US House Redistricting: Texas

[jimrtex]

The GOP received the 3rd Degree from the Appeals Courts. The Supreme Court will have the final say.

Appeals Court?

[jimrtex]

The GOP received the 3rd Degree from the Appeals Courts. The Supreme Court will have the final say.

Appeals Court?

DC Circuit.

It was a District Court that screwed them on the maps.

DC district court.

[jimrtex]

Sweet!  My friend's mother was Solomon Ortiz's chief of staff for twenty years, so she has a pretty good chance I should think.

Edit:  Wait, she still filed in the 27th for some reason, despite living in Brownsville and it being a more favorable, open seat.  Hmm.

After the Supreme Court stayed the interim map drawn by the San Antonio district court, the district court ordered that filing could continue, with candidates specifying not only the district they were seeking, but the map as well.

Your friend's mother presumably filed for CD-27 (interim map) rather than CD-27 (legislature map).  If she had filed based on the legislature-drawn map she would have filed for CD-34 (legislature).

The San Antonio court then rescheduled the primary, and said that once an interim map is finalized, there would be a new (perhaps very short) filing period.  Candidates would have to change their filing to conform to the final interim map.

[jimrtex]

Went to the Supreme Court today. The San Antonio court map (C220) is basically dead.

Nothing much else is clear other than that Scalia wants to use the state's map (C185).

Supreme Court Transcript

[jimrtex]

Supreme Court Throws Out Interim Maps

[jimrtex]

Unanimous too.

The interim plan’s Congressional District 33, for example, disregards aspects of the State’s plan that appear to be subject to strong challenges in the §5 proceeding.

The Justices flatly rejected the declaration of the San Antonio court that it was “not required to give any deference” to what the legislature had crafted.  The lower court was wrong, the Court added, “to the extent” it “exceeded its mission to draw interim maps that do not violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act, and substituted its own concept of ‘the collective public good’ for the Texas legislature’s determination of which policies serve ‘the interests of the citizens of Texas.’ ”

Further, the Court wrote, “because the District Court here had the benefit of a recently enacted plan to assist it, the court had neither the need nor the license to cast aside that vital aid.”

The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the SA District Court and told them to give more deference to the legislature's plans.

The problem is the district court has already heard the Section 2 claims, but can't rule on them because they aren't ripe for ruling on until the the DC Court rules on the Section 5 claims.  it would have been better if the Texas district court had not acted until after the DC Court had issued its ruling.  It is likely that this would have pushed the DC Court to act quicker.

The SA district court could simply ordered no legislative and congressional elections until a plan was precleared or until any apparent Section 5 violations were remedied.

[jimrtex]

The map already kept some of the ridiculously drawn districts, so deference was met, except where the VRA wasn't followed. Minority areas of Ft. Worth have zero to do with rural areas hundreds of miles away. Any other civilized country would laugh at such at map as it is, yet the high court validates it. What a joke the system is.

Which areas of Fort Worth have been placed in districts that extend into rural areas 100s of miles away?

Fort Worth itself extends into Denton, Wise, and Parker counties; and reaches the county lines with Dallas and Johnson counties.

[jimrtex]

I do note the SC says the state's plan for DFL "appear to be subject to strong challenges in the §5 proceeding" and the district court was right in not following it. Then they say the district court oughtn't to have drawn a coalition district on purpose. Doesn't that mean they ought to have drawn the (possible) Hispanic-majority district instead? It happens to be far more disruptive to the existing GOP gerrymander...

The SA district court should just wait for the DC court to issue its ruling.

[jimrtex]

I do note the SC says the state's plan for DFL "appear to be subject to strong challenges in the §5 proceeding" and the district court was right in not following it. Then they say the district court oughtn't to have drawn a coalition district on purpose. Doesn't that mean they ought to have drawn the (possible) Hispanic-majority district instead? It happens to be far more disruptive to the existing GOP gerrymander...

