like statewide VRA compliance also affects the TX HoR. For example Bexar county is 43.1% SSVR, but 7 of the 10 House districts are drawn with an SSVR majority, this leads to the current 8D-2R margin. Yet overall the county is close to national average, being about 1% more R than the nation in 2008. That would project a roughly equal split of House districts between the parties. Given the numerous easy VRA districts that can be drawn along the Rio Grande, I doubt that RG would have to gerrymander Bexar to meet the VRA.

Those seven districts converge on an area a couple of miles across, with districts fanning out and wrapping around the city.   The Republicans managed to win HD-117 in 2010.  Based on the west side it had relatively high growth, and would logically have shed population on the south side.  Instead, the court ordered northern areas to be dropped, which pushed the other two Republican seats into that area.

The legislature plan increased the HCVAP population, while decreasing the SSVR percentage.  The claim was that this was that this was to add "non-mobilized" Hispanic voters.  But I would infer that there were more non-Spanish-surnamed Hispanic voters.   Someone with a last name of Abbott or Bush might not be targeted by "mobilizers" or would probably be more likely to vote Republican.

The 8th district is held by a black Democrat, Ruth McClendon.   The district includes the only area of high black concentration in San Antonio, but is only 28% black VAP.  If you increased the HVAP in the district you could flip the district in the primary.

For the hypothetical state RG, the VRA might only have to apply to Bexar itself and a court wouldn't order the current ethnic gerrymander. Then one can draw 10 reasonably compact districts that provide five districts where the Latino vote should be able to elect the candidate of choice, consistent with their overall SSVR. Here's a plan that would meet that requirement.



Bexar1 (SSVR 62.4%, HVAP 73.1%) : D+6
Bexar2 (SSVR 58.1%, HVAP 69.8%) : D+10
Bexar3 (SSVR 56.5%, HVAP 67.0%) : D+9
Bexar4 (SSVR 83.9%, HVAP 84.6%) : D+22
Bexar5 (SSVR 57.7%, HVAP 70.4%) : D+22
Bexar6 (SSVR 26.4%, HVAP 37.7%) : R+2
Bexar7 (SSVR 24.8%, HVAP 34.2%) : R+9
Bexar8 (SSVR 23.4%, HVAP 33.9%) : R+14
Bexar9 (SSVR 34.4%, HVAP 44.2%) : R+6
Bexar10 (SSVR 23.3%, HVAP 33.6%) : R+25

This would shift three seats in the RG House from D to R.

[muon2]

To get a better feel for the dynamics of the hypothetical RG state, I created a legislature. I assumed that the new state would replicate much of the existing state of TX. To that end I gave RG a 150 seat house, just like TX has now. TX has very specific rules about how to apportion house districts to counties, so I kept those for RG. The population range across the entire map must not exceed 10% of the quota of one district. Counties larger than a district get as many whole districts as can fit within the population range. Counties smaller than a district can be combined with other smaller counties or fragments left over from a large county. In general no small counties or fragments can be chopped, but exceptions can be made if necessary to keep districts within range.

I used the 2010 data and made an apportionment following the above rules. Numbers on the map indicate an apportionment of more than one district to a county or group of counties. The range based on the apportionment is 9.7%.



TX has 31 Senators, but to make things easy I reduced it to 30 Senators. The senate districts were formed by grouping five house districts together, keeping the districts within large counties as much as possible. This is roughly how OH does its three-to-one nested districts. The plus indicates a house district that was shifted out of Bell county which has six house districts. That extra is attached to the adjacent Williamson county with a minus sign. The house district with Falls, Milam, and a small part of Williamson is used in forming a different Senate district.



A detailed map with partisan and ethnic data is forthcoming.

[muon2]

Here's my analysis of the 150 House districts in RG. I used the apportionment then divided counties using traditional principles of keeping municipalities together and maintaining compactness. Ethnic data was used to test for VRA compliance, but no political data was used to draw the districts. There are 70 districts with an SSVR majority which is more than are needed to provide rough proportionality with the statewide population under the VRA.

