US House Redistricting: Texas

[krazen1211]

Round 2 of Delaymanderring doesn't seem all that difficult.

1. 1 new Dem district in Dallas
2. 1 new GOP district south of DFW.
3. 1 new GOP district in the  Houston suburbs (this comes out of Lloyd Doggett's 25th)
4. 1 new swingy (although lean GOP) district in South Texas

The trick is to I think run both CD-15 and CD-28 along the border only, both 70% Obama districts. CD-27 moves a bit north and becomes ~54% McCain. CD-23 runs all the way down to Brooks County, ~54% McCain, both are at 60% hispanic.

CD-35 comes in at the Southern Half of Bexar County, is majority white, and 54% McCain.

Outside of here you have 23 60% McCain districts and the 8 heavy Dem packed districts in Houston/Dallas/Austin/San Antonio/El Paso.

[krazen1211]

Interview about Texas redistricting.


http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/01/redistricting-q-2.php

MA: I think their starting place will be to try to hold their districts. And they'll do that by keeping the minority percentage the same, but putting in high-voting Anglo-Republicans. High turnout Republicans. What they did this time is they won because you had high turnout among Anglos who vote straight-ticket Republican.

And then they will draw a new Hispanic district in Dallas County and just say that that's a new Hispanic district. Because you can draw it there and not hurt any incumbent. Then they'll draw some kind of Hispanic district, or at least I'll call it a "Hispanic district" from Austin, South. But rather than leave the rest of Travis County for Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D), they'll break up Travis County into three or four pieces.

So Doggett will face a tough race. Either they'll get rid of him by putting him a Republican district or they'll make him run in a Hispanic district. Doggett's been elected in a Hispanic district before; maybe he can do it again. But it keeps Democrats from netting up seats. So then, in effect, what they will have done is created three new Republican districts.



I don't know if I agree with that, but its an interesting point to ponder. It makes much more sense to me just to draw a circle in Travis County and move on.

I don't know where this idea that there's going to be another hispanic majority Dem district in South Texas. I see no reason at all to draw one. If there has to be an 8th hispanic majority district it should use the idea posted above and just rearrange the 3 existing Houston districts.

[krazen1211]

Interview about Texas redistricting.


http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/01/redistricting-q-2.php

MA: I think their starting place will be to try to hold their districts. And they'll do that by keeping the minority percentage the same, but putting in high-voting Anglo-Republicans. High turnout Republicans. What they did this time is they won because you had high turnout among Anglos who vote straight-ticket Republican.

And then they will draw a new Hispanic district in Dallas County and just say that that's a new Hispanic district. Because you can draw it there and not hurt any incumbent. Then they'll draw some kind of Hispanic district, or at least I'll call it a "Hispanic district" from Austin, South. But rather than leave the rest of Travis County for Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D), they'll break up Travis County into three or four pieces.

So Doggett will face a tough race. Either they'll get rid of him by putting him a Republican district or they'll make him run in a Hispanic district. Doggett's been elected in a Hispanic district before; maybe he can do it again. But it keeps Democrats from netting up seats. So then, in effect, what they will have done is created three new Republican districts.



I don't know if I agree with that, but its an interesting point to ponder. It makes much more sense to me just to draw a circle in Travis County and move on.

I don't know where this idea that there's going to be another hispanic majority Dem district in South Texas. I see no reason at all to draw one. If there has to be an 8th hispanic majority district it should use the idea posted above and just rearrange the 3 existing Houston districts.

So, in other words, they're going to follow the initial plan of my maps.  But no one will have the guts to go and draw Midland-Odessa with the border and a Webb County split.  It works - quite well, I might add. 55% McCain.

I wouldn't say nobody. Tom Delay might, if they can find a way to contract him from prison.

I still believe the cleanest solution is 26-10, Austin Pack, 3 GOP marginals (Canseco, Farenholdt, and whomever gets the new district), and 7 hispanic majority districts. LULAC will probably complain no matter what you do.

