US House Redistricting: Texas

[Torie]

In my first try (up in a couple of days when I get the numbers exactly right), I have managed to create the Hispanic-majority CD from Austin to San Antonio (not that hard really), while completely f-ing the Austin white students many times over (and from strange angles too), and ensuring no return of Chet Edwards or older time Dems.  The Corpus Christi seat may need a little work, but all border seats have been maintained, as per VRA, even though the new TX-27 is designed as a border seat to give the party switcher a chance..

This is my nice map - The Texas GOP could well be meaner in reality.

Do you plan to "publish" your map?

[Torie]

In my first try (up in a couple of days when I get the numbers exactly right), I have managed to create the Hispanic-majority CD from Austin to San Antonio (not that hard really), while completely f-ing the Austin white students many times over (and from strange angles too), and ensuring no return of Chet Edwards or older time Dems.  The Corpus Christi seat may need a little work, but all border seats have been maintained, as per VRA, even though the new TX-27 is designed as a border seat to give the party switcher a chance..

This is my nice map - The Texas GOP could well be meaner in reality.

Do you plan to "publish" your map?

Yes, but I have to clean it up a bit first.

I just post sh*t drafts myself, and clean them up in "public," per the input of others, and as on ongoing work in progress (why or why do I make so many dumb mistakes?). I would  like to think it makes me seem more human to the Forum, as this fossil from another age, another era, does his own thing in his own odd way. 

Plus, I think it kind of interesting, to give others some sense of the roadblocks, and conundrums, that I face, as I try to effect my, well as my younger Dem brother told my a day or two ago, my execrable agenda for a Party as to which he is now rather quite confused, as to just why I have any allegiance, whatsoever.

But I know why.

And so it goes.

[Torie]

In my first try (up in a couple of days when I get the numbers exactly right), I have managed to create the Hispanic-majority CD from Austin to San Antonio (not that hard really), while completely f-ing the Austin white students many times over (and from strange angles too), and ensuring no return of Chet Edwards or older time Dems.  The Corpus Christi seat may need a little work, but all border seats have been maintained, as per VRA, even though the new TX-27 is designed as a border seat to give the party switcher a chance..

This is my nice map - The Texas GOP could well be meaner in reality.

Do you plan to "publish" your map?

Yes, but I have to clean it up a bit first.

Sam, just as a note of caution, the population data is only accurate at the county level. Within counties, Dave Bradlee just assumes everything grew or shrank at the same rate since 2000. That is not such a big deal in relatively stagnant states like Wisconsin, but for a demographically dynamic state like Texas, that will tend to make your maps that take in the high population counties a piece of crap. Muon2 pointed this out to me.

And then there is Michigan, where the Detroit metro area has been shrinking. When the real numbers roll in, that might well help the Pubbies a bit from what one can do per Bradlee's software. I suspect the spots were there has been relative population loss are disproportionately Dem within Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties.

[Torie]

Yes, having now just looked at the question (because I was in a state of total confusion myself), apparently Justice Kennedy was vague in Bartlett v Strickland (did he mean to be vague, or was he just sloppy?), about whether the relevant minority class under the VRA was VAP or citizen VAP. His language just says VAP, but a later lower court opined in REYES v. CITY OF FARMERS BRANCH TEXAS that  given the context of the relevant phrase in Bartlett, and the fact that the issue of VAP versus citizen VAP was not before the Bartlett court, and  that the whole concept of voting means eligible to vote,  what Justice Kennedy really meant to say was citizen VAP, and not just VAP, and so ruled.

And since that lower court was the 5th Circuit, that holding is the governing authority for the moment for Texas, unless and until Justice Kennedy in a later case rules that no, when he wrote VAP, and did not include the qualifier "citizen," that was because he intended not to. It is all very odd, since the lower court in Bartlett which was appealed to SCOTUS, explicitly discussed the issue of citizen versus non-citizen, and explicitly ruled that the relevant number was citizen VAP, and one cannot not include the non citizen minority VAP in the count.

Fun stuff isn't it?