The 2008 presidential election was used to estimate the PVI of each district, comparing the district vote in that race to 53.7% (the national Dem 2-party fraction). Overall there are 85 districts with a D+ PVI, 11 of which are less than or equal to D+5 and subject to a wave election, 5 of those 11 are D+0 or D+1 and can be considered tossups. The remaining 65 districts have a R+ PVI, 17 of which are less than or equal to R+5, and 5 of those 17 are R+1 in the tossup category.
 
Even though the state is a tossup in statewide elections, the Dems have a structural advantage in the legislature. This is due to the fact that the large population of non-citizen residents are disproportionately in the Dem districts. In 61 of the 85 Dem districts there is a SSVR majority. Thus the vote totals are much lower in Dem districts than in Pub districts, resulting in relatively even vote totals statewide. Despite the structural problems there are enough swing seats that the Pubs could eke out a majority in a wave election. On the flip side Dems could get a supermajority in a strong Dem year.

Here are some maps starting with the state as a whole.



This is the detail for Bexar county. It has 33 whole districts and 2 partial districts. 14 districts have a SSVR majority and 1 has a black RV plurality. Dems have a favorable PVI in 17 districts, though one is a D+1. Pubs have 6 districts with PVI of R+5 or less.



Here is the detail for the Austin area. Travis is where the Dems have most of their non-Latino districts, though there is one SSVR majority district here. There is also a black RV plurality district in Travis. There are only 2 Pub districts in Travis, though 4 Dem districts are in the lean or tossup category. Williamson has one tossup Pub district.



Finally let me post the detail for Hidalgo and Cameron, since they got chopped off the main map. All the districts are SSVR majority. However, there are 2 Cameron districts that are tossup D+0/1, and 1 Hidalgo district that is D+2. Even more interesting is that each county has one R+1 district!

[muon2]

That's an excellent analysis, thank you very much!

Considering that local democrats tend to significantly outperform their respective Presidential candidate, it's very likely that Democrats would actually control around 95 seats and would rarely if ever be at risk of losing their majority.

Actually I have some of that data, too, and it doesn't support your conclusion. In heavily Latino areas, there can be a large fall off on downballot voting, just as there is in midterm voting. The result is that the GOP can carry local races while the top of the ticket loses. Also many swing districts in urban areas overperformed for Obama, and won't duplicate that result elsewhere on the ticket.

[muon2]

Here's the map and Senate analysis for RG. There is a lot less flexibility here than in the House. There are 13 SD with a majority SSVR and all are Dem PVI. 16 SDs have a Dem PVI and 14 have a Pub PVI.



There are four districts that are within 5 on the PVI scale, two for each party that I will detail. The election average from DRA uses the presidential and gubernatorial results from 2002-2010.

SD1 - West El Paso. D+4, 51.0% SSVR, DRA avg 52.1% Dem. It voted 57.3% for Obama in 2008 which certainly overperformed its average. It's probably closer to a D+2, particularly in offyear elections and is a candidate to flip.

SD5 - Kingsville to Eagle Pass. D+5, 70.5% SSVR, DRA avg 61.8% Dem. Unlike SD1 this looks like it underperformed in 2008. It should be relatively safe for the Dems.

SD19 - Lake Travis. R+1, 8.9% SSVR, DRA avg 55.4% Pub. This suburban/exurban district overperformed for Obama in 2008 like many others around the nation. The average is probably closer to reality suggesting something like R+5 or R+6. It remains a possible flip, but only in a wave election.

SD27 - NE San Antonio/Converse/Universal City. R+5, 24.1% SSVR, DRA avg 57.9% Pub. The SD has 45.2% WVAP, 14.3% BVAP, and 35.9% HVAP. The Pub average suggests that it can only really flip in a wave year when there is a significant mobilization of voters to the polls. With ordinary turnout, this would stay Pub.

