Official US 2010 Census Results

[Sam Spade]

Did you all really expect a release at 11:00 AM?

[Sam Spade]

Yes, Sam, you're very smart.

Not really - rather bureaucrats are rather predictable.  

[Sam Spade]

NYC area reps are not gonna be happy tomorrow.  Missouri lost a seat?  Everything else looks about as expected.  Ohio was supposed to lose 2, what's the story there?

[Sam Spade]

EV totals (when someone gets makes a pretty map).  House reps = -2, except for DC

AK 3
AL 9
AR 6
AZ 11 (+1)
CA 55
CO 9
CT 7
DC 3
DE 3
FL 29 (+2)
GA 16 (+1)
HI 4
IA 6 (-1)
ID 4
IL 20 (-1)
IN 11
KS 6
KY 8
LA 8 (-1)
MA 11 (-1)
MD 10
ME 4
MI 16 (-1)
MN 10
MO 10 (-1)
MS 6
MT 3
NC 15
ND 3
NE 5
NH 4
NJ 14 (-1)
NM 5
NV 6 (+1)
NY 29 (-2)
OH 18 (-2)
OK 7
OR 7
PA 20 (-1)
RI 4
SC 9 (+1)
SD 3
TN 11
TX 38 (+4)
UT 6 (+1)
VA 13
VT 3
WA 12 (+1)
WI 10
WV 5
WY 3

[Sam Spade]

http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-pop-text.php

[Sam Spade]

http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-data-text.php

[Sam Spade]

So who is the biggest loser of today's numbers?  I nominate Russ Carnahan. 

Some NYC area Dem rep is also royally f-ed today.  Which one do you think it will be?  Most likely Ackerman, Maloney or Crowley, based on previous talk.

[Sam Spade]

Non Hispanic whites went from 52.4% to 45.3% while Hispanics went from 32% to 37.6%, if these trends continue then by the next census Texas will be Hispanic plurality.

Is this going to make Republican gerrymandering harder or it won't have much of an effect overall?

Are you talking about now, or in the future?  It might actually make things easier now, but you need to see how the numbers hit.  As for the future, well, you're guess is as good as mine.  The numbers kind of speak for themselves.

[Sam Spade]

Non Hispanic whites went from 52.4% to 45.3% while Hispanics went from 32% to 37.6%, if these trends continue then by the next census Texas will be Hispanic plurality.

Is this going to make Republican gerrymandering harder or it won't have much of an effect overall?

Are you talking about now, or in the future?  It might actually make things easier now, but you need to see how the numbers hit.  As for the future, well, you're guess is as good as mine.  The numbers kind of speak for themselves.

For now of course, nobody knows what happens in ten years.

Also, not that Texas has become a minority-majority state, does that mean that the DOJ can ask that almost half of its districts be VRA?

Well, first consider that VAP (not total population) is 49.6% white, 33.6% Hispanic.  Then you've got to rebalance using actual citizen VAP, which will be even less Hispanic.  Under LULAC, it's either going to be VAP or citizen VAP (though I suspect it's citizen VAP) for permissible minority-majority CDs.

If it's citizen VAP (and probably even if it's VAP), then consider that you're going to need at least 60%-65% of baseline Hispanics (not VAP or citizen VAP) in a CD to get Hispanic minority-majority VAP or citizen VAP.  There's only so many districts I can draw that will reach that number because the Hispanic population is pretty spread out (too many 20%-30% Hispanic voting districts, especially in the 'burbs) outside of the inner city core, which will be required to maintain certain CDs - for example Gene Green's CD is tough to get that much higher than 70% - inclusion of even a trivial amount of whiter suburbs creates problems.  Also, keep in mind LULAC can be used as a sword too to prevent requiring ridiculous looking strip districts, as the Austin to border CD was no good to create a Hispanic CD.

You draw the districts under 60% Hispanic - the Supreme Court will yell at you for impermissible dilution and you'll get bad results, the Republicans will win far more often than you want them to, especially if there's no blacks or its not an inner city core or Austin, they'll almost always win.  Another structural problem with creating good Hispanic Democratic districts, which connects to this, is that too many blacks are locked up in east Texas where they're f-cked and you can't get to them.

The fact is that 3 more Hispanic CDs may well be required than 2000, but I suspect it won't be any more, unless patterns are changed from what I was seeing.  And apart from the Dallas CD, the GOP will attempt to use Doggett and Green for the other two, if need be.  I need to see what the voting districts look like and draw a few maps.  The voting districts won't be changed much except to split or combine, so it's very useful.

[Sam Spade]

muon2, in the suburban/urban areas of Houston, DFW and San Antonio, in order to draw more 50% Hispanic VAP CDs, you'll have to dilute the inner Hispanic urban core, as the suburbs are filled with far too many 10%-30% Hispanic VTD.  Even then, I'll be lucky to get 2, maybe 3 more CDs.  And no one's gonna like that, as you'll marginalize the present Dem CDs and the new ones.

