Texas, it's bigger than France

[jimrtex]

This is an updated version that includes more details in urban areas.

In the thread about a possible Georgia redistricting, I was challenged to produce a Texas map without the bacon strips districts.  This is a map of a plan that I outlined in that thread.



Basically, I divided the state into 6 regions (Houston, DFW, Central (I-35), Border, Eastern, and Western) and apportioned the 32 representatives among them.  I then shifted a few counties so that the population of each region was close to a whole number of districts of an ideal population size (651,619).  In the process of delineating the districts in each region, I identified a few other inter-regional shifts of counties that would provide better inter-district balance.

The plan as presented would have a maximum deviation of 0.5% (or around 3,000 people).  9 counties are split, the 6 that have more than one district's worth of population: Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, and El Paso, and 3 others: Williamson, Nueces, and Cameron.  9 districts do not contain any split counties, including all 8 in the more rural Eastern and Western regions.   The Border region, while having vast tracts of rural areas, is actually highly concentrated in the cities of El Paso, Laredo, Lower Valley, and Corpus Christi.

East (5 districts).
Liberty, Bastrop, Guadeloupe, and Live Oak shifted in.  Falls and Chambers shifted out.  Population equivalent to 5.005 districts.  The districts pretty much drew themselves based on 3 of the districts starting in the corners of the region, and the other two having to form an east-west split in the center.

District 1: North East Texas, 1.005

District 2: Deep East Texas, 0.996

The deviation betwen 1 and 2 (the 2 greatest for the state) could be reduced by swapping Rains and Wood for Panola and Shelby.  This would make two a much odder shape, but would mantain the Tyler-Longview-Nacogdoches-Lufkin core.

District 3: South East Texas, 1.000

Combines the industrial Golden Triangle, and the timber/recreation areas to the north, and Huntsville into a single district, but avoids sticking the two parts in Houston dominated districts.

District 4: East Central Texas.  1.001

District 5: Mid Gulf.  1.003

West (3 districts).
Cooke, Montague, Palo Pinto, Somervell; Bosque, Erath, Hamilton, Mills, Lampasas, Loving, Wink, Ward, Crockett, Sutton, Edwards shifted out.  None shifted in.  The west region is entitled to about 3.3 districts.  Rather than attempting to draw 4 districts, some of which would soon find them being drawn into major metropolitan areas, the excess population is shifted to a pair of districts that are somewhat less densely populated.  Over the next decade, the western districts will likely need these areas returned.

District 6: Panhandle-Red River 1.000

District 7: South Plains-Abilene 0.999

District 8: Permian Basin-San Angelo-Hill Country 0.999

Border (4 districts).
Loving, Wink, Ward, Crockett, Sutton, Edwards shifted in,
Live Oak shifted out.  This has very close to the correct population for 4 districts.  The population of this region is concentrated in the far opposite ends.  Even District 13, most of the population is in the south eastern section, with about 1/3 in Laredo.

District 12: El Paso 0.997

Roughly 0.046 or 30,000 persons in south east El Paso County are moved out.

District 13: Mid Valley-Trans Pecos-Southwest Texas 0.998

Includes 0.046 from El Paso County, and 0.033 (22,000) from southwest Nueces County.

District 14: Lower Valley.  1.000

Includes 0.044 (29,000) from Cameron.

District 15: Coastal South Texas.  1.000

Excludes 0.033 (22,000) from Nueces County (including Robstown and Bishop), and 0.044 (29,000) from Cameron County (La Feria, Santa Maria, and areas south of Harlingen and San Benito.  This district links Corpus Christi and Brownsville with little population in between.  Removing a little from both ends, avoids picking a favorite.

Central (5 districts).
Bosque, Erath, Hamilton, Mills, Lampasas, Falls shifted in.  Bastrop and Guadeloupe shifted out.  Most of the area shifted in is added to the less populated Waco-Temple-Killeen area on the north end.  The rest of this area is sliced in pieces along I-35.

District 9: Central Texas 0.995

Includes 0.034 (22,000) from eastern Williamson County, including Taylor.