I don't see any court forcing any type of Austin to San Antonio district, which is really just a waste of Republican votes and forces you to crack the Austin liberal whites. I'm going to try to work on a map to use TX 13, 19, and 11 and utterly chop Austin into bits.

[krazen1211]

Interview about Texas redistricting.


http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/01/redistricting-q-2.php

MA: I think their starting place will be to try to hold their districts. And they'll do that by keeping the minority percentage the same, but putting in high-voting Anglo-Republicans. High turnout Republicans. What they did this time is they won because you had high turnout among Anglos who vote straight-ticket Republican.

And then they will draw a new Hispanic district in Dallas County and just say that that's a new Hispanic district. Because you can draw it there and not hurt any incumbent. Then they'll draw some kind of Hispanic district, or at least I'll call it a "Hispanic district" from Austin, South. But rather than leave the rest of Travis County for Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D), they'll break up Travis County into three or four pieces.

So Doggett will face a tough race. Either they'll get rid of him by putting him a Republican district or they'll make him run in a Hispanic district. Doggett's been elected in a Hispanic district before; maybe he can do it again. But it keeps Democrats from netting up seats. So then, in effect, what they will have done is created three new Republican districts.



I don't know if I agree with that, but its an interesting point to ponder. It makes much more sense to me just to draw a circle in Travis County and move on.

I don't know where this idea that there's going to be another hispanic majority Dem district in South Texas. I see no reason at all to draw one. If there has to be an 8th hispanic majority district it should use the idea posted above and just rearrange the 3 existing Houston districts.

So, in other words, they're going to follow the initial plan of my maps.  But no one will have the guts to go and draw Midland-Odessa with the border and a Webb County split.  It works - quite well, I might add. 55% McCain.

I wouldn't say nobody. Tom Delay might, if they can find a way to contract him from prison.

I still believe the cleanest solution is 26-10, Austin Pack, 3 GOP marginals (Canseco, Farenholdt, and whomever gets the new district), and 7 hispanic majority districts. LULAC will probably complain no matter what you do.

I don't see any court forcing any type of Austin to San Antonio district, which is really just a waste of Republican votes and forces you to crack the Austin liberal whites. I'm going to try to work on a map to use TX 13, 19, and 11 and utterly chop Austin into bits.

The Austin-San Antonio thing won't be forced either, I agree. 

But since I can chop Austin into bits in map #2 with McCain % being 57.50% in all the Austin choppers (map#2 I've designed has it being Smith, Canseco, Neugebauer and Flores!) I don't view it as being that big of a wast. 

Map 2 is the 27-9 map, right? 3 Houston, 2 Dallas, 1 El Paso, 1 San Antonio, 2 South Texas?

[krazen1211]

Actually, the problem with so many CDs is that it makes it harder for you to open up your eyes and see the best solution, which in Texas is 1) combine Cuellar and Hinojosa together - the geography works; 2) split Webb County; 3) include Midland/Odessa in a border CD.

I just tried this. Utterly, utterly brilliant, if I got it right.

I am not sure about your intention, though, is the intention for the Midland district to be Hispanic? Because I didn't see exactly how to get it there, nor do I see a reason to. I just used my CD-11 to dilute those hyperdem 80% counties.




CD-16, CD-20 - Whatever.

CD-23 - 62% Hispanic, 55% McCain

CD-28 - 59% Hispanic, 52% McCain

CD-27 - 59% Hispanic, 53% McCain

CD-33 - new Republican 57% McCain district

CD-11 - now *only* 67% McCain

CD-25 - packed in Lloyd Doggett district

You really limit the Democrats to 1 district in South Texas, and that's TX-15. From here you just rampage over the rest of the map.

[krazen1211]

Forget dreaming. You're not going to get these things past any court, if the TX23 decision is any indication.

