US House Redistricting: Louisiana

[muon2]

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.

[muon2]

It would be hard to argue I suspect to argue that your LA-02 Muon2 ties together communities of interest. I would think the DOJ would be embarrassed to push for such a thing. But that does not mean that they won't. But I suspect SCOTUS will blow the DOJ away on this one if it goes there.

The old idea of LA-2 entirely within the SE corner clearly can't happen anymore. Most other maps posted link NOLA to either Baton Rouge or perhaps to Lafayette. I could argue that this version of LA-2 would keep it entirely in the traditional Cajun parishes near NOLA, and is no worse than the long river link up to Baton Rouge.

[muon2]

You're playing with a lot of fire there, in that this map creates a decent possibility of a 6-0 GOP LA delegation (especially if Obama is reelected), since come 2012, we go back to the old system of jungle primary night on election day and runoff afterwards.

So, how does the court handle a jungle primary with the requirement that the minority has the opportunity to elect a candidate of choice? The court has removed the threat of challenges for maps that provide rough proportionality for such opportunities, the lack of an available district that has a majority of the VAP for a single minority, or the lack of different voting behavior between the minority and the white majority. The court has held that a district need not guarantee the specific minority success - note that Cao won in LA-2. If a minority thwarts itself in an open primary by running multiple candidates, isn't that still an opportunity even if missed?

[muon2]

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.

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.

[muon2]

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.

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.

If you were to shift Plaquemines and St.Bernard, New Orleans Easr, French Quarter, and Garden District to CD-3, could you push CD-3 out of Baton Rouge?  You can come in along the river from Chalmette.

Or go ahead and take Jefferson Parish by using Lake Pontchartrain.

I tried a number of combinations to get CD-3 out of Baton Rouge. I did look at moving CD-3 up to US 61 and picking up the French Quarter, etc. as you suggest. However, it wasn't enough population to push CD-1 all the way across to the Mississippi. I hadn't considered leaping across the lake to connect CD-2, since the maps I saw connected across only at the Causeway.

[muon2]

Also, the Louisiana legislative Black Caucus has hired a consultant to draw a map with two majority-black districts.

Instead of hiring a consultant, they should just have talked to muon2.

And I could give a cleaner looking map with 2 majority-black districts if I had data at the block level.

[muon2]

My suspicion is the DOJ didn't want to press the boundaries of the VRA for fear that the whole thing could get thrown out. Of course, that may end up happening anyways.

I think that section 5 of the VRA is the part they were most concerned with overturning. If that were eliminated DOJ would lose its special position to preclear changes in affected jurisdictions.