2020 Texas Redistricting thread

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here we go again ig

Predictions?

Predictions for what?

Redistricting; they’re taking it up again and are gonna make some changes.

For congress, or just the legislative maps?

I think for both, but can’t confirm. There’s a few articles on it but the information is vague.

The main concerns seem to be that they passed the maps too late in the previous session cause of delayed census, and some legal concerns around the maps.

They can’t honestly do much more in terms of maximizing their gerrymanders.

For congressional, they could theoretically crack heavily Hispanic TX-29 in Houston but that could cuss a VRA legal issue. They might also try to optimize the RGV a bit more. Idk.

My understanding is the Texas constitution requires state legislative redistricting to pass in the first *regular* session after the new census data is received.  Because the 2020 census data wasn't received until after the regular session that year ended, maps had to be passed in the special session that would presumably be valid only for 2022 and then replaced for the decade by whatever the 2023 session draws.

There should be no constitutional obligation to redo the congressional map, but there's nothing prohibiting it either in Texas. 

Ah thanks for this specific insight.

Tbh, it's pretty hard to make the State Senate or State House map much more maximal or secure, especially with the county-splitting rules. Maybe they'll try to further optimize the partisan balance of a lot of these Trump + 10ish suburban state House seats to try and push the median seat to the right of the state as much as physically possible.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here we go again ig

Predictions?

Predictions for what?

Redistricting; they’re taking it up again and are gonna make some changes.

For congress, or just the legislative maps?

I think for both, but can’t confirm. There’s a few articles on it but the information is vague.

The main concerns seem to be that they passed the maps too late in the previous session cause of delayed census, and some legal concerns around the maps.

They can’t honestly do much more in terms of maximizing their gerrymanders.

For congressional, they could theoretically crack heavily Hispanic TX-29 in Houston but that could cuss a VRA legal issue. They might also try to optimize the RGV a bit more. Idk.

My understanding is the Texas constitution requires state legislative redistricting to pass in the first *regular* session after the new census data is received.  Because the 2020 census data wasn't received until after the regular session that year ended, maps had to be passed in the special session that would presumably be valid only for 2022 and then replaced for the decade by whatever the 2023 session draws.

There should be no constitutional obligation to redo the congressional map, but there's nothing prohibiting it either in Texas. 

Back in 1950 or so, the legislature was failing to redistrict after the Census. An amendment was passed that said if the legislature failed to redistrict in the first regular season after the census data is received, the Legislative Redistricting Board (LRB) will take over. The LRB is made up of state officers (Lieutenant Governor, AG, Comptroller, House Speaker, and Land Commissioner).

The legislature is likely to produce an incumbent protection plan - in order to be able to pass the plan. The LRB is likely to produce a more radical plan because they are not worried about incumbents and they are a smaller body. They can just let one person, likely the AG, draw the map. The normal procedure is for each body to draw their own map. Then when the bills go over to the opposite chamber, they station doormen at the doors of the chambers which are at opposite ends of the Capitol. They then gavel the bills passed simultaneously.

In 2021 the census data was received after the regular session which is tightly restricted in Texas to end around Memorial Day. It is pretty well recognized law in Texas that the legislature may redistrict at any time (they typically do this to ratify any litigation), or depending when the decision comes down the court will let the plan be used for MCD2, and order the legislature to prepare a new plan for MCD4.

There was litigation in state court that the legislature did not have authority to redistrict last fall. I think the Democrats either wanted a court to draw a map (i.e. if the legislature could not draw a map then nobody could, and a court would have to intervene for equal protection grounds that the districts were not equal population, or maybe they wanted the old districts to be used). In any event the Texas Supreme Court agreed that the redistricting was constitutional (with respect to process).

Since it was understood that the legislature would be drawing new districts, the federal court stayed any litigation. I think this also covered congressional districts.

The district court probably wanted to see how the SCOTUS will rule on the Alabama and Louisiana cases, knowing that the SCOTUS would probably stay any district court ruling.

A curiosity is that senate terms are staggered, but the terms are drawn after all 31 senators are elected. Half will draw an initial 2-year term, and so the district will elect in 2022, 2024, and 2028. The other districts will elect in 2022, 2026, and 2030, with the last election for a 2-year term.

So after this newest redistricting, all 31 senators will face election in 2024. In 2025, there will be a drawing for terms.

