2020 Texas Redistricting thread

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https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328

Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

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https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

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https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

Yeah why would we assume any different.  It's exactly what they did with abortion.  Texas Republicans really seem to be bottom of the GOP barrel in terms of integrity.

It is quite silly to behave as though the TX abortion law has any bearing or gives any clue to how they might behave in redistricting. What is clear is that TX has a long-standing tradition of gerrymandering, in both parties.

The point in bringing up the abortion law is that this session of the Texas Legislature shows they are not afraid of court challenges and fighting precedent

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

Yeah why would we assume any different.  It's exactly what they did with abortion.  Texas Republicans really seem to be bottom of the GOP barrel in terms of integrity.

It is quite silly to behave as though the TX abortion law has any bearing or gives any clue to how they might behave in redistricting. What is clear is that TX has a long-standing tradition of gerrymandering, in both parties.

The point in bringing up the abortion law is that this session of the Texas Legislature shows they are not afraid of court challenges and fighting precedent

It's a pretty weak argument. It'd be more pertinent to talk about the history of litigation in regards to TX redistricting.
In which case, the most recent precedent on that suggests they won't do very much, if it has any weight at all. (Their post-2012 map preserved VRA districts while drawing some in particularly advantageous manner for Rs - see TX-23)
What does "ignore VRA districts" even mean? Draw a 95% Latino pack along the Rio Grande? Place Midland in TX-23? Precisely how is "insane map" even being defined as?

Things like breaking up Fort Worth and El Paso to an extreme, packing the RGV, splitting El Paso, things like that. And an “insane” map as in a dozen or less democrats

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So I was trying out my "Damn the Courts!" idea and I was able to get the map down to an 11-27 map, wit one of them being a swing (R+1 in the RGV). It does score an 80 on Dave's for minority representation. I'd wager there'd be roughly a dozen minority representatives, three to six might actually be republicans.



View the map here:
https://davesredistricting.org/join/e07b1154-e468-405c-aeb1-f7b1fa175965

Personally I hate this map and no one show this to the TXGOP

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So I was trying out my "Damn the Courts!" idea and I was able to get the map down to an 11-27 map, wit one of them being a swing (R+1 in the RGV). It does score an 80 on Dave's for minority representation. I'd wager there'd be roughly a dozen minority representatives, three to six might actually be republicans.



View the map here:
https://davesredistricting.org/join/e07b1154-e468-405c-aeb1-f7b1fa175965

Personally I hate this map and no one show this to the TXGOP

That insane illegal Pubmander fantasy of yours seem to have netted the Pubs a grand total of one seat as opposed to something that might actually be legal and realistic. You know, like the map I drew after about 20 drafts. Congrats!

Thank you for taking the map I made for stress relief and mostly a joke and using it to make me feel bad and stressed when I was essentially already having a meltdown
Congrats!

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Do you know who's favoured in the Austin Thunderdome for the new ultra blue district ?

Wendy Davis?  She ran in neighboring TX-21 against Chip Roy in 2020.  Only lost by 7 points.

Susan Eckhardt is the current state senator for most of Austin, has previously served as Travis county Judge and Daughter of a congressman so she’s definitely a contender

Celia Israel is another interesting choice as she’s a current state representative and has been for some time. She would be the first elected (out) LGBT federal politician from the southeast and has connections to several progressive organizations.

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I expect this to get a rather unhappy reception in the courts.

It would be beautiful if this massively backfires and the courts draw a dem majority map

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All the GOP did was obviously delay the inevitable.

https://twitter.com/DrewSav/status/1452339850846277636?s=20

Hope and prey by 2024 they’ll start flipping to the point of getting an even/dem advantage map

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Is the new TX-37th the most democratic district in the country?

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Is the new TX-37th the most democratic district in the country?

Probably not...hard to beat out CDs centered on the Bronx. But it definitely is in good contention for the title of most Democratic district in the South.

Yea I see that now. I was misinterpreting 538’s eating and reading them like cook PVI

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Is the new TX-37th the most democratic district in the country?

Probably not...hard to beat out CDs centered on the Bronx. But it definitely is in good contention for the title of most Democratic district in the South.

Yea I see that now. I was misinterpreting 538’s eating and reading them like cook PVI

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2021-10-01/new-austin-congressional-district-would-help-protect-gop-incumbents/
Found this article by chance. It's only 73.8% Biden? There are districts more Dem than that in Texas (TX-30, for instance) and there are even more Dem seats in the South (Georgia-5).

ya see whay had happened was I saw on 538 had it as "D+44" and I was thinkin in PVI and was like"whoa" cause that is just about the highest you can get in PVI. Turnsout I was just bad at comprehension

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Cleanest possible Texas gerrymander I could draw; it's based a lot of the GOP drawn maps but tbh, it's hard to get much better from a partisanship standpoint without getting too risky. However, in this map Houston is reduced to just 3 Dem seats and the South Texas fajitas get slightly better for Rs. Also TX-23 is split in half. This map would face a lot of VRA challenges, idk how successful they'd be though.

[snipy snap]

How has the Dallas area and Houston area districts shifted over the years?

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Apparently the justice department wants to look through the Texas map drawer's DRA.

That’s weirdly specific? Why do they want to do that? Are they trying to establish a pattern? If they look through mine they’d be baffled at it with all the weird maps