It looks difficult for either party to move more than one seat from the 16D-14R split on the map. A Pub tie is probably the best they can get. The Dems have just as hard a time extending the advantage that otherwise keeps them at the mercy of a defector (think NY Senate).

[muon2]

That's an excellent analysis, thank you very much!

Considering that local democrats tend to significantly outperform their respective Presidential candidate, it's very likely that Democrats would actually control around 95 seats and would rarely if ever be at risk of losing their majority.

Actually I have some of that data, too, and it doesn't support your conclusion. In heavily Latino areas, there can be a large fall off on downballot voting, just as there is in midterm voting. The result is that the GOP can carry local races while the top of the ticket loses. Also many swing districts in urban areas overperformed for Obama, and won't duplicate that result elsewhere on the ticket.

What data do you have, exactly? I compared Obama's rests in CDs with House elections, and it seemed that House candidates generally did better.

If your comparison involved incumbents seeking reelection, then they are expected to overperform due to that incumbency. Incumbency is how some members hold onto a seat when the partisan leanings would indicate otherwise (eg Kirk in IL-10 or Matheson in UT-4). The multi-year average, like the type I cited in my RG Senate analysis, is a better indicator of a district when the parties are close since it factors in off-year elections and not just presidential results. That minimizes the role of local incumbents in determining the behavior of the underlying district.

For example, comparing the multi-year average to the Obama PVI in the SDs shows how the change mantra caused an anomalous bump for the Dems in 2008. In some areas there wasn't much difference, but in suburban areas the effect can be quite large. In IL it amounts to about a 10% swing in those races. I see it in some TX districts, too, such as suburban Austin and SA.

[muon2]

To get a better feel for the dynamics of the hypothetical RG state, I created a legislature. I assumed that the new state would replicate much of the existing state of TX. To that end I gave RG a 150 seat house, just like TX has now. TX has very specific rules about how to apportion house districts to counties, so I kept those for RG. The population range across the entire map must not exceed 10% of the quota of one district. Counties larger than a district get as many whole districts as can fit within the population range. Counties smaller than a district can be combined with other smaller counties or fragments left over from a large county. In general no small counties or fragments can be chopped, but exceptions can be made if necessary to keep districts within range.

I used the 2010 data and made an apportionment following the above rules. Numbers on the map indicate an apportionment of more than one district to a county or group of counties. The range based on the apportionment is 9.7%.



TX has 31 Senators, but to make things easy I reduced it to 30 Senators. The senate districts were formed by grouping five house districts together, keeping the districts within large counties as much as possible. This is roughly how OH does its three-to-one nested districts. The plus indicates a house district that was shifted out of Bell county which has six house districts. That extra is attached to the adjacent Williamson county with a minus sign. The house district with Falls, Milam, and a small part of Williamson is used in forming a different Senate district.



A detailed map with partisan and ethnic data is forthcoming.

When was the Rio Grande constitution written?

Historically, Texas has not had 150 House members.  The current constitution was written in 1876 and provided for 31 senators, which could never be increased.

The House was to have 93 members, which could be increased but never more than a ratio of one per 15,000 members, and never beyond 150.

By 1900, the population was sufficient to have 150 members representing more than 15,000 persons, but there were only 133 representatives.  No apportionment occurred after the 1910 census; but following the 1920 census, a House of 150 members was established.

In 1999, the constitution was amended to its current version which provides for specifically 31 senators and 150 representatives, since the conditions for smaller numbers had long since passed (there was never the ability to change the number of senators, but perhaps the authors of the constitution wanted to make sure.  A goal of the 1876 constitution is to restrict the government, so making it explicit that the 31 could not be increased was probably deliberate.

The instructions didn't say when the hypothetical states were created, though it was before 2010. I hypothesized that the creation was after 1970, so the impact of the OMOV decisions was known. However I chose to place the division before the 1999 change to the TX constitution (or a most concurrent with it) so that that amendment wouldn't be part of the constitution. Instead RG would reduce the Senate to 30 and use OH-styled nesting for  the SDs. I could have gone with a 90-member House in line with the average of the states, but I specifically wanted a higher degree of granularity and adoption of the House description from TX worked towards that end.

