US House Redistricting: Texas

[Sam Spade]

For some reason, it told me that it was contiguous, but I changed it in later versions when I saw it wasn't.  It's not a big deal - you can change things around Harlingen an the numbers are not particularly different.

In the federal district court trial on the 2003 district boundaries, the issue of the district boundaries in the Harlingen area were raised.  The plaintiffs claimed that these really weird boundaries (between 27 and 15) were drawn to cut out 15 Hispanic voters.  The State responded that they had simply followed the city limits, including fence lines of Harlingen.  For that reason, Torie's boundaries might be suspect since they ignored conventional redistricting practice of respecting city boundaries, especially if it appeared that the intent was done to deny Hispanics an equal opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice.

What are exactly the "fence lines of Harlingen"?  The numbers don't make that big of a difference here in my book, so changes could be made to "respect that".

[jimrtex]

[What are exactly the "fence lines of Harlingen"?  The numbers don't make that big of a difference here in my book, so changes could be made to "respect that".

Go to  http://www.tlc.state.tx.us/redist/redist.htm  And bring up District Viewer (the cursor target is off a bit, so point slightly above).

Select the congressional plan and select on cities, then turn off the congressional map checkbox.  Zoom in on Harlingen (sorry, no box zoom).  And if you notice carefully you see a long yellow spear almost reaching the river.  Turn the congressional map back on.

Texas has (had) pretty liberal annexation laws, where a city can basically say to an area, "you're now in the city".  You might remember when Houston under Bob Lanier annexed Kingwood.  And when NASA was being built at Clear Lake, there were like 13 cities trying to annex it.

So to try to provide some structure, cities were granted Extra Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) outside their city limits.  The distance outside your city limits that an ETJ extends, depends on the population of the city.  For Houston, it extends 5 miles.  Another city can not annex within an ETJ of another city, and new city may not be formed within the ETJ (without permission).

Cities used to be able to annex very narrow strips of land, less than 100 feet wide.  You could annex a long strip, and extend your ETJ, and then repeat.  Houston has some areas like that which extend almost to Waller and Tomball, and there is another that goes into the far NW corner of Harris County.  Those that reach out to Waller and Tomball have arms that spread out as if trying to surround those areas.  Those are fence lines, which are being used to fence out other cities.

Strip annexations like that are now illegal, but cities can still keep the existing ones, and annex off them.  Cities are now also required to provide services to an area when they annex it, within a few years.  So most cities only annex retail, offices, and industrial areas, since they bring in more revenue than they cost in services.  Residential areas are expensive - except in cases like Kingwood which already had city-level streets and utilities.  Something like 97% of retail establishments in Harris County are inside city limits, so that the cities can collect the sales taxes.

Back to Harlingen.  The boundary between CD 15 and 27 used to be on the Hidalgo-Cameron County line.  But let's say you want to draw a district between say McAllen and ummmm. how about Austin?  So you need a little bit more of Hidalgo County, and CD 15 needs some more population.  So you shift Harlingen into CD 15 and add some more of San Patricio to CD 27.

And just to keep Justice Kennedy and his never-ending quest for the judiciable political gerrymander standard, you respect the city limits of Harlingen.  When the district court had its trial, the plaintiffs tried to show that the irregularity in district boundaries was racially based, and the State could show that they were following city boundaries.

[Bacon King]

Interesting, read, jim. Those annexation laws are actually pretty strict compared to Georgia, though- cities can even annex roadways without annexing the property on either side. The western boundary of my hometown of Auburn is just a patchwork of territory randomly in and outside of city limits, with the city limits doing crazy things like travelling along a road, taking in a cow pasture to reach another road, then extending further along that one. There's an intersection where the town is to the southeast, but the only city territory is the northwest corner. On one smaller road out of town you pass five "Auburn City Limits" signs in about three miles.