Unless you know something about Anthony Kennedy that nobody else does, it shouldn't be any indication.

There's no retrogression, and TX-23, TX-27, and TX-28 all resemble their current shapes. Plus, you get 2 new Hispanic districts TX-33 and TX-9.

[krazen1211]

don't include San Angelo, but include Midland.  don't go too far west into central Texas.  Pick through the El Paso precincts for strong Hispanic ones.

I've gotten 60.54% Hispanic and 57.32% McCain; 62.73% Hispanic and 55.09% McCain.  Plus, if you include Midland, you get Conaway as an incumbent in a district with a lot of strange rural counties where it's too GOP for Pete Gallego to take a chance.

Wait, are you talking about TX-23 (Canseco, the light blue district) or TX-11 (Conoway, the light green district?)

I'm not sure whether you are trying to create 3 McCain Hispanic districts or 4. I found making 3 to be relatively easy. The only question is what you do with the remaining half of Webb County; I chose to just dump it obviously.

[krazen1211]

Ok, another question. Shouldn't Republicans be worried about banking on multiple 52-54% McCain, 60+% Hispanic districts in places where nearly all of the population growth in the next 10 years is going to make the districts more Democratic?

I don't think anyone is banking on them (although R+5 to R+7 is not all that unsafe), but what else can you do with the territory?

Between the existing 15, 23, 27, 28 Obama I think won all 4 districts. If you could retrogress you'd just pack 1 of the 4 and create safe McCain districts with the other 3, but you can't.

It's not like you're weakening the remaining 24 districts by monkeying around with 23, 27, 28.

[krazen1211]

What you're trying to do is eliminate a Hispanic opportunity seat (that is, a seat in which the victor will be reliant on widespread Hispanic support), while technically fulfilling a random cutoff line and while creating unnecessarily disparate, huge constituencies in particularly empty minority country. You're doing exactly what the TX-23 decision says you can't do in West Texas, except with several districts. And run the risk of the same thing happening again - your seats struck down and your evil plans for other seats thwarted as an indirect consequence.


At which point I went to read the SC decision, because I think I've only ever read the district court's.

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Yeah, seems to me like they're saying "random figures like 60% or whatever are not of primary relevance. What matters is the outcome". Oh, and also "what Justice Kennedy thinks is not of primary relevance. These dudes are actually slightly more important - we're unlikely to flat out overturn them unless they unduly provoke us, even if we don't like their reasoning (this is, after all, what they did with TX23 - change the parts of the reasoning that they didn't like while upholding the outcome).
Oh, and here:

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Yeah, (largely) non-voting Hispanic communities in the Permian Basin and parts of the panhandle are just about the posterbook case for what's described here.

Ok, another question. Shouldn't Republicans be worried about banking on multiple 52-54% McCain, 60+% Hispanic districts in places where nearly all of the population growth in the next 10 years is going to make the districts more Democratic?

I don't think anyone is banking on them (although R+5 to R+7 is not all that unsafe), but what else
can you do with the territory?

In this case and with these districts... actually I find em quite unsafe. At even money, I'd bet on your TX27 and TX28 voting for Hispanic Democrats most of the time.  Your TX23 wouldn't, but (in conjunction with that 11th) it's not going to last long. It's a fairly unequivocal dilution of Latino voting strength.
The bizarre thing is that from a personal preferences pov, I like a compact Lower Valley district... (though yours isn't as compact as it ought to be)... and that you're at current throwing the gain away by conceding a seat to Doggett. Which is what "ought" to be done, of course, but probably isn't strictly necessary and probably won't be done. Sam's earlier plan to set him up for a battle against Ciro Rodriguez is a very good idea is a very good idea to get rid of him. (Though if I were Canseco I wouldn't have liked Sam's plan at all, actually - safe from the Democrats, but thrown to the Anglo Primary wolves.)

The rest of that opinion, though, specifically referenced CVAP and the ability (or inability) to vote for a candidate. The fact that those people don't vote is their own problem.

