District Court, Splitting 2-1, Finds Texas Congressional Districts Violate VRA

[Nyvin]

Honestly the Texas GOP should probably just make a Travis County vote sink for the Dems and be done with it...it's pretty much inevitable anyway. 

I strongly expect this will be the end result of this in some fashion or another,  with the other three seats staying Dem.

[Nyvin]

The VRA is nothing more than a money making machine for trial lawyers. If Paul Ryan had any sense, he should stand for its immediate repeal.

....And that whole pesky part about ensuring minorities get representation in government and all...

[Nyvin]

Most of Nueces would end up in TX-34, which is where it should be, since it has previously been in a district with Brownsville. Farenthold would still have a seat, so that isn't a change. TX-35 is the issue, because if it condenses into Travis County, that means that another Bexar County anchored seat has to be drawn. That is where all the questions about change come in.

Why should Corpus Christ be in the same district as Brownsville?

The name of the city is Corpus Christi, not Corpus Christ. It would make for a compact district that complies with the VRA fairly easily.

It is 160 miles between Brownsville and Corpus including a stretch of about 100 miles of highway where there are no services such as food or gasoline.

It is absurd to claim the district is compact when more compact districts can easily be drawn.

It's almost equally as far to Victoria....what's your point?   Texas has lots of empty space.

You can't draw a "compact" district with just Nueces and San Patricio counties, there aren't enough people.

[Nyvin]

So after reading the court order, it seems they decided:

1. There needs to be 7 HCVAP majority districts in south/west Texas

2.  They don't consider the current TX-23 to be a performing district for hispanics and it needs to be made performing

3.  Nueces county must be put into a HCVAP majority district.  

4.  CD-35 must be removed from Travis county....? To make it more compact?  (Not sure on this, I guess they're saying a second HCVAP district in Bexar county alone?).   TX-21 would be the obvious target to fill in what's left empty in Travis.   

So those changes would pretty much force 2 districts entirely within Bexar, 1 district most likely entirely within Travis, TX-23 be made more hispanic (and dem),  and TX-34 would take in Nueces, resulting in big changes to TX-27.

Did I get this right..?

[Nyvin]

So after reading the court order, it seems they decided:

1. There needs to be 7 HCVAP majority districts in south/west Texas

2.  They don't consider the current TX-23 to be a performing district for hispanics and it needs to be made performing

3.  Nueces county must be put into a HCVAP majority district.  

4.  CD-35 must be removed from Travis county....? To make it more compact?  (Not sure on this, I guess they're saying a second HCVAP district in Bexar county alone?).   TX-21 would be the obvious target to fill in what's left empty in Travis.   

So those changes would pretty much force 2 districts entirely within Bexar, 1 district most likely entirely within Travis, TX-23 be made more hispanic (and dem),  and TX-34 would take in Nueces, resulting in big changes to TX-27.

Did I get this right..?

No. The court was evaluating the districts drawn in 2011. In 2012, the court drew remedial districts, which were used in 2012. The Texas legislature adopted the districts in 2013, and they have been used in 2014 and 2016.

The court ruled that districts that have never been used are unconstitutional.

This doesn't make a lot of sense though, the current map still has the violations they talk about in the ruling (except maybe the TX-23 one, that's debatable).   How can they rule the other map is unconstitutional and the current one isn't, when they both do the same thing?

[Nyvin]

It would be helpful for me to read the case, but I don't see the legal rationale for 7 Hispanic CD's under any reasonable good redistricting principles. In fact, it may be hard to draw it without gross gerrymandering. It is not as if contiguous Hispanic populations are chopped up. It seems that some want the kind of CD that Kennedy disliked, that joins Rio Grande Hispanics with some Democrats far away in a gerrymander (maybe white Democrats), just so long as it squeezes out another Hispanic CD, as opposed to replacing a more contiguous Hispanic CD. This all needs to go back to SCOTUS. Things seem to be getting really way off track here. This should not stand. In fact, it sucks.

3 fajita strip districts, two in Bexar, El Paso, and TX-23....what's so hard about that?   It's pretty easy to draw the districts, it's making it through the Texas GOP that's the problem.

BTW- Hispanics, even after these changes, are still horribly under-represented in Texas.

[Nyvin]

Replacing one poor CD for another, hosting the Pubs on their own petard. It's one thing to strike down the plot to neutalize white Dems in Travis. It's another to require something else, that I don't think comports with prior SCOTUS precedent, and is just not justified on public policy grounds, and certainly if the alternative comports with good redistricting principles, and is obviously not out to screw minorities. The court did mention the impermissible Pub intent, that it found. Minorities should not be used as pawns, splitting them up, to neutralize white Dems.

No.  Best I can tell, the courts would rather minorities be used as pawns to neutralize white and Hispanic Republicans.  That's all I can ever make heads or tails out of these cases, and is the realpolitic of recent VRA decisions.

Packing minorities into a compact district is bad because nonsensical reasons - even when geographical compactness should dictate a compact district, say, in the Rio Grande Valley or within municipal boundaries.  Not packing enough minorities into a district is bad when not enough Hispanics bother to vote the way the courts want them to - i.e. for Democrats.  

VRA jurisprudence is a mess.

"Neutralizing" white and hispanic Republicans IS the main point the courts are trying to accomplish.    The Republicans hold 25 of 36 seats with 57% of the vote, that's about a 13% discrepancy.   The vast majority of those being voted in by Anglo majorities (Probably all but two I think...?).    Minorities in Texas are under-represented in Texas,  no matter how you slice it, and the maps are almost entirely to blame.