And then there's Braselton, a small town along the interstate that extended it's city limits two miles down the highway to get tax revenue from the gas station at the next exit down, and (more importantly) have a longer stretch of interstate to catch speeders.

I'll end my off-topic tangent here, but such crazy things like you describe do happen pretty often.   

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Wow Auburn has an ugly shape. It looks like a hideously gerrymandered congressional district. So Georgia is full of a sprawly mess and lets it get shaped ugly too.

[Bacon King]

Wow Auburn has an ugly shape.

Indeed. Here's a map for those keeping score at home:



Also, just as an addendum to my earlier post, Braselton has since expanded to encompass the area between the two interstate exits in a normal fashion. Auburn is ridiculous, though.

[jimrtex]

Pikers.  Alvin is the "A" in the upper center of the map.  It has two little arms extending along Texas 6 to the east and west, and legs along Texas 35 to the south.

Its fence line (1) extends almost the full length of the Brazoria-Galveston county line, (2) almost to the Gulf of Mexico, it then (3,4) comes back north through Brazoria county to keep the Lake Jackson cities out, and then heads west to (5) where it reaches the Brazos River and Fort Bend County.  It then follows the county line, north, east, and NNE, to (6) where it meets the Pearland fence line and heads east.  It is snipped off by Iowa Colony, but starts up again until it meets the Manvel fence line and heads south, end where it meets Iowa Colony again.

I'm guessing that this fence line is about 80 miles in length.

(7) Alvin has another fence line to its north that extends along the Brazoria-Galveston line west of Friendswood, heads west along the Pearland fence line, and then turns south along the Manvel fence line.

[freepcrusher]

is there a VRA for white people? Cuz if there is I'm pretty sure this map would see lawsuits by the NAAWP.

[freepcrusher]

i had a plan that would be to protect all 32 incumbents, which I found difficult to do. I tried to protect Marchant by getting rid of everything south of I-30 and adding some wealthier areas of NE Tarrant County for a 62 percent McCain district. I protected Sessions by getting rid of Cockrell Hill and some mexican areas of Dallas and attaching it to some Dallas county portions of CD 3.

The best way to protect McCaul is to take out the most dem areas of Austin.
Under that plan the only area of Travis County left would be the Pflugerville area (not sure if he lives there). Despite it being a 58% McCain district, it is somewhat difficult to protect Pete Olsen. His district has 900,000 people, so it needed to shed a lot of precincts. I took out a lot of areas in Galveston and Harris counties out of the district, which made it look more compact. The issue for him is that those are the most republican parts of his district, and without them, it would be a 50-50 district for him.

[Sam Spade]

i had a plan that would be to protect all 32 incumbents, which I found difficult to do. I tried to protect Marchant by getting rid of everything south of I-30 and adding some wealthier areas of NE Tarrant County for a 62 percent McCain district. I protected Sessions by getting rid of Cockrell Hill and some mexican areas of Dallas and attaching it to some Dallas county portions of CD 3.

The best way to protect McCaul is to take out the most dem areas of Austin.
Under that plan the only area of Travis County left would be the Pflugerville area (not sure if he lives there). Despite it being a 58% McCain district, it is somewhat difficult to protect Pete Olsen. His district has 900,000 people, so it needed to shed a lot of precincts. I took out a lot of areas in Galveston and Harris counties out of the district, which made it look more compact. The issue for him is that those are the most republican parts of his district, and without them, it would be a 50-50 district for him.

It is rather easy to protect all incumbents not named Canseco and Farenthold, if you want to.  The creation of the Hispanic-majority CD in DFW allows you to get 60% McCain on all Dallas area CDs without the map looking too bad actually.  As for McCaul, I haven't figured out exactly where he lives in Austin, but the best way to protect him (oddly enough) is to go west, not east, which is made a heck of a lot easier now that Flores holds TX-17 (lives in Bryan-College Station).  That way, you can append Waco to some other CD, like Barton, for example and push Flores to take up McCaul rural areas.