The SA district court should just wait for the DC court to issue its ruling.

But are they patient enough to do that?

They have issued an order that a conference be held on February 1 to discuss what they should do next.  February 1 was supposed to be the filing deadline for a new special filing period in which everyone could correct their filings to match the districts they were filing in.

And even then it was largely wishful feeling that there would enough time to conduct an April 3 primary.

Final arguments in the preclearance case are February 3.

They would now be faced with guessing what the DC court might order.  If they guess wrong, they would have to modify their plan.  And they have held the Section 2 trial, but they can't issue their ruling on Section 2 until after DC court rules.

If they had sense, they would simply let the rest of the primary go on without the congressional and legislative races, and aim for holding those at the time of the June 5 primary.  That gives them a couple of months to work on the districts.

[jimrtex]

File this under "probably too good to be true" - reports that the legislature is willing to concede on the VRA and allow Dems to have a fairer share of the new seats driven by Latino population growth, and not slice Austin 5 ways, as part of a settlement that avoids the SA courts and gives them a map which still preserves Republican gerrymandering and protects most of their incumbents.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/27/imminent-settlement-possible-in-texas-redistricting-dispute/

I'll believe it when I see it. This would take more common sense than we've seen from that side.

Ferdinand Frank Fischer III likes to boast a lot.

[jimrtex]

Probably just checking to see if Dems might go for an Ohio style "deal".

Well, it worked.

It's probably plan C216.

http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/?PlanHeader=PlanC216

A congressman's lawyer says the Texas attorney general has agreed to a temporary voting map that could keep the April 3 date for primary elections in Texas.

Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar's lawyer Rolando Rios tells The Associated Press that the attorney general agreed not to challenge a proposal that would give Texas two new Hispanic congressional seats.

Attorney General announces agreement.

Everyone on board but Mexican American Legislative Caucus and NAACP. (and probably Travis County)

Congressional Map

Hispanic majority seat in Dallas/Tarrant county.  Probably not HCVAP majority, but enough blacks to make it a Democratic seat, but not enough to elect Marc Veasey.  1/2 of district in Dallas County is very Hispanic.

San Antonio-Austin seat the same as legislative plan, leaving Doggett carved out of his seat.

TX-23 takes all of Maverick county, and lots of twiddling in Bexar County.

Bunches of little shifts in Harris County (but accidentally makes 14 a little more R)

Currently: 23:9, but really 21:2:9

34,27: Cameron and points north.  +1 D, but 27 made safe:

22:1:10

33: New DFW Hispanic.  +1 D.  But everything that surrounds is safer.

22:1:11

36: Looks like East Texas seat, but is really replacement for 2, 1/2 of District in Harris County.

23:1:11

35,25: San Antonio-Austin Hispanic seat.  These are unchanged from legislative map.  Doggett will run in 35.  About 10 Republicans have filed in 25.

24:1:11

So overall +2.5 R, +1.5 D.

New seats: Hispanic 3, Republican 1, but old seats +1.5 R.

[jimrtex]

Senate Plan

Cuts down a bit on the NE arm of 10, and adds areas in west Fort Worth and Tarrant County.

Wendy Davis was hoping to keep more of the district which Perry carried by +8, and was +18 down ballot.   What a whiner.

[jimrtex]

Senate Plan

Cuts down a bit on the NE arm of 10, and adds areas in west Fort Worth and Tarrant County.

Wendy Davis was hoping to keep more of the district which Perry carried by +8, and was +18 down ballot.   What a whiner.

What the Hell is up with Neuces? It seems to be the same unconstitutional needless split the courts tried to impose.

Because they are trying to get agreement on an interim map.  They can still argue the constitutional issue elsewhere.