[muon2]

The 1951 redistricting did provide for election by place in multi-representative counties.  Like, the US Constitution, the Texas Constitution does not provide for the manner of election, but only for apportionment.

By 1961, the 1938 amendment was beginning to severely bite into representation of the larger counties, and instead of 19, 15, 11, and 8 representatives, Harris, Dallas, Bexar, and Tarrant were apportioned 12, 9, 7, and 7 representatives respectively.  A curiosity of the 1938 amendment was that it set a fixed ratio of one representative per 100,000.  Once the statewide ratio exceeded 100,000 (as it did in 1990), the 1938 amendment would have been moot - or possibly give additional representation to larger counties, inverting the effect.

The OMOV decisions overturned the 1938 amendment, and in 1964, the legislature did provide for 19, 14, 10, and 8 representatives for the larger counties.  They appear to have truncated 19.46, 14.89, 10.76, and 8.43, but that might be preferred to using a floterial district for the surplus population.  The 19 representatives were elected from 3 subdistricts, electing 7, 6, and 6 representatives by place within the district.

The Texas Constitution provides for three types of House districts.
(1) Single-county district with one or more representatives.
(2) Multi-county district with one representative.
(3) Multi-county district with zero or more counties entitled to less than one representative, and one or more counties where the district represents the surplus population from a Type (1) district, electing one representative.

Type 3 is a floterial district.  For example, if Adams County were entitled to 2.4 representatives, and its neighbor Baker County was entitled to 0.6 representatives, then District 1 would be Adams, with 2 representatives; and District 2 would be Adams+Baker, with 1 representative.  The voters in Adams could vote for all 3 representatives.  While a floterial district makes sense from an apportionment viewpoint, it doesn't make sense from an electoral viewpoint.  While Baker is providing 40% of the population for apportionment purposes, it only has 20% of the electorate, and will likely be dominated by the Adams voters.

The 1964 plan had 11 such floterial districts.  These were declared unconstitutional in 1967, and a new plan was adopted.

Consistent with RG's creation between 1970 and 1999, I struck pure floterial districts as unconstitutional. I left them both options 1 and 2.

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In the RG constituion I hypothesize that it is clear that adding excess from a large county should be considered before resorting to splits of a smaller county, but splits of smaller counties are not forbidden. I did have to split Atascosa to achieve population equality. However, not all the districts are within 5% of the quota. I used the 10% range rule instead since that provides some extra flexibility to avoid unneeded splits while keeping to federal law.

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I looked at a quasi-floterial El Paso district, since El Paso is almost exactly 15.5 districts. However, Val Verde is almost large enough for a HD by itself, and the counties between El Paso and Val Verde are just barely over the size of an HD. A quasi-floterial district to deal with the excess El Paso population would have helped in the east, but it forces a chop to Val Verde so I discarded the idea.

Removing Terrell still left the counties east of El Paso very slightly above the quota plus 5%, but not so much that I couldn't arrange the eastern part of RG to make it fit within the range. I quick look didn't show me that the El Paso qF and chop of Val Verde would eliminate more such chops in the east. If it did, then that would be preferable to the apportionment I did.

[muon2]

For the record, my assumption was that the new States would have been created around the early 1960s (first coming into effect with the 1962 elections).

Since the request is to draw alternate districts, it's a whole lot easier to assume they adopted constitutions after 1965 since then it is more likely they would comply with the one-man-one-vote ruling for congress in Baker vs Carr (1962) and state legislatures in Reynolds v Sims (1964) and the 1965 VRA. For example, the 1970 IL constitutional convention removed senatorial apportionment language which would no longer comply with OMOV.