With the strictures of the VRA, it's going to be hard to protect Doggett, if you want to protect Farenthold (as demonstrated earlier).  Otherwise, you'll probably be able to move the scale in favor of Canseco and Farenthold only a few points.  My idea of giving Canseco one of the new districts and redesigning TX-23 is also possible.  You can probably do the same thing with Farenthold, but it's more difficult to do it for both and still have enough Hispanic CDs.

[freepcrusher]

one idea i had was to make a district entirely on the excess population of other districts. I made a district that took out all the excess population from Ralph Hall, Kay Granger, Sam Johnson, and Burgess district. It took in Western Grayson county and eastern cooke county, anna, frisco, mckinney, celina, melissa, prosper in collin county; the colony, krum, little elm, hackberry, sanger in denton county; all of wise county and most of Parker county.

It is an 82 percent white district. Someone like Phil King or Ken Paxton would run here and probably wouldn't have much trouble getting elected.

[Sam Spade]

You can probably do the same thing with Farenthold, but it's more difficult to do it for both and still have enough Hispanic CDs.

In actuality, because I had not yet done this, I stand corrected. 

You can give Canseco and Farenthold 60% McCain CDs (Canseco would fear Anglo GOP challenge, of course) and redesign TX23 and TX27 to be 63/64% Hispanic CDs with 55% McCain and 52% McCain totals respectively. 

TX23 remains similar to the Odessa map Torie detailed and TX27 takes the Brownsville portion of Cameron County (pushing the Harlingen part to TX-15, which is a little counterintuitive), pushes up north, bypasses Nueces, takes in San Patricio and centers the other half of the CD around Victoria.  Farenthold's new CD goes along the coast and then moves up to take Paul and McCaul old territories.

That means two of the four open CDs will be very marginal territory, but it may actually make more sense for the GOP, as Victoria (and the surrounding areas Hispanics) are a bit more reliable GOP voters down ballot.

[Lief 🗽]

Sam, have you been following the fight between Perry and Doggett over education funding? Do you think Perry might push the legislature to cut up his seat after this?

[Sam Spade]

Sam, have you been following the fight between Perry and Doggett over education funding? Do you think Perry might push the legislature to cut up his seat after this?

Not really.

Perry might do it.  It can be done - you either make it into a Hispanic-majority seat, he may still win anyway, or you draw him out of the district, but I don't know where exactly he lives in Austin.  The Hispanic-majority seat not pretty, but it can be done.  The only issue is that it makes creating Hispanic-majority seats where GOPers can win a bit more difficult in other parts of the state.

[freepcrusher]

so who will represent the hispanic district in Dallas? I'm thinking someone like Rafael Anchia may represent him. He's fairly young and has been in the legislature for four terms. He is supposed to be an up and comer. Kind of reminds me of Raul Grijalva only less liberal.

[Sam Spade]

so who will represent the hispanic district in Dallas? I'm thinking someone like Rafael Anchia may represent him. He's fairly young and has been in the legislature for four terms. He is supposed to be an up and comer. Kind of reminds me of Raul Grijalva only less liberal.

Watch - you'll get a whitey there like Gene Green, although Gene had extremely favorable circumstances when he first ran.

[Sam Spade]

Sam, have you been following the fight between Perry and Doggett over education funding? Do you think Perry might push the legislature to cut up his seat after this?

Not really.

Perry might do it.  It can be done - you either make it into a Hispanic-majority seat, he may still win anyway, or you draw him out of the district, but I don't know where exactly he lives in Austin.  The Hispanic-majority seat not pretty, but it can be done.  The only issue is that it makes creating Hispanic-majority seats where GOPers can win a bit more difficult in other parts of the state.