(1) Nueces County has almost the correct population for two districts, and the city of Corpus Christi has 90% of the population, so that two districts with a clear community of interest could and should be drawn.
(2) Moreover, the district to the north (35) is compact, constituting whole counties along I-37 between Corpus Christi and San Antonio, quite similar to its current configuration with adjustments for relatively slower population growth (San Patricio, Duval, La Salle) added, Karnes, Goliad dropped).
(3) And the district to the south (43) is reasonably compact, and quite similar to its current configuration, with Jim Wells added, and Jim Hogg removed, and the configuration of Cameron County adjusted to reflect slower growth in Brownsville vs Harlingen.

The current incumbent, JM Lozano announced that he was moving from Kingsville (in Kleberg) to Alice (in Jim Wells) rather than be placed in a Corpus Christi dominated district.  The compromise map would swap Jim Wells for Kleberg, and perhaps Lozano will move back to Kingsville.
(4) Nueces County has too many Anglos to permit two Hispanic majority districts to be drawn in the county; and San Patricio is too white (54%) to permit its addition to 35.

Therefore the 14th and 15 Amendments require that an area be sliced out of Nueces County (36% Hispanic) and combined with Victoria via two boat crossings; the remainder of Nueces County split in a way that pairs a less Hispanic area of eastern Corpus Christi with Jim Wells, and makes HD-43 stretch from Raymondville to Refugio via a circuitous route around Corpus Christi, in order to outvote San Patricio (this is an improvement over the court drawn plan since it least has road connectivity).

You aren't going to claim this subordinates everything else to race.

[jimrtex]

Okay... what are the election figures on the 23rd?

Wait... Farenthold gets to be 25 now? The Paul district is that from the court plan? The 6th and 17th go into Austin now so that there is no open R seat that Doggett could have theoretically run in (but chose not to), as under the state's original map? All of these so they can somehow create two new districts in the DFW? Castro continues to run in the 20th amiright - so the Hispanic 35th would be a, what, Doggett vs Ciro race? Cannot see it, somehow. The new Dem seat is of course far more Tarranty than would have been necessary for creating it... because that way it doesn't impact on the North Dallas Republicans as much. Mark Veasey remains a possibility for it, I think.
D+2 R+2* could have been achieved with an infinitely cleaner map... but that would have stepped on more (non-Doggett) incumbent's toes.

*Based on current incumbents, R+3 D+1 on usual leans, assuming Canseco's remains a tossup. The new districts are two D, three R. One D seat is abolished. One notional D seat held by an R is changed so that it cannot happen again. Anyways, not really an Ohio style "deal" but an actual deal - bagging the Dems an extra seat.

Texas redistricting

Scroll to at least the second page and you will find election data.

The compromise plan is based on the plan passed by the legislature.  The only changes are in the DFW area to put in the new district; in the SA area and Maverick County to make TX-23 more palatable; and in the Houston area.  For some reason TX-18 and TX-9 were pushed south.  I'm guessing it was to make the right hook of TX-2 to look more palatable.

In the process they cut downtown Houston out of TX-18 and put it in TX-29.  SJL was Outraged!(tm) because that was where she has her office.  Then the office of TX-9 was placed in TX-18.  They managed to do the same in TX-30, plus got EBJ's residence (her staff apparently didn't know she had moved downtown).

In his testimony Al Green also complained that a couple of upscale undeveloped areas had been put in his district, and it could tip it in a few years (if it was upscale, there wouldn't be enough residents to matter).  Anyhow they played around with the districts a little bit, and TX-14 did end up a little further north in Brazoria County.

Presumably Castro runs in TX-20 because Gonzalez is retiring.  Castro would have been in TX-20 all along, but wasn't running there because Gonzalez was around.  Doggett claims that when Castro talked to him about running for Congress, he thought he was talking about TX-23 which is where Castro lives now.

TX-35 in the legislative map and the compromise map is identical.

In the court drawn map, TX-35 was shifted to south Bexar County and stopped at the Travis County line.   TX-20 was drawn one block beyond Castro's house, and TX-23 was really yanked around (180,000 people moved from TX-23 to TX-21, 180,000 from TX-21 to TX-20, and 180,000 from TX-20 to TX-23).

