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

[muon2]

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..?

The best way to make TX-23 performing is to remove it from Bexar and give it Wood (Laredo).
New TX-23: SSRV 68.8%, '08 Obama 57.0%.

That pushes TX-28, -15, and -34 towards the Gulf. TX-15 and -34 would split Nueces and TX-15 would have to take in more of TX-11 north of Nueces.
New TX-28: SSRV 67.0%, '08 Obama 56.4%.
New TX-15: SSRV 60.5%, '08 Obama 53.1%.
New TX-34: SSRV 63.5%, '08 Obama 56.4%.

Using 2010 data, I can't get two SSRV majority CDs in Bexar, but there might be two that perform.
New TX-20: SSRV 53.4%, '08 Obama 58.8%.
New TX-35: SSRV 46.1%, '08 Obama 58.8%.

Here's what those districts would look like:

[muon2]

I drew up some maps that left two CDs in Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Zapata, then tried to construct the best whole county SSRV district that contained all of Nueces. The CD has the following counties: Willacy, Kenedy, Kleberg, Jim Wells, Nueces, San Patricio, Aransas, Calhoun, Refugio, Bee, Goliad, Victoria, and DeWitt. From DRA is is 53.2% HVAP, 47.1% SSRV, and went 55.6% for McCain. Swapping Karnes and Wilson for Willacy, Kenedy, and Kleberg moves it to 50.3% HVAP, 44.2% SSRV and 57.5% McCain.

Nueces has voted Pub for the last three presidential elections as have all the counties north of it in the strips on my map. It is impossible to create a compact Latino opportunity district with Nueces without including either population from the Rio Grande counties or San Antonio. So if the court has found that Nueces has a section 2 claim, it can only be reasonably satisfied by linking it with counties in the Rio Grande valley.

[muon2]

I drew up some maps that left two CDs in Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Zapata, then tried to construct the best whole county SSRV district that contained all of Nueces. The CD has the following counties: Willacy, Kenedy, Kleberg, Jim Wells, Nueces, San Patricio, Aransas, Calhoun, Refugio, Bee, Goliad, Victoria, and DeWitt. From DRA is is 53.2% HVAP, 47.1% SSRV, and went 55.6% for McCain. Swapping Karnes and Wilson for Willacy, Kenedy, and Kleberg moves it to 50.3% HVAP, 44.2% SSRV and 57.5% McCain.

Nueces has voted Pub for the last three presidential elections as have all the counties north of it in the strips on my map. It is impossible to create a compact Latino opportunity district with Nueces without including either population from the Rio Grande counties or San Antonio. So if the court has found that Nueces has a section 2 claim, it can only be reasonably satisfied by linking it with counties in the Rio Grande valley.

Where did the two Lower Rio Grande districts go to?

BTW, conventional treatment would place Cameron, Hidalgo, Willacy, and Starr in the Lower Rio Grande. The counties to the north are oriented towards Corpus Christi. Hebronville and Falfurrias are in the far northern ends of Jim Hogg and Brooks counties. They were created from Hidalgo and Starr counties because the population was so remote. And even now, Hidalgo has an awful lot of empty space in the northern part of the county.

While it would be better to include Kleberg and Jim Wells with Nueces, this can not be done, because the LRGV doesn't have enough population for two districts, let alone three.

You didn't answer my question about the SSVR for the two parts of Nueces County in your map.

It appears that you placed an area with a higher Anglo population with Cameron, and an area with higher Hispanic population with Hidalgo in  order to keep the Hispanic percentage up as you headed further north.

I didn't save that file, so I'd have to reconstruct it. I did split Corpus in a way to keep both CDs with SSRV majorities and have them both vote Dem, though I'm not sure if that would hold in 2016. That requires analysis beyond DRA, which I haven't had time for yet. Edit - I reconstructed it and the red part of Nueces is 53.4% SSRV and the Yellow part is 46.6% SSRV, These can be shifted to better balance the two CDs.

I gave numbers for two versions of a Corpus district since keeping Willacy with Cameron made it worse for a Latino opportunity district. In both versions the McAllen CD connected to Atascosa. The counties south and west of Nueces (minus Webb) are 21K short of two districts. Remove Jim Wells and add McMullen, Live Oak, Atascosa, and LaSalle and the population is just 2K over 2 CDs.

[muon2]

Those three compact CDs would seem to suffer from the same section 2 violation cited in the decision.

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[muon2]

Those three compact CDs would seem to suffer from the same section 2 violation cited in the decision.

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Your proposed districts are not compact.

The opinion discusses the attempt by the plaintiffs to demonstrate that 8 compact majority HCVAP districts could be drawn in South/West Texas and found that they had not because they had problems similar to yours.

How about this:

Nueces, San Patricio, Aransas, Jim Wells, Kleberg, Kenedy, Willacy, and Cameron (come down Padre Island and then jump into Brownsville)

Remainder of Cameron and most of Hidalgo.

Remainder of Hidalgo, Starr, Zapata, Jim Hogg, Brooks, Duval, Webb, McMullen, Dimmit, LaSalle, Live Oak, and Frio.

Leave TX-23 in its current format coming into Bexar County.