[muon2]

The Texas Constitution provides for three types of House districts.
(1) Single-county district with one or more representatives.
(2) Multi-county district with one representative.
(3) Multi-county district with zero or more counties entitled to less than one representative, and one or more counties where the district represents the surplus population from a Type (1) district, electing one representative.

Type 3 is a floterial district.  For example, if Adams County were entitled to 2.4 representatives, and its neighbor Baker County was entitled to 0.6 representatives, then District 1 would be Adams, with 2 representatives; and District 2 would be Adams+Baker, with 1 representative.  The voters in Adams could vote for all 3 representatives.  While a floterial district makes sense from an apportionment viewpoint, it doesn't make sense from an electoral viewpoint.  While Baker is providing 40% of the population for apportionment purposes, it only has 20% of the electorate, and will likely be dominated by the Adams voters.

The 1964 plan had 11 such floterial districts.  These were declared unconstitutional in 1967, and a new plan was adopted.

Consistent with RG's creation between 1970 and 1999, I struck pure floterial districts as unconstitutional. I left them both options 1 and 2.

Pre-1967, Type 1 (single county) and Type 3 (floterial) overlaid each other in a vertical stack.  If there had been single member election districts, then a county entitled to 4.5 representatives would have been divided into 4 districts of roughly equal population, and then all voters would have voted in the floterial district.  Of course we don't know if this would have been done, since floterial districts were declared unconstitutional before at-large elections.

Post-1967, and particularly Post-1971, the Texas Constitution is stretched to transform Type 1 and Type 3 districts to a horizontal configuration, such as the Type 1A district only covers the portion of the county with a population corresponding to a whole number of counties; and the Type 3A district includes an area of the county with the surplus population.

You don't have Type 1 districts except when a whole number of districts are coincident with county boundaries.

The rules in priority order order are:
(1) Don't violate the 10% rule;
(2) Don't split small counties (or create as few as possible)
(3) Don't create type 1A/3A districts (or create as few as possible)

Guidance given to the legislature appears to add a rule (1.5) Don't split large counties into 1A and 3A, except when necessary to comply with the 10% rule for that county.  That is, it's being treated as corollary to rule (1).  That is, if you can comply with (1) without splitting the county, then don't split it.

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In the RG constituion I hypothesize that it is clear that adding excess from a large county should be considered before resorting to splits of a smaller county, but splits of smaller counties are not forbidden. I did have to split Atascosa to achieve population equality. However, not all the districts are within 5% of the quota. I used the 10% range rule instead since that provides some extra flexibility to avoid unneeded splits while keeping to federal law.

The Texas constitution has not been clarified.  But based on the stretched interpretation by the Texas Supreme court, it is clear that not splitting small counties is preferred,  But it is ignored.  Incidentally, the 10% rule comes from a Texas House redistricting case.  It happened that they could get within 10% by having one district over 105%, but didn't need to go down to 95%.  They then voluntarily created another district over 105%.   The 10% rule is too much like moving the bulls-eye to match where the arrows landed.  I'd prefer a 5% rule, with an only if necessary exception, but possibly permitting a one-way deviation up to 10%.  Any plan that has a smaller deviation would automatically beat one with a larger deviation greater than 5%. 

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I looked at a quasi-floterial El Paso district, since El Paso is almost exactly 15.5 districts. However, Val Verde is almost large enough for a HD by itself, and the counties between El Paso and Val Verde are just barely over the size of an HD. A quasi-floterial district to deal with the excess El Paso population would have helped in the east, but it forces a chop to Val Verde so I discarded the idea.

Removing Terrell still left the counties east of El Paso very slightly above the quota plus 5%, but not so much that I couldn't arrange the eastern part of RG to make it fit within the range. I quick look didn't show me that the El Paso qF and chop of Val Verde would eliminate more such chops in the east. If it did, then that would be preferable to the apportionment I did.
[/quote]
I had missed that I split Val Verde.