This meant Doggett could run in TX-25; Gonzalez retired so he could make more money; Castro announces that he is running in TX-20 the district he lives in; Ciro Rodriguez switches to the reconfigured TX-35; Pete Gallego gets a free run in TX-23, and the Republican areas in El Paso County are unlikely to be as supportive as the Republican areas in Bexar County are for Canseco.  (winks and nudges omitted).

If the compromise map is used, Doggett runs in TX-35; Ciro is back to TX-23 against Gallego; Castro is in TX-20.  Maybe someone else runs against Doggett, there were challengers to Ciro under the court-drawn map for TX-35.  And Alberto Bustamante's son is running in TX-23.  I was never able to figure out where he lived - he might have been drawn out of TX-23.  (Alberto Bustamante was who was beaten by Henry Bonilla in 1992; Bustamante had beaten Chick Kazen after an earlier redistricting.

TX-23 was created after the 1970 census, an incumbent has been displaced due to redistricting each decade ever since.

If you don't put a lot of TX-33 in Tarrant, you might end up having to repeat in the future.

[jimrtex]

Good enough on TX23, then. (Both good enough on info and good enough on what the numbers are, ie didn't sell out on that.)

Obviously a "fair" design would create a Black and a Hispanic seat in Dallas County and a coalition district in Tarrant (and force one of the three North Dallas Republicans into retirement) but that was never a likely outcome anyhow.

You can't create a Hispanic district in Dallas County unless you include enough Blacks to make it a Democratic district.   You also would have to come across along the Trinity River, which would keep SD-30 from going to far north.

And the coalition district in Tarrant is dubious.  The senate district was lost by 18 points in down ballot races in 2010.

Fun exercise: Eddie Bernice Johnson claimed that the compromise Hispanic district excluded Rafael Anchia and Roberton Alonzo, the two Hispanic representatives from Dallas County (HD-103 and HD-104), as well as Domingo Garcia, former Dallas Mayor pro tem and state representative.

But the proposal by MALC (the Mexican American Legislative Caucus) also cut out Anchia and Garcia.  Guess where they live.

[jimrtex]

The arguments from the plaintiffs get dumber and dumber.

First, they complained that 'nearly half' of Anglo house districts within 1 county were underpopulated. Apparently, they did not realize that such meant that 'more than half' of Anglo house districts were overpopulated.

Now, they come up with this gem.


https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxeOfQQnUr_gY2YyMWUyNmUtYzMwNC00NjRhLTkwNGEtZWE5ZTQ5Mzg2MWZl/edit?pli=1


Perhaps even more troubling is the "lost votes" present in the compromise plan. As this
court is aware, there was an effort by the Speaker's staff to cynically game the system to draw districts that created the illusion of voting strength for candidates of choice of the Latino
The compromise plan is the codification of that intentionally discriminatory process.
On average, the candidate of choice of the Latino community can expect fewer votes and less
voting strength as a result of this problem.


Average Midterm
Average Presidential

-13,917
-26,974

By golly, a district with ~850,000 people in it provides fewer votes than a district with ~700,000 people in it.

Shh!  They'll catch on that we're trying to flip TX-16 by moving the Hispanics into TX-23.

[jimrtex]

New maps are out.

http://txredistricting.org/

As far as I can initially tell they are the state/MALDEF maps.

There are bunches of reports below that.

The Congressional map has some minor, minor tweaks.   There are 6 shifts of 0 population, 1 of 10 persons and 1 of 16 persons.  I assume they have to do with precinct splits.  So the court plan ends up with a difference of 10 and 16 persons.

The Senate plan has the final compromise of placing SD-10 back to it current boundaries (which is only 2.85% too large).

