US House Redistricting: Louisiana

[jimrtex]

I think you may have to take apart CD 6 in order to keep two Cajun districts.

If you do that, the other districts are short (based on 2009 ACS):

CD 4 -97K; CD 5 -112K, total 209K

CD 7 -85K; CD 3 -119K; total 204K

CD 1 -64K; CD 2 -238K; total 302K

Then take CD 2 across Lake Pontchartrain before dropping down onto the Mississippi, but don't go all the way to Baton Rouge so as to leave a gap for CD 5 and CD 3.  Then go north around Hammond pick up the black areas of Hammond, go west (and maybe east) along the Mississippi border, and then come down into Baton Rouge from the north.  You could also go up the Mississippi, perhaps taking whole parishes.

Bring CD 1 to include St Bernard (and New Orleans East, and connect to Jefferson through the current doohickey that comes from Jefferson down to almost Chalmette (the route across Lake Ponchartrain will be blocked).   Then bring CD 3 around the western tip of the part of CD 2 that goes up the Mississippi, and do the same for CD 5.

Perhaps move CD 7 northward a bit as well, which would end up with CD 5 then taking more in the Baton Rouge area.

[jimrtex]

I think Iberville and Pointe Coupee go in the Cajun district.  Will that pull the purple district out of St. Tammany?   Maybe toss in West Baton Rouge for some more population.

It is interesting that the reported percentage of French Ancestry vs French Canadian ancestry has a pretty strong east/west variation, with French Canadian stronger in the west (of Lafayette) vs the east, though French is more common throughout.

About blacks in Tangipahoa, Blacks are about 35% of the current 3 northern districts, and the mid to high 20s in the other districts except the two NOLA districts where they have been deliberately separated.  On that basis, the mark of Zorro district makes sense.  Blacks are too well distributed, vs states like Mississippi or South Carolina.

Are you counting St.Martin as a county split?

So... seeing as dismantling CD6 is just plain ugly... two other ways to preserve two Cajun districts.

Version 1: Steve Scalise's district is packed with Republicans. Share the wealth!







The issue is that it is far from certain that the Cajun part of Landry's district can dominate it, especially as Landry is from New Iberia and Scalise also lives in the district. Worse, with Cajun registration patterns, they might lose the primary and then win the GE with a Melancon revenant as Democratic candidate.

Version 2: That leaves northern Louisiana. Randy Alexander was a Democrat once after all. Can he really be trusted?



The issue here is with district safety in a Democratic waveyear, rather than regionalism. The district at risk being... somewhat surprisingly... the northwestern one, which is down to just 59% White. Probably could be helped a little with more creative boundaries, though.

[jimrtex]

Gallot said some coastal legislators are proposing the design of a coastal congressional district that would stretch across the bottom of the state, arguing the parishes have many issues in common, such as hurricane protection and coastal erosion. Currently, two congressional districts contain coastal parishes.

You could probably draw this a couple of ways.  Start out with Lake Charles and Lafayette and then swing down fairly south towards Houma and the bird foot delta.  This opens the Mississippi for CD-2 to get to Baton Rouge.

Thicker in the east, and and narrow in the west, so mostly preserves CD-3, plus Lafayette.  Maybe hard to include Lake Charles, and blocks CD-2.

Other lawmakers are arguing to merge north Louisiana parishes -- which are split between two congressional districts -- into one district that contains both Monroe and Shreveport. The chairman of the Senate redistricting committee, Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, has said he objects to such a plan, however.

This is going to be the sticking point.  The north says they get two districts, which means the Cajuns will want two districts.  The blacks have to have a district, which means that there is also a district for the people that aren't black.  So CD-6 is the odd-man out.

If it for feelings being hurt, this might work.  I'm guessing a merged district ends up north of Alexandria.  Which opens a number of possibilities such as a CD-7 becoming a Lake Charles-Alexandria district, with Lafayette shifting to CD-3.

Or perhaps CD-3 takes all of the Atchafalaya basis and extends up to Alexandria.

Or maybe CD-6 extends to Alexandria to make up for the loss of north Baton Rouge.

http://house.louisiana.gov/H_Redistricting2011/NewsPDF/1221_10_Gallot_PressClub.pdf

It is kind of surprising they are talking congressional redistricting.  They need to get legislative redistricting done for this fall.  But because of the open primary for congressional elections is in November 2012, they have until Summer 2012 to finish.  And since they serve 4 year terms, they wouldn't have to worry about the political fallout.