So Torie sent me the exact whereabouts of Doggett, and my conclusion is that it's going to be very hard to f-ck him.  You can't draw him into a GOP district without having a really ugly looking claw, and even then you will include a lot of hard Dem territory to where it marginalizes the GOP area and will most likely be minority (which will break the justification).  Drawing the Hispanic minority-majority CD is also difficult in that you need to make sure you've got more San Antonio than Austin, which is difficult, almost impossible.

In short, it's probably not worth the effort.

[jimrtex]

Sam, have you been following the fight between Perry and Doggett over education funding? Do you think Perry might push the legislature to cut up his seat after this?

Not really.

Perry might do it.  It can be done - you either make it into a Hispanic-majority seat, he may still win anyway, or you draw him out of the district, but I don't know where exactly he lives in Austin.  The Hispanic-majority seat not pretty, but it can be done.  The only issue is that it makes creating Hispanic-majority seats where GOPers can win a bit more difficult in other parts of the state.

He can move.  After the 2003 redistricting he rented an apartment in south Austin.  During the court trial, one of the remedy plans said that he didn't live in the new district, but it didn't matter since he didn't live in his old one either, and then one of the briefs noted that he did live in the district.

[krazen1211]

My first attempt with 2010 census data:

I'll do a writeup on it later, but I just want to get the images out there.

New districts are the orange one in DFW, the green district in Waco/rural Texas, the purple one in Arlington stretching south parallel to Barton's district, and the light blue one in Port Arthur/Beaumont. New hispanic districts in DFW and Houston.














Yeah, I know the 2 DFW districts are not contiguous on Dave's app. Pretend I connected them via I-30 similar to IL-4.

This map gives up on the idea of knocking out Cuellar.

[Sam Spade]

Cd-9 and CD-18 are also not contiguous and I don't know how they could be.

I haven't started posting any maps yet because I have to get the partisan figures for the big counties into an excel file in order to properly gerrymander (like Torie does). 

[RI]

Cd-9 and CD-18 are also not contiguous and I don't know how they could be.

Probably point-continuity like in NC.

[krazen1211]

Cd-9 and CD-18 are also not contiguous and I don't know how they could be.

I haven't started posting any maps yet because I have to get the partisan figures for the big counties into an excel file in order to properly gerrymander (like Torie does). 

It's designed to be touch pointed.

[Sam Spade]

Cd-9 and CD-18 are also not contiguous and I don't know how they could be.

I haven't started posting any maps yet because I have to get the partisan figures for the big counties into an excel file in order to properly gerrymander (like Torie does). 

It's designed to be touch pointed.

Fair enough.

[jimrtex]

Cd-9 and CD-18 are also not contiguous and I don't know how they could be.

I haven't started posting any maps yet because I have to get the partisan figures for the big counties into an excel file in order to properly gerrymander (like Torie does). 

It's designed to be touch pointed.

Fair enough.

I think you could have one district use the Pierce Elevated while the other uses Main Street, or you use the tunnels.

[krazen1211]

I might add, though, that the purpose of touch pointing on that map is kind of limited. All it does is let you put all the Hispanics in CD-9 and create yourself a 'free' Hispanic majority district to make LULAC happy, and with any luck, get rid of Sheila Jackson Lee. It doesn't net the Pubbies any seats.

[Sam Spade]

I might add, though, that the purpose of touch pointing on that map is kind of limited. All it does is let you put all the Hispanics in CD-9 and create yourself a 'free' Hispanic majority district to make LULAC happy, and with any luck, get rid of Sheila Jackson Lee. It doesn't net the Pubbies any seats.

Al Green won't defeat Sheila in that CD-18, though I see how you're drawing him in, but he'll be toast.  Gene Green's residence would now be in CD-9, so CD-29 would be very open.  A lot of your proposed CD-29 is very idiosyncratic territory - you could get any type of race in control there, don't let the Hispanic numbers fool you.

You also won't like the partisan numbers on your proposed CD-7.  I also wonder on the partisan numbers of CD-9 and CD-29, they'll be Democratic enough, though.