Texas 2020 House Apportioment

[lfromnj]

Why can't the texas GOP gerrymander the Beoumont district? Is it VRA protected?

[lfromnj]

Didnt Beto come pretty close in the core Lubbock district? it was something like a 10 point loss or something like that.

[lfromnj]

Also it is now physically possible to create a D district in the panhandle in Texas. Obviously not allowed due to the county split rule and its a Blatant D gerrymander district

https://twitter.com/mattmxhn/status/1112211634305552384

[lfromnj]

Its not the percentage margins of the votes especially with regards to congressional districts, its rather the raw votes that causes the geographical bias, hispanics are super low turnout and Democrats demand VRA fajita districts to even expand their geographical bias further. Low turnout means less votes wasted per precint.

[lfromnj]

Jimtrex any chance that Texas switches to CVAP for legislative redistricting to make sure "minority districts are truly preserved " throughout the state ? This would probably shift 2 from the RGV/1 from El paso/ 2 from houston/ 2 in SA and 1 in Dallas to GOP areas.

[lfromnj]

Thanks a lot jim
Anyway a key part will be if Missouri passes the new ballot initiative which has CVAP redistricting

[lfromnj]

Thanks a lot jim
Anyway a key part will be if Missouri passes the new ballot initiative which has CVAp redistricting

Why does this matter, for MO-05? I don’t think Republicans are bold enough to try and split Kansas City 2 or 3 ways. I can’t imagine Hartzler being fine with having both Boone County and a big slice of Kansas Cory in her seat. Or Graves being happy with having Clay County, Platte County and another slice of Kansas City. Even if both would probably be fine from a PVI standpoint if you drew it three ways, that still invites some potential chaos in a bad year, and incumbents don’t want that.

It's quite easy and relatively  clean to split kansas city 3 ways with all 3 seats being right of Missiuri.
Anyway missouri is complicated because I'm only talking about state legislative districts
In 2010 it was a bipartisan commission that deadlocked and went to the courts
Democrats cry now because Missouri is awful for them geographically and in 2018 sneaked a popular ethics reform thing with a new legislative redistricting proposal that let's one person basically chosen by the state auditor ( only statewide Democrat) make the map. Also requires minimizing the efficiency gap as the top priority which means baconmandering st Louis.
So the GOP is playing back and doing more ethics reform changes along with reverting the redistricting back to the commission.
The main change is the commission must now redistrict on CVAP to follow one man one vote. This means even less seats based in the cities. Anyway its clear the current proposal which requires a minimization of the efficiency gap is basically a Democrat Gerrymander(remember by the efficiency gap Illinois is considered a Republican gerrymander)

In Missouri CVAP redistricting doesn't really matter too much. Not a lot of hispanics or kids even in the cities. It probably costs Democrats maybe 1 or 2 seats at the state legislative level out of 180 seats. SCOTUS will probably allow this in Missouri . If the Texas state house could do it it would completely change the name of the game in the state house. All the cities lose seats. The RGV would lose 2 seats. El paso loses 1 . Dallas D areas lose 2. Harris loses 2 and theres internal shifts within Harris itself that probably costs D's another seat while Austin probably gains one. This makes a whole net gain of like 7 seats to Safe R areas.

For congressional seats in Missouri check out this thread
https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=367901.0
Its very easy for a 7-1 Missouri.

[lfromnj]

Thanks a lot jim
Anyway a key part will be if Missouri passes the new ballot initiative which has CVAP redistricting

Is there some constitutional requirement in Missouri that you can't directly override an initiated amendment? Or are they just angling for a better ballot title?

The initiative had set a gift limit from lobbyists of $5, which the new measure reduces to $0.

The initiative had set a contribution limit of $2500 to senatorial candidates, which the new measure reduces to $2400 and eliminates the cost-of-living adjustment for both senators and legislators.

It is not clear that the measure provides for use of CVAP. I wouldn't have caught that without your comment and a news article. Since the requirement is "districts shall be drawn on the basis of one person, one vote, using data reported in the federal decennial
census", it might have to use VAP. That might not make a particular difference in Missouri without a particularly large immigrant population.

One thing I missed on my Texas reply was that the House redistricting committee has held a number of hearings. I have listened to the first one, but not others, so I don't know whether the issue of CVAP has been brought up. The second hearing was supposed to have legal experts testify.

The point in Missouri is its easier to uphold in court. It only costs democrats like 1.5 state house seats and probably helps them in the state senate by making the Columbia seat more D.