I converted the double qF of Bexar to a single qF, but added a split of Val Verde.  It is close question whether the double qF of Bexar is better than the split of Val Verde.  The constitution doesn't really suggest that Bexar has two surpluses that add to 0.196.  But on the other hand placing a county in two different floterial districts has been done in the past, and there were such qF districts in the 1971 map.

It could be argued that you aren't complying with the Texas Constitution with your Bexar-Kendall district since the Bexar surplus is way short of that needed to complete Kendall.  In effect, you are spreading the error over the rest of the many Bexar districts.  But I don't think that was ever a concern.  Originally most counties in East Texas had one or more representatives, and you could take the counties with surpluses of around 1/2 of a district and pair them.  So you might pair a district with a 0.60 surplus with another with 0.65, or 0.4 with 0.35.
[/quote]

So it sounds like I mostly got the flavor of TX HoR redistricting right, though with some added direction on priorities. RG was a good exercise, and seems like a decent way to handle rural counties. Obviously it provides no guidance on how to draw lines within a large county.

[muon2]

I really, really wish Dave's Redistricting App could handle more than one state at a time. 

I use a spreadsheet with county data for that type of exercise.

[muon2]

Erie:



CD-1: 60.5%-37.4% Obama (Safe D)

CD-2: 52%-46.2% McCain (Likely/safe R)

CD-3: 57.6%-40.8% Obama (Safe D)

CD-4: 82.3%-16.9% Obama (Safe D)

CD-5: 58.3%-40.2% Obama (Safe D)

CD-6: 50.4%-48.2% Obama (Tilt/lean R)

CD-7: 59.8%-38.1% Obama (Safe D)

NE OH has historically maintained a VRA black-majority seat. Currently that involves a Cuyahoga-Summit link. There was agreement during redistricting that civil rights groups could accept a plurality black district (about 47% BVAP) if it was within Cuyahoga. In either case it requires a chop of Cleveland, though with the smaller pop districts here, you should be able to get a 50+ CD inside of Cuyahoga.

[muon2]

Election shades:

But wouldn't the Dems gerrymander Erie so that there was just one safe R seat, and all others lean or safe D?

[muon2]

Election shades:

But wouldn't the Dems gerrymander Erie so that there was just one safe R seat, and all others lean or safe D?

Perhaps in this alternate reality, the districts are drawn by a bi-partisan panel instead of by the legislature.     

Actually, my goal for this project was to assume that everything was exactly like real life except for the States. So yes, a Dem gerrymander is probably more likely.

Darn!  Back to the app! 

Here's your challenge. Keep Cleveland intact and get 48.5% BVAP. Split no townships or cities and get 6 D districts all of which voted at least 56.0% for Obama in 2008. It can be done.

[muon2]

I hope a 49.2% BVAP will do!



CD-1: 60.5%-37.9% Obama (Safe D)

CD-2: 53.5%-44.9% McCain (Safe R)

CD-3: 56.5%-42% Obama (Safe likely D)

CD-4: 83.9%-15.2% Obama (Safe D)

CD-5: 56.8%-41.7% Obama (Safe likely D)

CD-6: 56.5%-41.9% Obama (Safe likely D)

CD-7: 56.4%-41.6% Obama (Safe likely D)

Now you're thinking like an evil gerrymanderer!

Only CDs 1 and 4 are safe D. CDs 3,5,6, and 7 are all D+4 based on the 2008 election. Those would be normally classified as likely D, as I have edited above.

For the record, here was my gerrymander. I chose to make the Parma-Mentor CD slightly weaker, to a D+3, but I boosted the Akron and Youngstown CDs to D+5 and D+7.



ER-1: 59.2%-38.2% Pres'08; D+7; Uncompetitive D
ER-2: 56.9%-41.5% Pres'08; D+4; Competitive D
ER-3: (48.5% BVAP) 83.1%-16.0% Pres'08; D+30; Uncompetitive D
ER-4: 56.0%-42.6% Pres'08; D+3; Competitive D
ER-5: 43.5%-55.0% Pres'08; R+10; Uncompetitive R
ER-6: 57.4%-41.0% Pres'08; D+5; Competitive D
ER-7: 59.8%-38.0% Pres'08; D+7; Uncompetitive D

[muon2]

Would Adirondack really have a GOP leg? I could see the state senate, but I doubt they'd have the trifecta.