[Sam Spade]

muon2, in the suburban/urban areas of Houston, DFW and San Antonio, in order to draw more 50% Hispanic VAP CDs, you'll have to dilute the inner Hispanic urban core, as the suburbs are filled with far too many 10%-30% Hispanic VTD.  Even then, I'll be lucky to get 2, maybe 3 more CDs.  And no one's gonna like that, as you'll marginalize the present Dem CDs and the new ones.

Sam, I think that the best plan is first to look at how districts perform at electing candidates of choice, probably by regression analysis of voting patterns. However, once suitably performing districts are drawn then, if there is not a roughly proportional number of districts for the minority, additional majority minority districts would be drawn where possible. That would eliminate the dilution problem in the urban core, yet still provide some level of VRA protection for additional population so that the remainder is not easily cracked.

And I'm just telling you that you're going to end up coming to my conclusion.  You almost don't need regression analysis when you know most of these areas personally.    But let me extrapolate.

By my maths, by VAP numbers, it says that we should aim for 12/36 Hispanic majority-minority (50%) CDs under the VRA (33.6% VAP/36 CDs).  Now, the CDs in El Paso and along the border/South Texas are just going to have more than 50% VAP by their nature, and, furthermore, you're going to require more like 55% VAP (and maybe more) to ensure in these areas that they don't vote the "wrong way" all the time (they still may anyway, if present trends continue, which is, of course, a giant if), so there's going to be some slippage based on this factor alone which is probably worth at least one CD, maybe two.

Meanwhile, in the cities I mentioned, as I'm sure you realize - in Houston, it's going to be hard enough to draw two majority-minority Hispanic CDs.  But maybe the DOJ forces it on them - Al Green won't be happy, but that's his problem.  I don't really see how you do more, because all of the rest of the big Hispanic numbers (i.e. over 40%) are locked within blacks, or impossible to get without diluting blacks (I know the f-ing geography too well) or are, surprise, surprise, voting Republican, less than the other areas, but enough to cause dilution problems.

In DFW, one Hispanic district will be drawn, and can be, but I don't see how you do another.  Just look and see how many 20%-30% Hispanic VTDs there are in the DFW area and how impossible they are to unlock without screwing up other places.

In Austin, no one's ever figured out how to unlock the Hispanics, and there's really only one answer - combine them with the other half of San Antonio Hispanics, but I already proposed that as something that may well be done.  The liberal whites will get screwed then, but they already are.  I would try to combine the other half of San Antonio Hispanics with somewhere, but I then just get another marginal Hispanic majority CD.  Ugh.

So that leaves us with 9 majority-minority CDs, one lost because of normal population inequalities and the Hispanic undervote, and at least two others lost because of the damn spread out nature of the Texas Hispanic population (do I need to mention how many Hispanics are lost in west Texas - they don't really vote the right way, so no one cares that much - and I tried unlocking them but Lewis told me it was illegal...  ).  

Maybe you can figure out a way to create an Austin Hispanic majority-minority CD without attaching it to San Antonio - that's about the only other way I can think of to get another minority-majority CD, but the surrounding areas are simply not that favorable to the task - I'll reexamine Williamson and Hays when the new numbers come out.

[Sam Spade]

I think we aren't so far apart. I have no doubt that reaching 12 Hispanic CDs in TX is nigh impossible. That's the target, however, and one should make a good effort to reach that without diluting other districts so much that they cease to be opportunities.

Unfortunately, the truth is that reaching 11 CDs is nigh impossible too because of the spread out nature of things.  Certainly if its CVAP, but almost certainly VAP. 

Which leaves us the question of whether 10 is possible - it's only possible if you can draw an Austin-centered Hispanic district while avoiding San Antonio, the new numbers will tell us on that front.  Otherwise, you have to draw the Austin-San Antonio district to get enough Hispanics by reaching into the barrio (which means you have to go through non-Hispanic areas) and you're not going to get 10 CDs (the border has not grown fast enough, Corpus Christi lost population!, as I'm sure the south side barrio in Bexar did too).  And I'm sure certain people will insist that the present situation should stay intact, as there should be just an Austin-centered district based on some other logic.

On Houston, the Hispanic district will be drawn if it makes sense (and the numbers are there - I think they will be).  But expect the blacks to complain to high heaven - knowing the Texas GOP, I would expect them to do things for the Hispanics, but who knows.  As I said before, it really doesn't make that much difference to the Republicans, vote-wise.

Lastly, I can tell you that the Hispanics outside the Houston, DFW and Austin metros are going to demand 50% CVAP - otherwise it's too easy to design districts that will vote Republican.