The rules for drawing house districts really hampers the Texas GOP. You can't just connect Dallas, Harris and Travis counties with exurban/rural areas and create GOP districts that way. They have to stay within the county, which was fine when there were plenty of Republican leaning suburbs within those counties. Not the case anymore.
Oh damn then yeah, they can’t really do a whole lot to re-gerrymander the maps before 2020 with that restriction if true. I was thinking they’d for sure try to do a mid-decade redistricting and try to draw out the new Dems in seats in Williamson and Denton County but that would just open them up to even more dummymander potential if they are restricted to keeping those seats within those counties since these places are zooming left fast.
I think they'd have to try for one safe D seat in each of the suburban counties and hope they can hold on to the rest for a decade in the 2020 redistricting regardless.
And that's of course assuming that Dems don't flip the chamber, which if Betos coalition holds, it can probably be done with 47%. If it does, then things get weird: everything from fair maps to a dirty deal that has Pubs Gerry Congress/Senate and Dems Gerry the House is a possibility.