[Torie]

Yes, having now just looked at the question (because I was in a state of total confusion myself), apparently Justice Kennedy was vague in Bartlett v Strickland (did he mean to be vague, or was he just sloppy?), about whether the relevant minority class under the VRA was VAP or citizen VAP. His language just says VAP, but a later lower court opined in REYES v. CITY OF FARMERS BRANCH TEXAS that  given the context of the relevant phrase in Bartlett, and the fact that the issue of VAP versus citizen VAP was not before the Bartlett court, and  that the whole concept of voting means eligible to vote,  what Justice Kennedy really meant to say was citizen VAP, and not just VAP, and so ruled.

And since that lower court was the 5th Circuit, that holding is the governing authority for the moment for Texas, unless and until Justice Kennedy in a later case rules that no, when he wrote VAP, and did not include the qualifier "citizen," that was because he intended not to. It is all very odd, since the lower court in Bartlett which was appealed to SCOTUS, explicitly discussed the issue of citizen versus non-citizen, and explicitly ruled that the relevant number was citizen VAP, and one cannot not include the non citizen minority VAP in the count.

Fun stuff isn't it?

Especially since the 7th Circuit wasn't willing to use a standard like CVAP in Gonzalez v. City of Aurora (2008). They want to compare the approved map to a race neutral map to test for vote dilution. Clearly the two circuits differ in approach and it sets up an inevitable SCOTUS review after the 2011 redistricting IMHO. Many legal experts I've spoke to in the last year agree that the subject of VAP vs CVAP will need clarification by the high court.

And of course, how do you count CVAP when it is not included in the census?  And just why would it seem reasonable that persons not eligible to vote, should be factored in as to whether those eligible to vote can elect someone of their choice? Those Hispanic eligible to vote would be getting a boost from those not eligible to vote to reach the 50% plus one threshold. Under that standard, why don't we count the Hispanic minors too? How are they different from VAP's who are as equally ineligible to vote?

And as to VAP's who are not CVAP's, do we count illegals too, or just legal residents with green cards who are not citizens? Why should illegals have some influence on who gets elected?  Just asking. Heck, if I were Hispanic, but all the rest of the Hispanics were illegals, in my community of interest, and the number of illegals were enough to get to 50% plus one, then I suppose as a practical matter, it should come down to whether someone of my choice can get elected.

The thing is at once ludicrous and a legal mess, and if something other than VAP is the standard, the courts will be saddled with a host of hack experts testifying trying to create inferential data, sometimes, particularly at the margins, out of something akin to thin air as we "decide" which names on the voting rolls seem "Hispanic" for CVAP purposes, and which not. I once knew a Cuban, who looked quite Hispanic, with the name of "Martin."  He would obviously not be counted as Hispanic on the voting rolls. And a fair number of surnames, could be either facially Hispanic or Anglo, not to mention having to deal with Italian and Portuguese surnames, which cross over into Spanish surnames.

SCOTUS has not distinguished itself on this one - at all. JMO of course.

Do you see how the legal advocacy mind works here?  

[Torie]

I wouldn't worry about Sam's metro districts, what with the fact that not nearly all the non-Blacks / non-Mexicans are Anglo. Though who knows.

I'm not worried about the metro districts - so long as they vote the right way, no one will be complaining.  And the Hispanic CDs probably fit under VAP or citizen VAP - if not, adjustments can be made easily to make them compatible.

Anyway, map #2, which I'm working on, is the real way to f-ck Democrats of which there will be a hard time to find complaints to stop it.  The trick is to go back to the old Republican method of splitting Webb County, pitting Cuellar against Hinojosa in CD-15, and design new CD-28 so that it takes in the former border areas of TX-23, the leftover parts of Webb County and then combine them with Midland and Odessa, thus giving us Conaway as an incumbent.  I can get to 62.74% Hispanic population (definitely good enough for VAP or CVAP) and 55.07% McCain numbers while making everything look nice and pretty.

I am finding that drawing really good maps requires a heck of a lot of work, Sam, precinct by precinct, and of course the larger number of CD's involved, the more the work. I found PA to be a bear, and Texas must be an utter nightmare. Can you imagine what will be involved to draw CA, with all those rules as an overlay?  Oh dear!