It would have been a bit close, but I'm pretty sure that, in a landslide year like 2010, republicans would be favored to win the State Assembly as well. IRL, this happened in States with a more Democratic PVI...

I also think they would have taken it in 2010. Perhaps I'll model their GA this weekend, like I did RG last weekend.

[muon2]

To understand what AD might be like for the 2010 remap, I constructed a hypothetical Senate for the 2000s. I set the size to a typical state average 31 Senators. I assumed that the court ordered a neutral map in 2001 that minimized county and municipal splits. This plan used 2000 data and maintains a 10% range and only splits Buffalo and Amherst among munis.



Using the 2008 presidential results to estimate PVIs I find that 8 SDs have D+6 or higher, 6 SDs have D+0 to 2, 6 SDs have R+0 to 2, 6 SDs have R+3 to 5, and 5 SDs have R+6 or higher. A neutral year would by 17R-14D, but it's a very competitive map that has about a third of the seats able to swing from election to election.

NY elects its senators to two-year terms, so if AD kept the same arrangement, all would have been up for election in 2010. If the Pubs kept their seats and gained the competitive Dem seats, they would have had a commanding 23-8 margin for the 2011 redistricting session.

The state assembly would probably not have been as severe, but I can reasonably assume that there would be a comfortable margin for the Pubs there as well. It's safe to assume that they would hold the trifecta for the congressional remap.

[muon2]

Very nice!

Are you interested in drawing the R-gerrymandered 2010 map as well?

Indeed. The trifecta certainly helps. A 6R-3D map is pretty easy, but I wanted to see if it could be done with no chops to cities or towns. Here's a gerrymander one could do with that restriction.



AD-1: D+10; O 62.6%, M 35.6%
AD-2: R+4; O 49.2%, M 49.1%
AD-3: R+3; O 50.0%, M 49.1%
AD-4: R+4; O 49.1%, M 49.2%
AD-5: R+2; O 50.7%, M 47.4%
AD-6: D+16; O 62.6%, M 30.3%
AD-7: R+7; O 46.1%, M 52.2%
AD-8: R+6; O 46.8%, M 51.8%
AD-9: D+11; O 63.7%, M 34.8%

Of course this shows that keeping municipal integrity alone is not much aid to stop gerrymandering.

[muon2]

A few of these districts are only marginally Republican though, and in a good Democratic year (or with good candidates) you could see 5 or 6 seats fall in Dem hands. Does splitting municipalities allow Republicans to solidify their hold on CDs 2 to 5?

By swapping about 10 precincts each way between AD 5 and 6, I can move AD 5 up to R+3. With about half an hour work carving up towns I can get AD 5 such that McCain wins the district, and so on.

[muon2]

Another insidious gerrymander, this one for the new OH. It more than neutralizes the Dems gains in ER. All CDs are within a range of 0.5% and no townships, or munis are split except for Cinci and Columbus where no wards are split. McCain wins all 10 of the CDs with at least 50% of the vote.

Are you sure you don't want your new states to support a federal redistricting commission?



CD-1: O 45.0%, M 53.9%; R+8
CD-2: O 45.7%, M 53.2%; R+7
CD-3: O 45.2%, M 53.3%; R+8
CD-4: O 43.3%, M 54.9%; R+10
CD-5: O 47.5%, M 51.1%; R+6
CD-6: O 43.9%, M 53.9%; R+9
CD-7: O 46.1%, M 51.6%; R+7
CD-8: O 47.8%, M 50.6%; R+5
CD-9: O 48.2%, M 50.3%; R+5
CD-10: O 47.4%, M 50.8%; R+5