There was redistricting before the 1992, 1994, and 1996 elections. But rather than have a drawing in 1997, the Senate consents to a court order, rather actually pass a bill. AG Dan Morales, before he went to prison, said this was OK.

In your view, what likely changed (if any) do you think are likely. In places like Collin County, there seems to be a real dummymander risk, and perhaps the GOP drew it with the intention that’s it’d be redrawn to be further optimized.

But tbh, given Ds insane geography edge, there’s not much you can do to shore up the state House. Any map that tries to keep Ds at 65 or below likely doenst push the median seat much to the right of the state, but ceding 70+ seats to Dems may feel too close for comfort even if technically the median seat is pushed right.

For State Senate, they could eliminate one of the south TX Hispanic seats given it seems like in a few cases, they actually gave the D state sens what they wanted plus this SCOTUS seems more lax on VRA. The rest of the state senate map is ridiculous ugly but can’t honestly be made much more maximal.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Ya'll wanna work on fair maps to submit to the committee.

Not that it'll affect anything, but better to do smtg with your interests ig.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Ig there’s several options as to what to submit:

1. A truly fair map the committee likely flat out ignores, but points out some of the missed minority seats that could be.

2. A fairer map that tries to meet the committee where they’re at (not throwing any incumbents under the bus), perhaps by creating more competitive seats overall and getting rid of the more extreme tentacles.

3. A version of the current map that makes small non-controversial iterations that don’t really affect partisanship in the name of improving the map.

4. Drawing an alternative gerrymander that’s even more effective.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Ya'll wanna work on fair maps to submit to the committee.

Not that it'll affect anything, but better to do smtg with your interests ig.

My House plan from 2021

FF map, ig my only thing is don’t Harris and Dallas have to be their own “cluster”?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Ya'll wanna work on fair maps to submit to the committee.

Not that it'll affect anything, but better to do smtg with your interests ig.

My House plan from 2021

FF map, ig my only thing is don’t Harris and Dallas have to be their own “cluster”?

That is based on an erroneous interpretation of the Texas Constitution.

Dallas is entitled to 13.451 representatives, Harris to 24.349, and Bexar to 10.341. According to the text of the constitution, Dallas is apportioned to 13 representatives, and has a surplus of 0.451. The surplus of 0.451 can be combined with Rockwall which is entitled to 0.555. Collectively, Dallas and Rockwall have a population of 14.006 representatives. We can draw 14 districts with an error of 0.04%. This is in perfect comportment with the directive that representatives be apportioned among the counties as "as nearly as may be."

The The Texas Constitution also specifies that Dallas has 13 representatives. And that Dallas and Rockwall should have one representative. It does not say whether the 13 representatives be represented by district, by position, by plurality (Top 13) or some proportional method.

But the floterial district combining Dallas and Rockwall clearly violates equal protection. Rockwall is supplying 55% of the population, but has only 4.0% of the electorate (more or less depending on the distribution of citizen adults).

The Texas Supreme harmonized this conflict, by saying that you can combine an area containing a population equal to the surplus with adjacent counties (whole or an area containing their surplus population). That is what I did.

Equal protection (and the VRA) forbid election of 13 representatives countywide, at least when there are distinct racial areas that have distinct political opinions, within a county that can be formed into districts. It might be constitutional to use a proportional election method - but that seems inconsistent with other areas electing only one representative.

Combining Dallas and Rockwall is correct for apportionment purposes. It is not correct for electoral purposes if one representative is assigned to the whole of the two counties, and 13 representatives to the whole of Dallas County.

It is nonsensical to say that Lubbock, El Paso, Webb, Hidalgo, Cameron, Nueces, Hays, Travis, McLennan, Denton, Collin, Smith, Jefferson, Galveston, Fort Bend, Montgomery, and Brazos should be combined with adjacent counties in a particular way, and Harris, Dallas, and Bexar may not even though they do have large surpluses.

Ignoring the surplus can produce a systemic bias. Imagine you were going through a cafeteria line, and the cook was dishing out mashed potatoes. They scoop and get roughly 1/2 cup for each customer. This is fair, even though it is not precisely a 1/2 cup. If they took the time to weigh each portion, and then used a teaspoon to add a bit more, or subtract a bit, the line would stall, and some students might not even be served.

Now imagine if you watched, and the cook consistently scooped deeper for students dressed in red, and shallower for those dressed in blue, or perhaps did this based on race. Even though the scoops were within +/- 5% of 1/2 cup there is a systemic bias.

