Texas is getting 4 seats in reapportionment

[jimrtex]

Only two white Dems I know of.  Not much of a target. 

The population growth in Texas translates to CDs in these areas:

1) SE Houston suburbs
2) DFW suburbs (north, I believe)
3) Suburbs in-between Austin and San Antonio
4) Rio Grande Valley

With 3 seats earlier, the map was a little tougher to draw for Republicans, but now I would expect a 3-1 GOP split on the new seats if they control the redistricting process.

As for the additional seats, I suspect that Republicans would (if in control):
1) Shore up the McCaul/Sessions/Smith districts by removing minorities (in the case of Sessions) or maybe redesign of the other two.
2) Use the new border CD to either increase Rodriguez/Doggett vulnerability (unknown which angle to take - if I was a Republican, I'd go after Doggett by removing Republican suburbs from Rodriguez and centering the Rodriguez CD (with the San Antonio Hispanic areas included) further South (pushing Cuellar to the west).  At least that's my guess, without looking at the map.
3) Take out Edwards again (though the only thing you can do to him is try and get him areas outside his home base).  There are questions, though, as to whether Edwards is going to be able to survive this time around - the Republicans have their first non-loon, moneyed, non-joke candidate to run against him in ages (if ever), provided he gets through the primary.

There really isn't the population along the border to draw another district, so if you try to do it, you get even worse fajita strips than in the past.  You interpret the various court decisions to show that drawing long skinny districts simply to get more Hispanics in the district is unconstitutional.  So you split off Nueces County and add in areas to the NE.  This then gives you two districts in the Lower Valley, instead of a district represented by someone in Corpus Christi.  You switch Cuellar's district to extend out to El Paso, arguing that there is more in common with Laredo and Eagle Pass and Del Rio, than San Antonio.  This basically gives you two districts in Bexar County, and you try to make it one D and one R as Lamar Smith's district shifts further north.

You make a very compact, very Democratic Austin district, and then move some less Democratic areas into Smith's district.

You split McCaul's district.  The Houston end is very Republican, and you put Brazos County in the Austin in, and take the counties SE of Austin from Dogget's district, and then go into Williamsom County.

If you go after Edwards, you do it by putting him in a district that is largely in the DFW suburbs, and create a district that takes the rural counties of his district but extend it north into east suburban Dallas so it looks like it is a rural district but isn't.

You give the Democrats a district in the DFW area, probably going from Dallas to Fort Worth and create the 4th new district North of  Dallas.

So that is 4 Republican districts, but a shift of one to the Democrats.  So +3 Republican, + 1 Democrat, with a chance to beat either Edwards or Rodriguez.

You bypass the DOJ and go directly to the federal court.

And you make Gene Green's district more Hispanic.

[jimrtex]

Based on the 1998 ACS, and assuming 36 districts:

DFW +1.48 districts
Hou + 1.04 districts
Aus-SA + 0.77
Border +0.57
Minority Inner City 0.14
West Texas 0.01

So you keep the 4 border districts, and cut off Nueces County, and shift areas from the NE into the district.

Create a district in the Houston area.
Create a district in the Collin-Denton area
And add 330 suburban voters to Edwards district.
Create another district in the Austin SA area + leftovers from Edwards district.

[jimrtex]

And you make Gene Green's district more Hispanic.

My quick look at the projected numbers with a 36-seat delegation should make this a given. I actually see two solidly Hispanic districts in Houston/Harris. One is CD-29, and it would be a fan shape heading out east from downtown between the Beaumont Hwy and Mykawa Rd out to Pasadena and South Houston. The parts of Harris east and north of that now in CDs 2, 22, and 29 would form one of the new CDs.

The west side of Houston is interesting as well. I could not form 2 Black-majority districts, but I could make 1 Black and 1 Hispanic district. CD-9 would remain Black-majority by picking up the part of CD-18 through downtown and north on the east side of US-59. The remaining part of CD-18 on the NW side could combine with the part of current CD-29 on the west side of US-59. That new CD-18 should approach 60% Hispanic.