District 23: North Austin 1.005.  Roughly 1/3 in Williamson County and 2/3 in Travis County.   The boundary between districts 23 and 24 is the Colorado River, except for an area including downtown Austin and UT which is in District 24.

District 24: South Austin-San Marcos-New Braunfels 0.998

Travis County is split between 23:24 0.655:0.592 426,000:385,000.  0.136 (89,000) of Bexar is included in in District 24 (small cities in northeast Bexar County, including Selma, Univeral City, Converse, Live Oak, and Windcrest).

District 25: North San Antonio 1.001

District 26: South San Antonio 0.999

The boundary between 25 and 26 is a little bit north of downtown San Antonio.

DFW (8 districts).
Cooke, Montague, Palo Pinto, Somervell shifted in, none shifted out.  In my original outline, I underestimated the population of Dallas County which is entitled to 3.4 districts, and overestimated the population of the southern suburban counties.  So I have created a Tarrant-Dallas Mid Cities district, and combined the southwestern and southeastern counties with districts that are largely based in Tarrant and Dallas County.

District 10: Denton and Northwest DFW Metro. 1.002

7/8 of the district is in the counties adjacent to Tarrant County (2/3 in Denton alone).

District 16: South Tarrant and Southwest DFW Metro 1.003

0.735 (479,000) is from Tarrant County (Arlinton, Mansfield, Kennedale, Forest Hill, Rendon, Everman, Crowley, and an area of Fort Worth south of I-20.

District 17: East Dallas County and Southeast DFW Metro 0.999

0.653 (426,000) is from Dallas County, including Garland, Mesquite, Sachse, Rowlett, Sunnyvale, Balch Springs, Seagoville, and Combine.  Rockwall County was shifted from District 18 in my previous map.

District 18: Collin and North Dallas County 0.997

0.242 (158,000) is from Dallas County, including Richardson, Carrollton, Farmers Branch, and Addison.

District 19: Fort Worth and Northwest Tarrant County 0.995

Fort Worth and areas to the north and , including Haltom City, Watauga, Keller, Saginaw, Eagle Mountain Lake, Azle, White Settlement, River Oaks, and Lake Worth.

District 20: Tarrant-Dallas 0.999

Tarrant:Dallas contribute 0.489:0.510 318,000 :332,000 along the northern part of their boundary, including, Coppell and Irving in Dallas Counties, Grand Prairie in both counties, and Grapevine, Hurst, Euless, Bedford, Richland Hills, North Richland Hills, Colleyville, Southlake, and Westlake in Tarrant County.

District 21: North Dallas 0.1001

Dallas from Downtown northward and including Park Cities.

District 22: South Dallas 1.000

South Dallas and cities in southern Dallas County, inlucing Cedar Hill, Duncanville, De Soto, Lancaster, Wilmer, and Hutchins.

Houston (7 districts).
Libery shifted out, Chambers shifted in.  My original proposal called for 5 districts in Harris County, and one linking Montgomery and Fort Bend.   The addition of Chambers made creation a southeatern district easier.  Montgomery and Fort Bend are instead paired with adjacent areas in Harris County.

District 11: Galveston Bay-Brazoria 1.002

Includes 0.209 (136,000) from shoreline of Galveston Bay in Harris County, including Baytown, La Porte, Seabrook, El Lago, Taylor Lake Village, and Webster.

District 27: Montgomery-Northeast Harris 1.001

Includes 0.551 (359,000) from Northeast Harrist County, including Spring, Humble, Kingwood, Atascosita, Lake Houston, Crosby, Barrett, Highlands, Channelview, and Sheldon.

District 28: Fort Bend-Southwest Harris 1.001

Includes 0.457 (298,000) from Southwest Houston roughly along the Southwest Freeway.

District 29: Northwest Harris County 1.001

Includes outer edges of Houston, Tomball, Jersey Village, Katy, Cypress, and 1960 area.

District 30: West Houston 1.002

Includes enclaves of West U, Bellaire, and Memorial villages.