Now what if every district in Dallas County averaged 3.9% less than the quota? That is a systemic bias that delivers extra representation to Dallas County.

Or what if every district in Dallas County (13 districts) averaged 3.5% more than the quota, every district in Bexar County (10 districts) averaged 3.4% more than the quota, and every district in Harris County (24 districts) averaged 1.45% more than the quota?

You would just have apportioned 47 districts to 3 counties that are entitled to 48.140 representatives. You have shorted them a whole representative that you have given to the rest of the state. But it will be impossible to give each other of 102 districts, -1.12% less. In East Texas because of the generally larger county populations you will be forced to have some districts with surpluses, this will mean that in West Texas you can consistently create underpopulated districts.

After Reynolds v. Sims, a provision in the Texas Constitution that limited representation of the largest counties was ruled to be unconstitutional. This provision limited representation to counties that were entitled to more than 7 representatives. It had been added after the 1930 Census when Harris, Dallas, and Bexar counties first would have been apportioned more than 7 representatives. It has since been deleted from the Constitution.

In addition floterial districts were outlawed, and the practice ever since has been to recognize a surplus as an area with a population equivalent to the surplus. Note that in some instances the remainder of the county elected its representatives at large.

1972 House Districts (PDF)

In this map notice that the outlying areas of Tarrant County are combined with Parker County in a single member district, while the central area (Fort Worth, Arlington, HEB, etc. are in a single district electing 9 representatives.

Notice also that HD-17 in Harris County extends into Chambers and Galveston County. In effect it is formed from the surpluses of Harris and Galveston counties and the entirety of Chambers County. Similarly, HD-45 is formed from a surplus of Bexar County and 6 other counties. Rather than being treated as irregular, they are normative.

1976 House Districts

At-large elections were outlawed, requiring the creation of single member districts in Tarrant, Travis, and throughout the state, but the treatment of the surpluses in Harris, Bexar, and Tarrant were treated the same (the area in Tarrant combined with Parker was modified, but it is still an area with the surplus population).

In the 1960's the structural problems (1) restriction of representation for largest counties, and use of floterial districts were eliminated. Because districts had to be added to Harris, Dallas, Bexar and Tarrant counties, the rest of the state had to be reapportioned.

Following the 1970 Census, the legislature completely ignored the Texas Constitution and divided the state into 150 districts often ignoring county lines. In particular they attempted to carve a young Republican from Midland County, Tom Craddick, out of his district. Craddick sued (Craddick v Smith) and won. The Texas Supreme Court required that surpluses be handled in the way they are today.

The 1972 map was drawn after this decision. That map was challenged in federal court appealed to the SCOTUS (White v Regester). That decision (1) upheld the district courts decision mandating single-member districts in Dallas and Bexar counties; (2) remanded to the district court whether other multi-member counties (e.g. Tarrant and Travis) should also be single-member districts. The district court later determined that this should be done in all counties except Hidalgo (i.e. in Hidalgo it is impossible to draw a non-majority Hispanic district). Since that time all districts have been single member, even in Hidalgo County; and (3) that the 10% range of deviation in the plan did not violate equal protection.

This has since been made a national standard by the SCOTUS. Technically it is a burden shifting threshold. If the deviation range is greater than 10%, the defendant (state or local jurisdiction must justify the deviation). If the deviation range is less than 10%, the plaintiff must prove that deviation is not justified (e.g., the deviation was biased with discriminatory intent or significantly less deviation could be achieved while following state requirements such as observing county boundaries).

You will notice in the 1972 map that Red River County is split. It is impossible to draw a district that includes Bowie and one of its neighbors that is within 5% deviation. Relative populations are Bowie (0.908), Cass (0.323), Red River (0.192), and Morris (0.169).

Bowie alone would be -9.2% underpopulated, Bowie and Morris would +7.7% overpopulated. Bowie and Morris might have also blocked formation of other districts.

I personally would have split the larger county, Bowie, putting Texarkana with Cass, and keeping Red River whole. But that is a policy decision, and neither configuration complies with the Texas Constitution. This situation has led to a believe that "you will always have to split a smaller county", rather than the correct observation that "you may have to split a smaller county". The current official map splits Henderson County because of this false belief.

You will also notice that Smith, Brazoria, Jefferson, and Hidalgo have two surplus areas (you may have to zoom in to see the latter two). These are of dubious compliance with the Texas Constitution since these intended to be conversion of floterial districts. In effect, Smith (1.301) would have had its own district, and a majority of the population of two other districts. I don't think these were necessary in 1970, though it would have required rearrangements of districts.