I like it.   You have Al Green vs. Sheila Jackson Lee in CD-9, knock Gene Green out of CD-29, and put Gene Green in Barbara Jordan's district 18.

[jimrtex]

I've also been updating my projections for the whole state using 2010 estimates. Within 0.5% and minimizing county splits I get the following map.



There are 11 Hispanic-majority districts in this version, including 2 in each of the three major metro areas.

I'd shift the Dark Green district south to take San Angelo, drop the purple district down to take in Abilene, shift the yellow district west, olive district east.

I'd limit the tan district to the coastal counties, plus whatever is needed in Hidalgo, and then have the turquoise district go straight north from McAllen, with the gray district shifting eastward, then balance population by switching counties generally between Corpus Christi through Austin up to Waco.

Does Dave's redistricting app assume uniform growth within a county?

[jimrtex]

The following are based on projections from the 7/1/2008 Census Bureau county estimates projected exponentially forward to 4/1/2010 and assuming a 36-seat delegation.



Counties of color have a population equivalent to 0.100 representatives or greater, or a density such that they would have such a population if they had 1000 square miles (approximately 70 persons per square mile).  The red counties are contiguous areas entitled collectively to more than 1.5 representatives:

DFW 10.242 representatives
Houston 8.979
Central (TTC) 6.060
Lower Rio Grande 1.674

Rest of State 9.045



Counties in major metropolitan areas adjusted so that they have a population equivalent to an integer number of representatives.  Changes in Houston and the Central area are tiny (+Chambers and San Jacinto, -Waller; +Caldwell, -Bastrop).  In the DFW area, Grayson and Hood are trimmed off.  The Rio Grande Valley area has to extend northward, and by the time they get to Laredo and Corpus Christi, they only need smaller counties.

DFW: 9.994 representatives
Houston: 9.006
Central (TTC): 6.004
Lower Rio Grande 2.001

Rest of State 8.995



The rest of the state is divided between East Texas, West Texas, and the Border.  The Border area is a bit short of enough population for 2 representatives, East Texas is short about 1/4 from 4 representatives, and West Texas has an excess of about 1/3 beyond two representatives.   

So the Border area is extended northward.  The counties along I-20 in the East Texas Field area are added to East Texas and DFW is shifted westward to take up the excess in West Texas.



East Texas, West Texas, and the Border are divided into 4, 3, and 2 districts respectively.  To get closer population-wise there are some small shifts between East Texas and DFW, and an area along the Red River east of Wichita Falls is placed in the West Texas district in exchange for Erath and Hamilton counties to reduce the north-south expanse some (there are only about 100,000 people in the 22 counties directly east of the Amarillo-Lubbock district

All the single-member districts are within 1% with the largest deviations in East Texas:

Northeast: +0.10%
Deep East: -0.86%
Central: -0.81%
Coastal Bend: +0.47%
Wichita Falls-Abilene: +0.004%
Lubbock-Amarillo: +0.008%
Midland-Odessa-San Angelo: -0.06%
Border: -0.14%



Districts in metropolitan areas are allocated among counties:

Houston: 9 districts.  Harris County has population for 5.890 districts, so it is given 5 districts and the excess is split off among 4 districts based in suburban counties or the Golden Triangle area.  Harris and Liberty County together would provide almost 6 districts exactly, but then the suburban districts would have to be extended outward, effectively giving a 10th seat to the Houston area (though one would be based in the Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange-Lufkin-Nacogdoches area).   Alternatively, a 6th district based largely in Harris County could extend into Fort Bend for about 1/3 of the district.  This would replace 3 excess splits in Harris County with one each in Fort Bend and Galveston counties.

DFW: 10 districts.  Dallas has a population for about 3.5 districts, Tarrant for about 2.5, with the two together slightly above 6.  Denton is just short of 1, and Collin about 1.2.  The other counties have a population a little somewhat less than equivalent to 2 districts.