You can't just spend a couple of hours with your mouse, and call it a day. Not for this endeavor.

[Torie]

OK, but I suggest that you darken the colors by reducing the opacity level. Color choices for each CD are also important. But then you do have an artistic side I know.  You probably are a closet metrosexual.

[Torie]

Sam's Texas map version 1. Sam you seem to have a hanging precinct in South Texas. But I did that in PA, because to do otherwise meant going through a 90% Obama precinct or two to get to South Philly to append to PA-07 (a zone that was very sorely needed to append to PA-07), so I noted that a couple of precinct lines would simply have to be redrawn (so that the connection could be over the Philly airport runway, and a Gulf Oil tank farm)!







Dallas


Austin-San Antonio


Houston


South Texas


Sam TX Map version 2 (change in CD's in San Antonio-Houston corridor from version 1)

[Torie]

Fresh from Lloyd Doggett's Facebook page:

The DOJ rejected the Texas maps.

Litigation time - perhaps all the way to SCOTUS.

[Torie]

Surely you don't think that erose excresence you drew is legally required by the VRA do you Muon2? Or do you?    That is the issue here: what the courts will deem legally required. What will Justice Kennedy think?  Nothing else much matters.

[Torie]

Surely you don't think that erose excresence you drew is legally required by the VRA do you Muon2? Or do you?    That is the issue here: what the courts will deem legally required. What will Justice Kennedy think?  Nothing else much matters.

Well, IL-4 has been legally required since 1990, and its long thin link through railroad yards and cemeteries to connect two different communities is arguably worse than what I drew. I do know that both districts I drew should be able to elect candidates of the minority group's choice. I think that Kennedy dislikes partisan gerrymandering (see Vieth), and will look for other bases in the law to overturn it when it is otherwise non-justiciable (see LULAC).

Yes, but isn't that about preserving some CD rather than creating another net? Or was it entirely a new net minority CD judicially mandated?  SCOTUS ruled that IL-04 was legally required?

[Torie]

http://www.kwtx.com/centraltexasvotes/localheadlines/_Panel_Says_Temporary_Texas_Voting_District_Map_Unlikely_133004788.html

A three-judge federal panel in San Antonio says it's unlikely that it will approve district maps to be used temporarily for next year's congressional primaries while legal challenges to Texas redistricting proceed.



Interesting.

The court bounced the map. The Pubbies think they will have another bite out of the apple. I assume they counted on that when they over-reached. If they didn't, or don't get another bite, they are in a word, colossal dumbs.

[Torie]

I wonder if this portends that SCOTUS is going to chop back on the VRA (as interpreted by prior courts), something that would not surprise me at all. The VRA in my opinion is out of control. Scalia must have enjoyed issuing that stay.

[Torie]

16th District reverts in primary.


Past practise of the DoJ in 1984 [Mississippi] and 2004 [Texas] has been to redraw a yet heavier minority district if the "wrong" candidate won [White Republican in Mississippi and Hispanic Republican in Texas.] Could we see El Paso redrawn to exclude as many Whites as possible?

Only if the counties involved are subject to Section 5 of the VRA, which may not see another year of life before SCOTUS axes it.

[Torie]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That's pretty clearcut, and the maps are of course ones drawn by Republicans, as emended by the courts, as opposed to actual court-drawn maps. A new even more Republican map will inevitably come under close court scrutiny yet again.

Whether all of the Texas House and Senate Republican caucus see things the same way is another matter entirely.

Gov. Rick Perry could decide to veto voting maps recently completed by the Texas Legislature as a result of today's decision from the Supreme Court, calling a new special session and allowing conservatives to pass new maps that would have not passed under the now defunct Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.




There is some discussion that the maps passed by the legislature in 2011 are now immediately in effect until Rick Perry decides to sign the interim maps into permanent maps.

The difference is a handful of House districts, 1 congressional district, and perhaps 1 Senate district.

TX-23 still needs to be 50% Hispanic CVAP does it not?  Did the 2011 map meet that number?