In the 1976 map, the second surplus area in Jefferson County was eliminated when single-member districts were drawn.

After the 1980 Census, the legislature completely forgot all they had been told in the 1970's and willy-nilly chopped up counties. The Texas Supreme Court overruled the map. It had so many errors that they also said that treating large counties that had a surplus as not having a surplus when it could be smudged around within the county.

What is a reasonable definition of when a surplus must be recognized? For moderate-sized counties, the surplus must be recognized when the average district size within a county has a absolute relative deviation per representative is greater than 5%; OR when the total deviation for the county is between 25% and 75% (i.e. roughly 1/2); OR when recognizing a surplus can avoid dividing a small county, or not having the maximum number of whole districts within a county entitled to one or more districts, or having more than one county fragment.

When Texas was mostly rural, counties in eastern Texas were entitled to one or two representatives, or somewhere in between. Counties were formed so that farmers could get to the courthouse when necessary. Farms were roughly of the same size - farmed by a single family without mechanized equipment. So rural counties had roughly had the same number of people. It is only with urbanization that the counties began to diverge.

So if a county had the population equivalent to one or two representatives could be apportioned those representatives. Then the legislature could add a floterial district when a couple of adjacent counties were entitled to about 1.5 representatives (or 1.6 and 1.4; or 1.4 and 1.4; or 1.6 and 1.3; or 1.7 and 1.4; etc.) You can see in the old bill books where amendments have been hand-written in when someone found where an additional floterial district could be created. This was a reasonable solution when elections were administered wholly at the county level. There is no reason not to continue this use practice even with the largest counties.

Ah thank you for this thorough analysis.

Under the GOP's lineas, then it makes sense why the GOP just did 13 Dallas seats, 10 Bexar seats, and 24 Harris seats if on net they're denying Ds a seat from all these deep blue counties. This really is a case where every seat matters because of how extreme Ds geography edge is.

Ig that begs the question, on the current map, under what you're stating, would the Hidalgo-Cameron-Willacy group be problematic because that is 2 floterial districts and 35 specifically doesn't is shared between Hidalgo and Cameron without being a clear Floterial for either.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Will anything be touched here?

Potential problems:

-South Texas is always a battleground for obvious reasons; if the current map is illegal or not in that regard depends on the interepreter

-Not having a 2nd Hispanic seat fully within Bexar; you could create 2 solid Hispanic seats fully within Bexar and an opportunity seat in Austin. This is honestly prolly the strongest current argument against the current map.

-Dallas could have another functional minority seat

-Houston is weird cause you have 2 black and 1 hispanic seat when based on population it should be the other way around. You could do 2 black and 2 Hispanic seats though

Again, I think I need more specifics of the ruling. Does it mandate opportunity seats or keeping clear communities or minorities whole, or only seats that are outright majority?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Will anything be touched here?

Potential problems:

-South Texas is always a battleground for obvious reasons; if the current map is illegal or not in that regard depends on the interepreter

-Not having a 2nd Hispanic seat fully within Bexar; you could create 2 solid Hispanic seats fully within Bexar and an opportunity seat in Austin. This is honestly prolly the strongest current argument against the current map.

-Dallas could have another functional minority seat

-Houston is weird cause you have 2 black and 1 hispanic seat when based on population it should be the other way around. You could do 2 black and 2 Hispanic seats though

Again, I think I need more specifics of the ruling. Does it mandate opportunity seats or keeping clear communities or minorities whole, or only seats that are outright majority?

If Republicans don’t have a case in New Mexico, Democrats don’t have a case in Texas. The Hispanic population is not politically cohesive. Now, the five liberals on the court have ignored logic before, but that sort of shameless double standard is beyond even them.

Under that’s argument, the current TX-35 connects very in cohesive cohorts of Hisapanic voters whereas 2 districts nested entirely within Bexar would represent cohesive community of Hispanics.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Will anything be touched here?

Potential problems:

-South Texas is always a battleground for obvious reasons; if the current map is illegal or not in that regard depends on the interepreter

-Not having a 2nd Hispanic seat fully within Bexar; you could create 2 solid Hispanic seats fully within Bexar and an opportunity seat in Austin. This is honestly prolly the strongest current argument against the current map.