Gallot said two north Louisiana-based congressional districts could undergo substantial changes.  The Shreveport-based 4th Congressional District would have to extend to the Gulf of Mexico to pick up needed population, Gallot said. And, he said, the Monroe-based 5th District would expand to Plaquemines Parish instead of just to outside Baton Rouge.

I assume the latter was a bit of hyperbole.

Shreveport-Lake Charles means that Boustany and Landry end up running against each other, but that you go from 2 not so certain Republican seats to one.

If powerful people are keeping both northern districts, and of course Lafayette/Lake Charles together, well, the only district that seems to be left to chop is Cassidy's 6th.

There is a pretty strong rivalry between north and south Louisiana, so I could see this one ending up deadlocked.

[jimrtex]

This was my first shot at it.

The problem is you end up over population. You either don't cover the full coast, or you have to split either Calcasieu or Lafayette. Plus I didn't cover St Bernard or all the population in Jefferson that probably should be covered.

Probably bring LA-1 down through St.Bernard (most of the population is, or was) just outside New Orleans, and then keep going to Plaquemines if this let's you help get all of Calcasieu and Lafayette.  You could also get the whole of Jefferson in LA-1 or 2, and start the coastal district at Lafourche.

[jimrtex]

This is the best I could do to keep everyone happy. Well, 5/6 of the state anyway.




The Cajuns will be pretty happy here, as will the guys in the red district.

Scalise gets a fairly compact and solid district, but he's safe under any map.

The Republicans in Livingston might cry bloody murder at getting represented by Rodney Alexander, though.

But that's the problem with the 2 cajun/2 north configuration. By definition it means crunching the 6th, but someone has to take that territory.

I can't blame Jindal for running away from this.

Not too bad really.  Change it so the 3 NOLA districts are Purple, Yellow, and Green, with the two that reach up to Baton Rouge, purple and yellow. 

[jimrtex]

Its odd how Rodney Alexander (elected 2002) is the senior member of the delegation here. Boustany was elected in 2004, the rest of them are over the last 2 years. They have a combined ~20 years of seniority.

When the legislature was debating returning to the open primary for congressional elections, those opposed argued that it would cost Louisiana seniority (with a party primary, representatives are elected in early November; with the open primary in December, if a runoff is needed).  But they didn't figure out the reason that there was so little seniority was that they had replaced everyone in the last few years, with some of them two times.  In addition, seniority is measured from January when the term begins.  At worst, a representative elected in December is going to get an office a long way from the capitol.

Incidentally, Edwin Edwards has been released from prison, to serve the rest of his sentence in home confinement.

It might make sense to put all of Point Coupee in the purple district, and Avoyelles entirely in the yellow or the purple district.  This would eliminate a couple of county splits, and place the entire Atchafalaya River in the purple district.  While it may look cosmetically worse, it is very difficult to travel through that area by road.  Mapquest says to cross over at Natchez if traveling between Monroe and Baton Rouge.

This assumes a balancing adjustment can be founde in East Baton Rouge and Ascension.

[jimrtex]

The conventional wisdom here seems to be that the VRA district must extend all the way to Baton Rouge. I just made one that's 53% black and only extends up to take in parts of Iberville and Ascension Parishes. I used 2009 ACS, but something like that should still end up being majority VAP black by census numbers, right?

Probably not. The ACS ended up way overestimating New Orleans' population. The VRA seat is going to have to go into Baton Rouge.

But it doesn't have to go into New Orleans.

(any comments on my map?)

Louisiana Redistricting Cases:  the 1990s

Been there, done that, got the court decree.

[jimrtex]

Well there you go. I wonder if it would survive a challenge nowadays...

In the 1990's the USDOJ approved both the Mark of Zorro and the reverse back slash.  Bother were overturned by a district court.

The Supreme Court decision in between had to do with standing.  The original plaintiffs weren't in the 2nd plan.  After they got some new plaintiffs the court then reoverturned the plan.  The court then drew the final plan, which didn't need pre-clearance since it was drawn by a federal court.

[jimrtex]

So, in short, it depends on the composition of the court at that point in time, if it was the second proposal. If it was the first proposal, it could be rejected completely without any chance of returning.

The court would have to find some reason to overturn the reasoning of their earlier decision.

[jimrtex]

This is the best I could do to keep everyone happy. Well, 5/6 of the state anyway.

