2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Louisiana

[Stuart98]

Proportionally partisan Louisiana (which will never happen, obviously)

President 2016:

LA1: West Florida


LA02: New Orleans


LA03: Acadiana


LA04: Black belt areas


LA05: North/Central Louisiana


LA06: Baton Rouge, River Parishes, northern Acadiana

[Stuart98]

Proportionally partisan Louisiana (which will never happen, obviously)

LA04: Black belt areas

That LA-04 is illegal because it isn't reasonably compact.

Is that definite? I know the '92 Shreveport to Baton Rouge to Lafeyette district was struck down, but that district was... vastly less compact than this one.

[Stuart98]

There's no compact way to get the New Orleans seat to 50%, but you don't need to; even if it were down to 35% black it'd probably still reliably elect the black candidate of choice.

For the Baton Rouge, as long as it has most of BR plus the black parts of Alexandria, Lafayette, and Monroe, it should easily be majority black; you don't need to make it less compact by sending it into St. Helena or Tangipahoa, that just pushes it up to 55% black.

[Stuart98]

I think Mike Johnson is the logical Republican to axe if they above all else want to save Letlow, but I drew a map that draws out Clay Higgins just to see if it could be done.



DRA Link.

[Stuart98]

In light of the disastrous rural black turnout on Saturday I think Shreveport-Baton Rouge is definitely better than Monroe-Lafayette-Baton Rouge.

[Stuart98]

https://twitter.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1715082394691059961
Wait, so basically district court schedules hearing -> circuit court cancels hearing -> supreme court declines to cancel cancellation -> presumably district court schedules another hearing? What's to prevent this from repeating ad infinitum until Purcell becomes relevant?

[Stuart98]

In light of the disastrous rural black turnout on Saturday I think Shreveport-Baton Rouge is definitely better than Monroe-Lafayette-Baton Rouge.

Mike Johnson's election as house speaker likely rules a map like this out; even in a map handed down by the court I don't see them being willing to take the heat for drawing out the speaker of the house.

[Stuart98]

Mike Johnson's election as house speaker likely rules a map like this out; even in a map handed down by the court I don't see them being willing to take the heat for drawing out the speaker of the house.

I assume Letlow would just step aside for him? Though yeah, they probably don't do this.

Maybe, but the 5th here is about two thirds her territory and only a third Johnson's.

[Stuart98]

My guess is they either draw a "compact" Baton-Rouge based seat that voted for Trump due to the hyper-R white suburbs, or a 45% black seat that selectively on takes in hyper-R rurals so it's functionally an R seat.

I think there's good reason for them not to do this because the most efficient way to draw a compact perfoming black seat is to draw out Mike Johnson—and avoiding the chance of the court doing that is something they'd like to do. Not hard to draw maps that get rid of any of the non-Scalise Rs.

[Stuart98]

I truly Wonder which LA republican they will throw under the bus.

Theoretically anyone other than Scalise could get the axe, if they care about compactness though it's gotta be Johnson (lol) or Letlow though.

[Stuart98]

Hmm, I wonder how county parish split happy the court's going to be. If they're trying to draw two performing black districts with minimal parish splits either the Baton Rouge one is going to be extremely ugly or its performance is going to be tenuous.

[Stuart98]

The type of low parish split map I could see a court going for:


2 is Biden +35.5, 48.5% black, 46.4% BVAP. 4 is Biden +17.6, 56.1% black, 53.3% BVAP.

[Stuart98]

I like the north-south divide more on paper, but IIRC road contiguity is pretty questionable unless you put in the west side Jefferson parish areas.

Yeah, I always put St. Bernard and Plaquemines (as well as Jean Lafitte in Jefferson Parish) in the NOLA seat just because if you're trying to maintain road contiguity there's basically no way around it. In fact even if you're only doing ferry contiguity, a lot of these river towns are so isolated that the only way to get from one to another is to go through NOLA/Jefferson.

[Stuart98]

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1741094791595667671?t=2x9fsbXycqsl7nvN3...

[Stuart98]

Hmm, Lake Charles is actually a little blacker than Lafayette, I think it's worth the small red counties you have to pick up to access it. This is now my preferred configuration for a Gravesdigger.




I think Higgins would probably be okay with this, he actually does pretty poorly in the Lake Charles part of his seat. Scalise might not be happy though, he'd be favored in his new seat but it's got a bit over a third of Graves' old one in it.

[Stuart98]

I'd be surprised if any map gets through the courts that isn't the L-shape VRA district mentioned many times before (and on the previous page).

As long as the new majority black district is reliably democratic, the courts will be fine with it. It comes down to which R legislative Republicans are okay throwing under the bus (if they're willing to do that rather than have the court decide).

[Stuart98]

The LA-6 on the Womack map is Biden+19.3%.   That's gotta be at least close to the most Democratic congressional district that can be drawn in Louisiana that doesn't include New Orleans and is an at least somewhat sane map

https://twitter.com/Stuart98_/status/1747406344465133980?t=joaShghO4B99D8zrL9W_m...
Biden +23.3

[Stuart98]

This map may be palatable to all parties; eliminates Graves, conforms to traditional redistricting principles (compactness and low parish splits) better than the current map and probably most alternatives, and though the BVAP in the black districts is lower than in other maps (43.4% for 2, 47.6% for 6) both should still reliably elect the black candidate of choice.

[Stuart98]

That actually eliminates Scalise, not Graves.  Check where they live. It's what I mean by giving a special master power in racial gerrymandering tends to be a throw of the dice political actors prefer to avoid.

But it is another example of how Scalise deciding to retire at the last minute,  given his health issues and the the House chaos that has pushed others out, would have made both the initial and new situation much simpler.




Also, as a sign of just how give and take things are in LA, Landry tonight signed the court map into law, finally concluding a saga that began a decade ago.

Scalise would still run in the 1st and probably win it, though his residence being where it is is annoying.

[Stuart98]

https://twitter.com/mcpli/status/1786577590301385123?t=-mZZ101vFHO4N-sXhYknqQ&am...
On the topic of hypothetical master maps not doing what Graves wants...

https://twitter.com/Stuart98_/status/1786808058435473791

After that modification I devised an even better map that would be attractive to courts due to only splitting 7 parishes while having both the black districts be more likely to perform (48% BVAP/Biden +15.1 6th, 44.6% BVAP/Biden +34.5 2nd) and being, unlike every single Louisiana map in recent history, road contiguous. It would also cause absolute chaos for all five House Republicans, every single one would be getting a radically different seat.

[Stuart98]

Fair map and compact map of Louisiana lol.

troll map

[Stuart98]

This kinda leads to an awkward position for the LAGOP.  In 2024 Graves will be forced out but then in 2026, most likely, Letlow is given a much less favorable district for the Republican Primary.

A minimal splits map could still draw out Graves instead while making things awkward for Scalise.