-Dallas could have another functional minority seat

-Houston is weird cause you have 2 black and 1 hispanic seat when based on population it should be the other way around. You could do 2 black and 2 Hispanic seats though

Again, I think I need more specifics of the ruling. Does it mandate opportunity seats or keeping clear communities or minorities whole, or only seats that are outright majority?

If Republicans don’t have a case in New Mexico, Democrats don’t have a case in Texas. The Hispanic population is not politically cohesive. Now, the five liberals on the court have ignored logic before, but that sort of shameless double standard is beyond even them.

Under that’s argument, the current TX-35 connects very in cohesive cohorts of Hisapanic voters whereas 2 districts nested entirely within Bexar would represent cohesive community of Hispanics.

Drawing two majority Hispanic districts in a county that is 59% Hispanic would require an obvious gerrymander that would deny the white minority the ability to elect the candidate of their choice. This should not be required under the VRA if it is applied neutrally.

That's just terrible logic.



The blue area is udner 60% white, and could hold approximately 10 CDs. You think you could draw a single functional VRA seat within this region? No. That's because direct proportionality tends to be impossible.

Alsoi Bexar can hold almost 3 seats entirely within it. So if the County is 60% Hispanic, having 2 Hispanic seats and 1 white seats is the fairest thing you could do.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Will anything be touched here?

Potential problems:

-South Texas is always a battleground for obvious reasons; if the current map is illegal or not in that regard depends on the interepreter

-Not having a 2nd Hispanic seat fully within Bexar; you could create 2 solid Hispanic seats fully within Bexar and an opportunity seat in Austin. This is honestly prolly the strongest current argument against the current map.

-Dallas could have another functional minority seat

-Houston is weird cause you have 2 black and 1 hispanic seat when based on population it should be the other way around. You could do 2 black and 2 Hispanic seats though

Again, I think I need more specifics of the ruling. Does it mandate opportunity seats or keeping clear communities or minorities whole, or only seats that are outright majority?

If Republicans don’t have a case in New Mexico, Democrats don’t have a case in Texas. The Hispanic population is not politically cohesive. Now, the five liberals on the court have ignored logic before, but that sort of shameless double standard is beyond even them.

Under that’s argument, the current TX-35 connects very in cohesive cohorts of Hisapanic voters whereas 2 districts nested entirely within Bexar would represent cohesive community of Hispanics.

Drawing two majority Hispanic districts in a county that is 59% Hispanic would require an obvious gerrymander that would deny the white minority the ability to elect the candidate of their choice. This should not be required under the VRA if it is applied neutrally.

That's just terrible logic.



The blue area is udner 60% white, and could hold approximately 10 CDs. You think you could draw a single functional VRA seat within this region? No. That's because direct proportionality tends to be impossible.

Alsoi Bexar can hold almost 3 seats entirely within it. So if the County is 60% Hispanic, having 2 Hispanic seats and 1 white seats is the fairest thing you could do.

Trump clearly won a majority of Hispanic voters in that area. The VRA does not mandate Democratic seats in cases where the minority group is majority Republican. Bexar County has the population for 2.62 districts, so drawing two performing majority Hispanic districts there requires massive gerrymandering.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/ad6490f1-744e-47f0-8528-53676e11c080

Here's an example of a map. TX-20 sinks the most heavily Hispanic parts of Bexar to be nearly 3/4ths Hispanic. TX-21 is just under 50% but still functional, and TX-35 which takes in Comal and Guadlupe Counties is still 35% Hispanic. If the County is 60% Hispanic and has 2.6 seats and many of the counties immediately surrounding it have notable Hispanic populations, it's basically impossible to not draw at the very least 1 functional Hispanic seat and 1 strong opportunity seat that will probably become functional as the Hispanic population grows.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/ad6490f1-744e-47f0-8528-53676e11c080

Here's my first draft of a VRA complient and fair Texas (2020 Pres shown above).

One thing that makes Texas tricky is that there are a lot of places where you can reach 30 or 40% seats pretty easily but actually getting over 50% without doing something absurd becomes tricky. In many cases though a 40% black district can be functional.

Another challenge in particuar with Dallas and Houston metros is that a lot of these VRA seats sort of compete with each other and are difficult to draw all at once just due to how mixed together different racial groups are.

I also tried to make Asian opportunity seats in both Dallas and Houston (TX-03 and TX-07 respectively). However in this case TX-07 came at a bit of the expense of TX-09 which is the black seat in South Houston.