District 31: North Houston 1.002

Also includes Aldine, Jacinto City, and Galena Park.

District 32: Southeast Houston and Southeast Harris County.

Includes Pasadena, Deer Park, and South Houston.

[minionofmidas]

Looks nice.
I haven't checked, but from memory, many of the rural districts (outside the Southern bacon strips of course) look a lot like what existed pre-regerrymander.

[Jake]

You should be commended for slogging through all those counties.  Nice work

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Cool

Who'd you think would hold each district?

[jimrtex]

Looks nice.
I haven't checked, but from memory, many of the rural districts (outside the Southern bacon strips of course) look a lot like what existed pre-regerrymander.

I assume you mean the map used for the 2002 election (descendant of the
1990s Frostrocity).  Not really.

The 2002 had a lot of quirky little boundaries (see 4, 5, 8, and 23).  It was also
intent on preserving incumbents, and had many districts running from rural areas
into the major metropolitan cities.

1 on the 2002 plan is more NS, and wraps around Tyler-Longview.  The 2004
plan and my plan are more EW.  The main difference between the 2004 and my
plan was that I wasn't trying to draw a district for an incumbent.

2 on the 2002 plan is more southerly (the 2002 plan splits up the cities in East
Texas).

3 on the 2002 plan was more than 1/2 in the Houston area.  My plan goes
north rather than west.

There is nothing like 4 on my plan.  Districts like 5, 6, and 31 in the 2002 are
very much urban districts. that gather up pieces of the area.  The 4 on the
2002 plan was intended to pack Republicans.

5 on my plan is quite similar to 14 on the 2002 plan.  The biggest difference
is that my plan cuts out the incumbent.  The original 1990s plan was drawn
for a Democrat incumbent.   The claw into Brazoria County was to pull Republicans
out of 14.  The Democrat switched parties, then lost the GOP primary to
Ron Paul, who happens to live in the area of Brazoria County beyond the
claw.

13 on the 2002 plan is similar to 6 on my plan.

7 and 8 on my plan are similar in configuration to the 2004 plan.  The
big difference, was that I wasn't trying to pull certain counties away
from the incumbent.

23 on the 2002 plan and 13 on my plan are somewhat similar.  But
this is not entirely true since 22 has a sizeable portion in Bexar county,
including the incumbent.

9 in my plan is similar to 11 in the 2002 plan.

So I'd say that 5, 6, and 9 are similar to the 2002 plan.  1 and 13
are to some extent, but also fairly different.

Four of my rural seats, 2, 5, 8, and 13 would have been open seats.
1, 3, and 4 had a sitting incumbent, but with a quite different
district.  7 would have paired 2 incumbents.

Based on the 2004 election, 1, 3, 4, and 5 would be open seats.

[muon2]

Great job on the districts.

I have some idle questions about the regional groupings. I spent quite some time in TX during the early 1990's particularly in the area from Dallas to Waco where the SSC was planned. Whereas College Station seemed East Tx to me, just about everything west seemed more like central TX. This feeling would apply to areas like Hill, Navarro, and Limestone Cos in that area, and Grayson Co. up north. Based on this visitors impressions I would have said that your CD 4 splits between East and Central TX. Similarly your CD 5 seemed much more like San Antonio and Corpus than Houston, so it could be Border or Central, but I didn't visit there as much, so I'll freely admit any impressions may be off.

[minionofmidas]

Looks nice.
I haven't checked, but from memory, many of the rural districts (outside the Southern bacon strips of course) look a lot like what existed pre-regerrymander.

I assume you mean the map used for the 2002 election (descendant of the
1990s Frostrocity).  Not really.

The 2002 had a lot of quirky little boundaries (see 4, 5, 8, and 23).  It was also
intent on preserving incumbents, and had many districts running from rural areas
into the major metropolitan cities.

Although not as many as the current one...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yeah, it was just a cursory glance at East and NW Texas really, probably spiked with a good bit of wishful thinking.

[jimrtex]

Great job on the districts.