Leave TX-20 in Bexar County.

Then Bexar, Wilson, Karnes, Bee, Goliad, DeWitt, Victoria, Calhoun, Refugio.

That hinges on whether the current TX-23 can withstand a challenge. I'm skeptical.

[muon2]

Is this court to achieve its mandate in effect requiring that performing minority districts be created that join non contiguous minority zones that are far away from each other?  I assume the problem with TX-23 is that an adjacent Hispanic CD in Bexar is deemed excessively packed. Is that correct?

The way I read it, they support such districts if they are the only way to meet section 2 and are not a Shaw-type racial gerrymander. They seem to ask 1) are there minority populations that have section 2 rights? 2) can those rights be satisfied without taking away section 2 rights from another population? and 3) can a district be drawn using generally accepted principles such that the minority has the opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice? For this court linking non-contiguous minority zones is bad if race was the predominant factor in drawing the district and section 2 could have been satisfied without the linkage, otherwise it's ok.

[muon2]

Those three compact CDs would seem to suffer from the same section 2 violation cited in the decision.

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Your proposed districts are not compact.

The opinion discusses the attempt by the plaintiffs to demonstrate that 8 compact majority HCVAP districts could be drawn in South/West Texas and found that they had not because they had problems similar to yours.

How about this:

Nueces, San Patricio, Aransas, Jim Wells, Kleberg, Kenedy, Willacy, and Cameron (come down Padre Island and then jump into Brownsville)

Remainder of Cameron and most of Hidalgo.

Remainder of Hidalgo, Starr, Zapata, Jim Hogg, Brooks, Duval, Webb, McMullen, Dimmit, LaSalle, Live Oak, and Frio.

Leave TX-23 in its current format coming into Bexar County.

Leave TX-20 in Bexar County.

Then Bexar, Wilson, Karnes, Bee, Goliad, DeWitt, Victoria, Calhoun, Refugio.

That hinges on whether the current TX-23 can withstand a challenge. I'm skeptical.

The current TX-23 has a 60% HCVAP.

But the court said that an HCVAP-majority doesn't matter if the district doesn't provide an opportunity to elect. The C185 version was 58.5% HCVAP.

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[muon2]

I only see 6 Latino opportunity districts. The court said there should be 7, and TX said they had 7 already, so on that point there was no disagreement. The disagreement was how to get to 7. The court said use Nueces, not Travis.

One problem for the Pubs is that the rural Latinos that vote Pub are not sufficient in number to negate Gingles, but sufficient to swing the election against the majority of the Latinos. On the flip side the court found that the Anglos in Travis did not exhibit bloc voting against the Latinos' preferred candidate, so Gingles is not met there and the Latinos in Travis don't qualify for section 2 protection.

[muon2]

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.

You may be pleased to know that the court rejected plaintiff's plan and argument for 8 Latino CDs in S/W TX. Kennedy thought one could have fajita strips as long as they weren't extreme, and didn't substitute for a reasonable alternative. This court seemed to follow that thinking that CD 35 was impermissible when Nueces could be used to make a more compact alternative and served a deserving population.

[muon2]

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.

You may be pleased to know that the court rejected plaintiff's plan and argument for 8 Latino CDs in S/W TX. Kennedy thought one could have fajita strips as long as they weren't extreme, and didn't substitute for a reasonable alternative. This court seemed to follow that thinking that CD 35 was impermissible when Nueces could be used to make a more compact alternative and served a deserving population.

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.

So in which parts would judge Torie concur, and in which dissent?

[muon2]

We leave TX-16, TX-20, and TX-23 alone.

For the Corpus Christi district: Nueces, Aransas, San Patricio, Kleberg, Jim Wells, Duval, Jim Hogg, Brooks, Kenedy, and Willacy + ?? (the addition of Duval, Jim Hogg, and Brooks keeps the Hispanic population up and reduces the population needed from  Cameron OR gives us the option to go into Hidalgo, which has population further north. And Jim Hogg, Brooks, and Duval are more oriented towards Corpus Christi than the Rio Grande Valley.

All of Cameron + some of Hidalgo.

Remainder of Hidalgo, Starr, Zapata, Webb, La Salle (part, no change), McMullen, and Atascosa.

Bexar part of TX-35 and TX-28 plus Wilson, Guadeloupe, Karnes, Live Oak, and Bee.

Transfer the TX-35 parts of Comal and Hays to TX-21 and balance by moving part of TX-21 Travis to TX-35.

Move Wharton, Matagorda, Jackson, Calhoun, Victoria, Refugio, Goliad, Lavaca, Dewitt, and Gonzales to TX-10, and the Travis part of TX-10 to Travis.

use Caldwell and Bastrop for population balance.

TX-10, 15, 21, 27, 28, 34, and 35 are the only districts changes and none can currently be considered compact.

I split Hidalgo such that Edinburg, Pharr, and McAllen were in different districts. The Corpus Christi district would be 65.2% HVAP, 57.6% SSRV, and 52.3% Obama '08. That last number is cutting it pretty close. One would have to check other statewide elections to see if it provides a suitable opportunity.

Will there be enough Latino population in your new 35 to provide an opportunity?