Also I still wanna figure out what to do with RGV; I don't like fajitas but I'm also not a fan of this config. I wanna give TX-28 more border and TX-34 more inland while not making 34 a fajita.

I would say so far I'm most happy with I-35 corridor Austin-San Antonio districts. It creates 2 VRA Hispanic seats and one that should be functional, and generally abides to city lines and COIs quite well. Still want to fix Houston and RGV in particular; I think Dallas is close to an ideal config but needs some changes, and I think the ways rurals are chopped up could be better.

Please give feedback/suggestions.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/ad6490f1-744e-47f0-8528-53676e11c080

Here's my first draft of a VRA complient and fair Texas (2020 Pres shown above).

One thing that makes Texas tricky is that there are a lot of places where you can reach 30 or 40% seats pretty easily but actually getting over 50% without doing something absurd becomes tricky. In many cases though a 40% black district can be functional.

Another challenge in particuar with Dallas and Houston metros is that a lot of these VRA seats sort of compete with each other and are difficult to draw all at once just due to how mixed together different racial groups are.

I also tried to make Asian opportunity seats in both Dallas and Houston (TX-03 and TX-07 respectively). However in this case TX-07 came at a bit of the expense of TX-09 which is the black seat in South Houston.

Also I still wanna figure out what to do with RGV; I don't like fajitas but I'm also not a fan of this config. I wanna give TX-28 more border and TX-34 more inland while not making 34 a fajita.

I would say so far I'm most happy with I-35 corridor Austin-San Antonio districts. It creates 2 VRA Hispanic seats and one that should be functional, and generally abides to city lines and COIs quite well. Still want to fix Houston and RGV in particular; I think Dallas is close to an ideal config but needs some changes, and I think the ways rurals are chopped up could be better.

Please give feedback/suggestions.

There's actually a pretty easy group of three districts that you can nest into the Austin area-- Williamson, Travis, Hays, Bastrop, Caldwell, and Lee are a perfect size for three seats.

Personally I like to do things like this:

Damn that works out quite nice

[ProgressiveModerate]

So I have a question regarding Section 2 claims as they pertain to Texas Hispanics. The first prong seems easy enough to satisfy, but how do prongs 2 and 3 work? Like, thinking about prong 2, I think you could for sure argue that Hispanics in Bexar County vote similarly, but it gets pretty murky elsewhere. RGV Hispanics are now like 60/40 Democratic leaning, tops; is that enough to say they vote similarly? Are just RGV Hispanics their own group for these purposes, since Hispanics farther north are much more Republican, or is something like the current TX-15 where bluer RGV Hispanics are outvoted by redder Hispanics fine? What about prong 3; can you really say white bloc voting is an issue in areas that are 90% Hispanic?

There are a lot of things that muddy the water in Texas.

The first problem with Texas is just the state is so large and so diverse. In a place like Alabama, a VRA case is easier to make because it's very clear the possible options are either no black seats, 1 black seats, or 2 black seats; anything beyond that becomes unrealistic to draw.

The second issue is as you allude to the Hispanic community is non-homogenous. I think Texas having a high Hispanic-White population further complicates this. Furthermore, many Hispanic communities in Texas have extremely low turnout so it's actually hard to tell if rural Hispanics further inland are actually more conservative or are just outvoted by white voters. If you look at many of the most Hispanic precincts in the rural Texas pandle, you can clearly tell they are significantly less Republican than rural white precincts that neighbor them, in some cases Biden losing the precinct by less than 20 points. In these cases, it's actually possible Biden may have outright won the Hispanic vote in much of the rural/small town TX panhandle, or he at least came close, but these Hispanics turn out at such a low rate and white voters vote so lopsidedly R it doesn't matter.

In TX-15 for instance, I actually think Hispanics in Wilson and Guadalupe County may have voted for Biden, and almost certainly if you factor out Hispanic-Whites. At the very least I can say for certain Hispanics in the Northern Part of TX-15 overall are not voting for Trump by 70-30 or even 60-40 type margins in the 2020 election. However, because the district is 80% Hispanic on official census numbers and you have a grey area of Hispanic Whites, in practice even if Hispanics split like 55D-45R in the district, they control both the D and R primary, but the reamining white voters allow the Republican Hispanic to always win.