I have some idle questions about the regional groupings. I spent quite some time in TX during the early 1990's particularly in the area from Dallas to Waco where the SSC was planned. Whereas College Station seemed East Tx to me, just about everything west seemed more like central TX. This feeling would apply to areas like Hill, Navarro, and Limestone Cos in that area, and Grayson Co. up north. Based on this visitors impressions I would have said that your CD 4 splits between East and Central TX. Similarly your CD 5 seemed much more like San Antonio and Corpus than Houston, so it could be Border or Central, but I didn't visit there as much, so I'll freely admit any impressions may be off.

Certainly not piney woods East Texas.

My primary objective was to separate out the larger metropolitan areas.  Because of
the position of the I-35 corridor and the DFW area, there is a split between the more rural/
smaller cities to the east and west.  My definition of East and West Texas is on that basis.
If Navarro County is not in the I-35 corridor, and not in DFW, it must be in East Texas.

Under the current redistrictricting plan, many of the districts extend outward from
the larger metropolitan areas, leaving the less populous areas without representation.
Using my regional definitions, the current representation is DFW (9, 1 extra), Houston
(8, 1 extra), Central/I-35 (7, 2 extra), East(1, 4 deficit), West (3, no imbalance), Border
(4, no imbalance).

While Grayson would be a small fish if placed with Collin, it is the most
populous county in my District 1.

This map shows my regional boundaries (heavy black line).  Counties in yellow were
shifted for population balance.



The West region had a population equivalent to about 3.3 representative.  The DFW and
East regions had a deficit.  The transfer from the West region to the East region was via
the Central/I-35 region.

A) The border region had a very small deficit which was satisfied by these transfers.

B) A shift from from the West region to the DFW region.  Originally Jack, rather
than Somervell had been shifted.  Removing Jack permitted District 10 to be drawn
without splitting counties.

C) A shift from the West region to the I-35 region.  The counties in A and B are the
easternmost in the West region.  Removing them somewhat reduces that extent.

D) A shift from the Central/I-35 to the East region.  Falls was countershifted
for population balance.  As you note, this moves suburban areas of San Antonio
and Austin into the East region.

E) A shift from Houston to East Texas to remove Housto's slight excess.  The
countershift of Chambers is for population balance.

F) A final pair of shifts made after the basic districts had been set out, and
District 5 was found to have a slight deficit that couldn't be corrected by swaps with
District 4, and West Texas still had a slight excess.  In a sense, this could be considered
as an extension of the C and D shifts which moved population from west to
east Texas.

[jimrtex]

Although not as many as the current one...

But not serving any purpose other than preserving
the disticts drawn in 1991.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

While it would no doubt mess up your regionality criteria, the districts could probably be made considerably more compact of Dostricts 6 and 7 excjanged territory so that D7 touched the Red River instead of New Mexico and if D8 and D13 were seperated by boundary roughly perpendicylar to the one you gave.

[jimrtex]

While it would no doubt mess up your regionality criteria, the districts could probably be made considerably more compact of Dostricts 6 and 7 excjanged territory so that D7 touched the Red River instead of New Mexico and if D8 and D13 were seperated by boundary roughly perpendicylar to the one you gave.

The population of 6/7 is highly concentrated in 4 cities: Lubbock, Amarillo, Wichita
Falls, and Abilene (The 5 counties - Amarillo straddles the Potter/Randall line
have about 55% of the total population).   Extending 7 north to the Red River
would include Wichita Falls.   This would mean that 6 would have to include Lubbock.
But Lubbock is bigger than Wichita Falls, so 7 would have to take in a large swath
of the lightly populated eastern Panhandle.  A compact Amarillo-Lubbock district
can be drawn (two counties from the first 4 tiers in the Panhandle, and 3 counties
from the next 4 tiers in the South Plains).  But this leaves a really huge eastern
district.