In any case, the damage is fairly contained. Even if you are correct, all that probably will happen is the 11th and 23rd flipping territory, with the 23rd becoming a 54-55% Obama Laredo to San Antonio seat and the 11th covering the entire empty area. There's little risk I see to the new 28th and new 27th, which are about 6 points more Republican than they were.

The gain, though, isn't Doggett's seat. It's Cuellar's, who would have to run in either the light blue west Texas district or the pink district that doesn't include Laredo. The pink district is a new district intended for some new Republican to run in.

Someone is going to be suing no matter what they do. I doubt that stops anyone. And didn't the district court, or the appeals court, uphold the fajita strip TX-25?

[krazen1211]

I would just say the opposite, actually. Part of the point of Delaymandering was to target Cuellar, who wasn't a member of the House yet.

Cuellar almost knocked off Henry Bonilla, so they wanted to knock down the Hispanic % there and remove Laredo from the 23rd. Targeting Doggett was indirect and mostly a side effect because they needed to make a replacement district.

As it stands, last time, they only changed the minimum number of districts required, which was 5 if I recall, and they only made the minimal changes required.

In any case, here's the first redistricting bill. It's set up around 32 districts rather than 36, if someone wants to poke through it.

http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/story.aspx?id=562653

[krazen1211]

Are VAP/Citizen VAP problems going to be as dire in the Houston/DFW districts as they are in South Texas?

I always figured part of the problem was that South Texas was full of illegals and thus Citizen VAP is going to be proportionately lower compared to the urban cities, which should have more citizens.

If so, I figure you might as well rebundle 9 and 18 and get yourself a 'free' hispanic 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.

[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.

[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.

[krazen1211]

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.

Hmm, I approximated that CD-7 at 56% McCain or so; its a 59.8% Anglo district. The precincts are pretty carefully chosen. It might be a problem a few years from now, though.

CD-22 was actually my real concern given the massive shifts in Fort Bend.

[krazen1211]

You're right, it is at about 56% McCain from what I can tell trying to replicate it.   However, it begs the question why you added all the Democrat-leaning territory in the western part of the district and gave the heavily-republican parts to the 8th?  I assume that district doesn't need any help.  Rearrange some lines around there and give some of the red/blue territory to  the 7th, and you can make it at least 59% McCain.

Also, your CD-22 is fine, it's almost 60% McCain.

I actually mapped it out; that Woodlands district was close to 70. Thanks, made some swaps. Both districts should be at or above 60 now. I put those Democratic areas in Flores's district since he dropped Waco up north.

[krazen1211]

Wait, what is this "touch-pointed"? That doesn't make sense. Mathematically, you shouldn't be able to skip over the center point like that - if you could, then any noncontiguous district with two parts at opposite ends of a state could be made "contiguous" by an infinitely narrow point-wide connection with a Dedekind cut on either side.

Imagine Utah and New Mexico being in 1 district, and Arizona/Colorado being in a 2nd district.

It's already used in several places. NC-13 for example.

[krazen1211]

It's already used in several places. NC-13 for example.

I'm struggling to think of an example other than that one in use currently.

You might be right at the Congressional level. I know for a fact that George Democrats used it in 2001 at the state legislative level.

Truthfully the only reason to do it is to achieve a different racial balance in CD-9.

[krazen1211]

Something that I never thought about:

Is it possible to eliminate Gene Green's seat?




The yellow and blue are 81/85% Obama dem packs. The grey district is Culbertson's and 58% McCain; the purple is a newly created 60% McCain district. The green incomplete district starts at Humble (Ted Poe's home) and would head towards Port Arthur.

The grey-green seat in eastern Harris is the new Gene Green seat, and is 60% Hispanic, 55% McCain per the old data. It is likely much more hispanic with the new data.

[krazen1211]

He means flip it to a Republican seat.