3 districts are allocated to Dallas, 2 to Tarrant and one spanning the boundary.  A small bit of Tarrant is added to Denton to top it off, which leaves an excess of 0.104 to be added to two outer suburban districts (including the 0.199 excess from Collins).  Since the outer counties don't extend around the north side of Denton, the division is along the Trinity River between Ellis and Kaufman counties, with a small augmentation to the eastern district from Dallas County, and tiny bit to the southern and western district from Tarrant County.

Central: 6 districts.  Bexar has a population in excess of 2 districts, but otherwise the districts are simply chopped off from south to north, just missing the Travis-Hays boundary, and splitting Williamson perhaps as far south as Georgetown.  The number of county splits could probably be reduced, but at the cost of adding a 7th district to the area, which like in the Houston area would come at the expense of the rest of the state.

Lower Rio Grande Valley: 2 districts.  Hidalgo has enough for slightly more than one district.  If it were given a whole district, the county would still be split, and the other district would have to wrap around to both the east and west sides of the county plus the extension to the north.  Instead, the coastal strip district is maintained, but with a substantial part of Hidalgo County (Weslaco, Donna, Elsa-Edcouch, PSJA, etc.) added to replace Nueces County in the coastal bend.  The rest of the county (McAllen, Mission, Edinburg, etc.) would form about 3/4 of the district that extends west and north.

Border: 2 districts.  El Paso has has slightly more than enough for one district, and the excess is added to the district that stretches to Laredo and suburban San Antonio.

All districts are within 0.9% of the ideal, and if the splits were done carefully, all but 3 districts would be within 0.1%, or about 700 persons.  On the other hand, making all those careful splits in the metropolitan areas would bring into question why this wasn't consistently done throughout the State, and alternatives could be drawn that split fewer counties, albeit at the expense of eliminating districts outside the major metropolitan areas.

The districts could be made exactly equal by shifting about 14,500 people in 11 splits, with the largest shift being around 4,000 people.  One possibility would be to follow the example in Arkansas, which was to create one map with no county splits, and a variation with 3 county splits, and essentially challenge someone to bring a court case that would split a few 1000 people off in 3 rural counties.

Another possibility would be to draw several different split counties and have the victim counties drawn by lot.

[jimrtex]

My quick look at the projected numbers with a 36-seat delegation should make this a given. I actually see two solidly Hispanic districts in Houston/Harris. One is CD-29, and it would be a fan shape heading out east from downtown between the Beaumont Hwy and Mykawa Rd out to Pasadena and South Houston. The parts of Harris east and north of that now in CDs 2, 22, and 29 would form one of the new CDs.

The west side of Houston is interesting as well. I could not form 2 Black-majority districts, but I could make 1 Black and 1 Hispanic district. CD-9 would remain Black-majority by picking up the part of CD-18 through downtown and north on the east side of US-59. The remaining part of CD-18 on the NW side could combine with the part of current CD-29 on the west side of US-59. That new CD-18 should approach 60% Hispanic.

According to the 2008 ACS, both CD 9 and 18 are now plurality Hispanic:

CD 9: 40% Hispanic, 36% Black, 13% Anglo, 9% Asian, 2% other.
CD 18: 41% Hispanic, 38% Black, 16% Anglo, 4% other.
CD 29: 74% Hispanic, 15% Anglo, 9% Black, 2% other.

None of the three really don't have much of an excess population, even for 36 districts, so you would have to do some careful re-arrangement to get CD 18 an effective Hispanic majority, pulling in a lot of separate areas.

[jimrtex]

Map of Texas congressional districts, showing deviation from ideal - based on 35 districts

Based on region:

DFW: +759 (9 districts)
Houston: +570 (8-1/2 district, CD-10 deviation split between Houston and Central)
Central: +547 (4-1/2 district)
South Texas/Border: +272 (6 districts)
East: +1 (1)
West: -67 (3 districts)

Texas redistricting