The Trans Pecos of 13 is very lightly populated, and about 1/2 of that is on
the extreme east and west ends (the remnant of El Paso County and Val
Verde County).  If you take the 18+ counties west of the current District 8
and gave it to District 8, this could be swapped for 6 counties north of
San Antonio.  This would greatly extend  the extent of 8.  It might appear
more compact than the current 13 (because it would somewhat rectangular),
but part of the oddness of the shape of District 13 is due to the Big Bend.

If South Texas continues to grow, then it might be all of a sudden that it
won't need the Trans Pecos area.  District 13 would be the a more
compact area where most of the population is.   This would make the
Trans Pecos region available for West Texas districts.

[Silent Hunter]

Nice work. You've put a lot of effort into it.

[jimrtex]

I added some details to the original map.

[minionofmidas]

Nice.

[WMS]

While I hate to contaminate this Texas thread w/NM, this was the most recent thread I could post these in. This is how I would redistrict NM for Congress. One map has precincts (OK, they're Census Bureau and thus a bit old, but...) and one doesn't. I announced the actual plan quite a few months ago, but I didn't feel like finding the thread again.





If they're too big, well, sorry, but I don't know how to resize them.

[WMS]

Here's a zoomed in look at NM-1:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Nice work
Most of the Albuquerque inner-metro is in one district and Little Texas isn't split anymore.

[WMS]

Nice work
Most of the Albuquerque inner-metro is in one district and Little Texas isn't split anymore.

Thanks. I stuffed as much of the Albuquerque inner-metro as I could into District 1, but I hit the population limit before I could swoop south into Valencia to pick up the other quasi-suburbs. And I was deliberately trying to keep Little Texas together. I was also trying to put a lot of the Native American Reservations together, and got all but 2 of them in District 3 (D1 and D2 have one each). The Democratic primary fights in D3 would be ferocious.

[minionofmidas]

Nice work
Most of the Albuquerque inner-metro is in one district and Little Texas isn't split anymore.

Thanks. I stuffed as much of the Albuquerque inner-metro as I could into District 1, but I hit the population limit before I could swoop south into Valencia to pick up the other quasi-suburbs. And I was deliberately trying to keep Little Texas together. I was also trying to put a lot of the Native American Reservations together, and got all but 2 of them in District 3 (D1 and D2 have one each). The Democratic primary fights in D3 would be ferocious.

At least the district would be utterly safe for them. Oh, it already is.
D2 would be ultra-safe Rep I reckon. Would D1 be more or less Dem than it is now?

[WMS]

Nice work
Most of the Albuquerque inner-metro is in one district and Little Texas isn't split anymore.

Thanks. I stuffed as much of the Albuquerque inner-metro as I could into District 1, but I hit the population limit before I could swoop south into Valencia to pick up the other quasi-suburbs. And I was deliberately trying to keep Little Texas together. I was also trying to put a lot of the Native American Reservations together, and got all but 2 of them in District 3 (D1 and D2 have one each). The Democratic primary fights in D3 would be ferocious.

At least the district would be utterly safe for them. Oh, it already is.
D2 would be ultra-safe Rep I reckon. Would D1 be more or less Dem than it is now?

Yeah, I think D3 becomes even more Dem...actually, I turned it into a minority-majority district, at 38.23% Hispanic, 36.75% White, 22.42% Native American (the rest of the % are very low). Given that these three groups in NM-3 don't get along too well in internal Dem politics...ferocious primaries.
D2 is also a minority-majority district, at 46.36% Hispanic, 48.23% White, 2.06% Black (the rest of the % are very low including the Native Americans). And yeah, it's probably the most Rep district, although I'd bet it has a higher registered Dem % than D1 (which is true in real life as well).
D1 is barely a minority-majority district, at 41.64% Hispanic, 49.18% White, 2.99% Native American, 2.48% Black, 2.01% Asian, and 1.66% 2 or More Races.

As for your political question, I don't know for certain. I actually sent this to someone I know at Research & Polling, Inc., the group who provides official information at redistricting time, but they never got back to me with the registered or voting history %'s. On the other hand, I also sent this to a Rep contact of mine, and he rather liked it, so I would guess NM-1 becomes more Rep, based largely on the woeful Dem performance in middle-class Rio Rancho...but probably still competitive.