And yes it is possible, but you'd probably run into a VRA challenge as a result.  By definition a district like that would have to basically contain a bunch of uber-Republican whites to out-vote the Hispanic majority, which I don't think is allowed.  Though you can certainly cut out the Black-heavy parts of the current district to get it down to basically swing while still Highly Hispanic.

You can actually do the same thing with the 27th and 23rd as well (a Laredo-Odessa/Midland District is like 67% Hispanic and 60% McCain), and possibly also with the 28th and the San Antonio suburbs.

That would be the general idea, yeah. The existing 15, 28 already contain a Hispanic majority in the south with some uber-Republican whites in the northern rural counties.

That map was drawn with the old census data, though, so the racial percentages are off. I'd expect it to be ~65% Hispanic now, although in a very low turnout area.

[krazen1211]

Here is the final Harris County product. Bust-a-gene-green.





These districts are exactly at population per the 2010 census. Removing the blacks and putting whites in TX-29 does wonders for the results. 60% VAP on the TX-29 here should be adequate as that is just about where it was at the start of the decade.

The current TX-18 actually holds a lot of Republican territory, and the current TX-9 holds some too. It's nice to pluck that out to pick up TX-29's worst precincts.

Final percentages:

TX-9: 79.8% Obama
TX-18: 82.8% Obama
TX-29: 55.8% McCain, 31.8% white, 60.0% hispanic

[krazen1211]

Why are you so hell-bent on getting rid of Gene Green? He's a quiet guy and not someone to make loudmouthed comments like Alan Grayson. Plus, he represents a district that's nearly seventy percent hispanic. That map would see lawsuits by LULAC.

Mostly because we can. LULAC can holler as much as they want; with any luck, the right Texas Hispanic Republican can at least move into TX-29 as an open seat.

[krazen1211]

Greene is too entrenched. He has been in congress for 20 years and in an elected office for nearly 40 years. Doing that will only put him in a position similar to Jim Matheson.

Quite possibly. Around 80-85% of that district is identical to the existing CD-29 (which of course is underpopulated and has to lose hispanic VAP regardless); the only significant change is in the northeast corner where the black dominated 70-85% precincts are chopped out, which all go into another Democratic district anyway.

Still, if Texas can vote out Ortiz, they can vote out Green.

[krazen1211]

Especially considering Ortiz was in a much safer district (Obama won ~53% there i think). Green will be toast if such a district survives a lawsuit (which is not a sure thing by any means)

Though you can draw a 67% Hispanic district that voted 53% McCain with a similar shape.  You just have to fine-tune the details of it and figure out a good McCain-vote:Hispanic ratio.  There are enough heavily McCain precincts on the outer edges of the district to flip the district--you just have to balance them with Heavily Hispanic districts in inner Houston with low turnouts and medium Obama margins.

Is that 67% VAP? My district is at 65% population and 60% VAP, and as a general rule of thumb, its a 1% to 1% tradeoff, so that makes sense.

These kinds of small changes also give hispanics a strong plurality in CD-9. I don't know of any cases where districts like this have been overturned in any lawsuit; if they could be, the original TX-29 last decade would have also had problems.

The heavy black areas were all in that central area that connected the 2 big hispanic populations. I'm not sure what town is up there or if its unincorporated.

[krazen1211]

There are some House of Representative plans submitted by outsiders on the Texas Legislative Council website (See Districtviewer)

MALDEF thinks it's OK to draw a district from McAllen to not quite Austin, especially if you draw another district from San Antonio to Austin that prevents the first district from actually touching Travis County.

Sounds like MALDEF should go hike over to California and ask why there are so few Latino representatives there.

I'm happy to see this though. My 27-9 plan would have 8 hispanic districts; if 9 is a real sticking point (for some reason, Al Green's plurality hispanic district doesn't count..), its easy enough to dive TX-25 into San Antonio and throw all the Austin white liberals into TX-19.