That's another issue with TX Hispanics, because they turn out at such a low rate, a plurality or even a majority Hispanic district isn't neccessarily functional. TX-18 is plurality Hispanic but functions as a black VRA seat, and TX-33 is majority Hispanic but currently has a black representative. In a place like Houston, you can draw 2 seats that are majority Hispanic, but if the seats start taking in too many other Democrats, they will no longer be functional, and if they take in too many higher turnout Republican precincts, they could lean right and again be non-functional.

If you go by the proportionality metric, Texas should have about 14 Hispanic seats, but that's quite hard to draw because they're low turnout and can easily be outvoted either by white Republicans or other racial groups of Dems. By proportionality, Texas should have 5 black VRA seats, but in practice the most you can get is 3 (1 in Dallas and 2 in Houston). There should also be 2 Asian seats but an outright Asian majority seat is currently impossible, though weaker opportunity seats can be drawn in both Dallas and Houston.

I honestly don't think there's a clear precedent on how to deal with VRA in TX overall for these reasons.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Awesome, thanks! After some research and some tinkering, here's one (partial) map I think I would submit, were I suing Texas for violating Section 2:



(Ignore the Bexar County districts, they are just placeholders)

Every district drawn here other than TX-37 in Austin is intended to be a Hispanic VRA district. The basic contentions of this map are:

1. South/West Texas Hispanics are still politically cohesive enough to satisfy prong 2 of Gingles (debatable, but I think defensible, especially when you contrast the severely weakened but unmistakable Democratic lean of these communities with the almost unanimous rural white support for Republicans in Texas)
2. The fajitas are unnecessary – assuming high relative white turnout, TX-15 already likely (by design!) failed to elect the candidate of choice of its Hispanic community, and TX-34 is approaching 90% Hispanic as-is, so this alternative is no more a racial pack than the status quo
3. TX-23 is compact enough as drawn here to satisfy prong 1 of Gingles. This is honestly pretty iffy, but in fairness, it's not a LA-02 style snake or anything, it just has a lot of sparsely populated rural territory that inflates its size. El Paso to Hidalgo isn't really that much more offensive than the status quo of El Paso to Bexar

If this or something similar was enacted, it would have several beneficial effects from the Democratic perspective. Firstly, the elimination of TX-35 as a snake from Travis to Bexar makes it much more difficult to contain all the blue in the Austin area to just one sink. If the court bites on TX-23, that would also probably flip.

I think this is a good map, but it wouldn't be sufficient in a VRA case because here you're actually taking away a Hispanic seat from the border (currently 5 on your map 4).

If you could draw 5 Hispanic Boarder seats that don't go into Bexar very much if at all, and are hence able to draw 2 Hispanic seats entirely within Bexar, and then a Hispanic seat in Austin and some surrounding Hispanic communities for a total of 8 Hispanic seats, you would've added a Hispanic seat and would be able to bring VRA claim. In order to do this though, one or two of the Border Hispanic seats probably has to be an R leaning functional district that allows Conservative Hispanics to control the primary and elect their candidate of choice.

I think that's another aspect of VRA that's unclear though. If the racial group controls both primaries, but the district leans towards the party that the majority of that racial group in the district doesn't support, is that calid under VRA?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Here are some examples of how you could challenge VRA in TX. All the seats in this map are majority Hispanic (except for the 2 black seats in Houston), and all seats would be VRA functional. Compared to the current map, this adds another Hispanic seat in San Antonio and consolidates TX-35 to Austin. It also creates 2 Hispanic seats in Houston that would keep the current 2 black seats. So on net, 2 Hispanic seats are gained from the current map.

All of the border seats are over 80% CVAP Hispanic so even if some could go R topline, it'd be Hispanic Rs controlling that primary. The weakest link here might actually be the rural/South Bexar seat because it's swingy narrowly voting for Biden in 2020 but is "only" 70% Hispanic. It also connects very seperate communities in Corpus Christi and San Antonio - you pretty much have to use Corpus Cristi to create 5 Hispanic seats in South Texas that don't take in a significant chunk of Bexar. The other option here could be to give TX-23 (the massive border seat) the Bexar Portion and reconfigure the 3  South Texas seats with Laredo (see below). This might be preferable because it balances TX-23 and TX-28 with both about 75% Hispanic CVAP.

Also note that the Austin seat on this map is messy because it shows how you can create as Hispanic of a district as possible (and that a majority Hispanic seat is possible to draw without going into Bexar). In reality, you can draw a much cleaner 45-47% CVAP seat that'd be functional.

Alt Config w a cleaner 47% Hispanic CVAP Austin seat (52% by Total Pop):