[WMS]

*bump*

Since people are re-redistricting again, here's the thread with my New Mexico redistricting as well as one of jimrtex's Texas plans.

[jimrtex]

Nice map, jimtex

and the results would be ?

East Texas (1-5) 4 R; 3 (SE Texas) could be competitive because of Jefferson County, but would need the right candidate to hold Democrat votes in the rest of the district.

West Texas (6-10) 5 R; though Chet Edwards might be able to hold 9.

Gulf Coast (11) 1 R, though could be competitive.

Border (12-15) 4 D.  15 might be slightly competitive.

DFW (16-22) 6 R and 1 D (22).

Central (23-26) 2-3 R and 1-2 D.  23 and 25 would be R, with 26 D.  24 would be competitive with mix of Travis county with Comal and NE Bexar county.

Houston (27-32) 4 R and 2 D (31 and 32).

Overall, R 21 to 24, D 11 to 8.

[Gustaf]

Sorry, for my ignorance, but is that more Republican seats than now, or less?

[minionofmidas]

Sorry, for my ignorance, but is that more Republican seats than now, or less?

Same basically, but Jim is being very optimistic for his party in East Texas, possibly elsewhere.

[jimrtex]

Sorry, for my ignorance, but is that more Republican seats than now, or less?

Same basically, but Jim is being very optimistic for his party in East Texas, possibly elsewhere.

The current split is 21:11 (22:10 if Edwards were defeated).  Bush carried 25 CDs (4 with a Democrat congressmen - Cuellar, Hinojosa, Ortiz, and Edwards).

A lot would depend if the seats were open, or there was an incumbent Democrat.  Remember that there is one less State Senate seat in Texas than CDs, and there are no Democrat Senators from East Texas.  One GOP senator is running for Ag Commissioner, and no Democrats are seriously challenging for open seat.

1 (Northeast) Sandlin might have held on here, but he had been challenged even under the 90 Democrat gerrymander.
2 (East Texas).  No chance for Democrat in district that includes Tyler, Longview, Lufkin, and Nacogdoches.  Turner represented a district that carefully avoided more populated areas.
3 (South East)  Lampson might have held on, but remember that Jack Brooks was beaten when the district included Galveston and Baytown.  The areas to the north are going to be reluctant to support a candidate from Beaumont.
4. (East Central) The last Democrat to carry this area was Phil Gramm.  Brazos and Washington counties are too strongly Republican for the Democrat areas further north to overcome.
5. (Upper Gulf) Current Democrat Senator from this area is not running for re-election, and GOP pickup is almost certain.  Includes suburbs of San Antonio, Austin, and exurbs of Houston.
6-8. (West Texas)  These are Nebraska-like areas.
9. (Central Texas)  Only Chet Edwards can win this seat for Democrats.  He almost lost it in 2002.
10. (Denton and Parker and nearby areas).  Democrats wouldn't even run.
11. (Galveston Bay).  Houston suburbs balance Galveston and southern mainland of Galveston County, but Brazoria is very Republican, and will outvote Baytown.  SE Harris suburbs will vote GOP.
12-15. (Border) 13 would be a pickup for the Democrats with Bexar Country excluded.
16-22 (DFW).  There is currently one Democrat from the area, and there is no reason that the districts that I have drawn will perform differently.
23-26 (Central).
23. Williamson County and northern Travis County will vote GOP.
24. Includes UT and central and south Austin, but southern parts of district towards San Antonio are extremely Republican areas.
25 and 26.  The two Bexar County seats will split (remember that Bexar is the large county that most closely tracks the national result).
27-32 (Houston).
27-30 will vote Republican, with Democrats only running in 28.
31 and 32 will be reliably Democrat, though primaries will be very interesting since they mix Hispanic and Black areas.

So that's 8 seats the Democrats would win (12-15, 22, 26, 31-32)
4 that they could win (1. 3. 9. 24) and
5 that they would bother to run a candidate (5, 11, 16, 19, 28).