The Republicans in Livingston might cry bloody murder at getting represented by Rodney Alexander, though.

But that's the problem with the 2 cajun/2 north configuration. By definition it means crunching the 6th, but someone has to take that territory.

The problem is that the sixth is actually majoritarian in that 4th. Meaning that Rodney Alexander won't be happy at all.

So, apart from amending for the changes between estimates and census results, this map attempts to rectify that and give the north a plurality vs suburban BR and suburban NOLA...

It seems like there are a lot of extra county splits.  In the current map it appears that there was an effort to reduce splits.  You have two counties split between salmon and turquoise, and turquoise and purple.  Since the yellow district will split counties, there is no reason to split a county between salmon and yellow.  I'd try to keep Rapides in one district (turquoise) and bring the Salmon district further south along the border (you've probably split Fort Polk between districts also).  And then eliminate the three-way splits of Saint. James, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Charles.  The split of Jefferson is unavoidable.

But I'm not sure that I'd worry about Alexander.  And in any case, if comes down to a regional race, Monroe will vote more provincially than Baton Rouge, and rural areas even more so.

[jimrtex]

But alright. Cassidy Alexander fight set up again; minimal number of county splits not counting those with Richmond. Not three-way-cutting St Charles means wasting some perfectly good suburban Republicans on Richmond, though. Vermilion was transferred cause otherwise (with boundaries elsewhere as is) the St Landry split goes right through Eunice. I didn't actually keep Rapides in one piece, though - better that than Calcasieu, and if you use Allen you need almost (but not quite) the entire parish making Boustany's connection to Alexandria quite erose.





All districts within 100 of optimum.

The fourth is still just 59.9% White, but Fort Polk is bound to have more Republican Whites - and more Republican / nonvoting minorities - than Alexandria, so I suppose it'll be alright.

If you look at the current map without county lines visible, it almost appears as if there are bunches of county cuts, because the shape of the counties is irregular.

[jimrtex]

Since LA has a 32% black population, I wonder if the DOJ will want to see roughly 1/3 of the CDs drawn with a black majority? I drew a hypothetical map that achieves that result. All districts are within 100 of the ideal. CD 2 goes from New Orleans to Houma district with 51.4% black VAP. CD 6 takes in Baton Rouge, Alexandria, and Lafayette with 50.6% black VAP. CD 3 ends up wrapping from east of Baton Rouge to the southern suburbs of New Orleans. The Shreveport area parishes are split to avoid a district that runs from Monroe to Lake Charles.

CD-6 there looks even more problematic than  CD-2.

I'm not sure why it would be problematic. Other intentional VRA districts are often as badly shaped, and in NC one can argue that they are worse than my example here.

If you were to shift Plaquemines and St.Bernard, New Orleans Easr, French Quarter, and Garden District to CD-3, could you push CD-3 out of Baton Rouge?  You can come in along the river from Chalmette.

Or go ahead and take Jefferson Parish by using Lake Pontchartrain.

[jimrtex]

The 5th looks like it almost has touch-point contiguity.

The southern tip of Concordia Parish comes just south of 31 degrees north (the boundary between Mississippi and Louisiana) and touches West Feliciana.  There is also a loop at Old River which is part of West Feliciana, but not contiguous to the main part.  No roads in the area, but you can come across at Natchez to get to Baton Rouge.

[jimrtex]

I always wondered what the story behind that funky district was.

But surely a cleaner district could be drawn...

If you look carefully, there are fingers into Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Ruston, Monroe, Alexandria, and Lafayette.  With the primitive computer equipment of the era they were unable to get to Lake Charles, Houma, and Bogulusa.

[jimrtex]

More on the lawsuit. They want a court-drawn map, so it may be out of the legislature's hands (if it goes through):

A federal court never has first authority to draw district lines.

The plaintiffs seem to be arguing that if Louisiana was still subject to pre-clearance, that the map would lawful.   But if the district court were to rule in favor of the plaintiffs, Louisiana might be subject to the bail-in under Section 3, which would then make the plan lawful again.

The plaintiffs aren't likely to carry forward on a full-out attack on the inconsistencies between Section 2 and Section 5.  So eventually they will be stuck arguing based on constitutional and Section 2 arguments that they could have filed in 2011.  So they are quite unlikely to get a preliminary injunction for 2014, and it is most likely a case that will be running for the next several years.