The House plan restores Nueces County to two districts, overriding the compromise plan, the court interim plan, and the Judge Smith interim proposal.  Because they created a Cameron-Hidalgo district they had to redo the South Texas districts, but ended up restoring much of the Legislature-enacted plan, because the 3-way split of Nueces County had ripple effects.

They also twiddled 4 districts in Harris County, with about 30,000 shift among them.   Perhaps to avoid too many Anglos in one district; but perhaps to avoid too many Blacks in another.  They also made another change between 117 and 118 in Bexar County.  They came so close to a 4-way split of Lytle, I'm disappointed they didn't go for it.

[jimrtex]

Well, Nick Lampson thinks he can win. I'm not sure what the point is; in the event he does they will redistrict him out again..

TX-15 dropped from 60 to 57% Obama. Might be interesting in a 2010 wave.

You typically don't get 10 Republican candidates if they don't think winning the primary is the same as winning the election.

TX-15 was 51D-47R in the down ballot races in 2010, and you have a problem getting a candidate.

[jimrtex]

Can someone explain to me how precedent does not rule the removal of all of Nueces (as opposed to just the Anglo portion) an illegal retrogression?
Now, I understand it was done because it helps insulate Farenthold in the primary and cook the new 34rd for someone from elsewhere (who's the likely new Democrat here and where's he from - Cameron I suppose?) but what I'd like to know is what would the minimal necessary changes be to undo it? Basically, put the solidly Hispanic areas of Nueces into the 34th, bring the 27th up to population with areas included in the Hispanic districts that are not Hispanic and/or were not included in VRA districts previously; how much do you need to change exactly?

What is the community of interest between Brownsville and Corpus Christi, other than ethnicity?  LULAC v Perry says that districts linking distant population centers merely to pump up the racial numbers are not VRA districts.  Perhaps in the past the additional population of Nueces County was necessary.  It is no longer so.

[jimrtex]

According to the bolded logic, the Democrats never would have been able to remove Montgomery County (Alabama) from the 7th district. Yet they did.

Yeah, I know.

Basically these are the kind of things you can't do if you want to be extra certain to follow the case law to the t, but that legislatures will be fine with taking a low-risk gamble on. As such, its presence in what's officially a court map stinks a little. But, like, that doesn't tell us anything about these proceedings that we didn't know already.

Jim: Where is Corpus distant compared to, you know, the places northwest of it that were used instead?

Maybe the Supreme Court will rule that those areas should be consolidated in one district, instead of being split among three stretching north from the border.

[jimrtex]

J.M. Lozano (District 43 in the House) switched parties from Democrat to Republican today.

Though the change being given is discussions with George P. Bush, the change in his House district explains things better, as it went from being 53% Obama to being 51% McCain in the new map.

Of course, as I remember, Jose Aliseda (District 35 in the House) is from Bee County, so there might well be a primary.

http://www2.wnct.com/news/2012/mar/05/texas-house-democrat-lozano-becoming-a-republican-ar-2006613/

Aliseda had announced back in September that he wasn't running for re-election (and that was from a district that was being challenged as being too compact and logical rather than racially gerrymandered), and is running for DA (Bee, Live Oak, McMullen).  Being a legislator can be kind of tough, since you have to take off about 5 months, and only pays $7600/year.

Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles, who Aliseda defeated, and is also from Bee County has indicated that she is running.

[jimrtex]

J.M. Lozano (District 43 in the House) switched parties from Democrat to Republican today.

Though the change being given is discussions with George P. Bush, the change in his House district explains things better, as it went from being 53% Obama to being 51% McCain in the new map.

Of course, as I remember, Jose Aliseda (District 35 in the House) is from Bee County, so there might well be a primary.

http://www2.wnct.com/news/2012/mar/05/texas-house-democrat-lozano-becoming-a-republican-ar-2006613/

Another party switcher.

http://www.riograndeguardian.com/lista_story.asp?story_no=24

[jimrtex]

Good for the DOJ, too bad they can't do it in Wisconsin.

Texas has added to their lawsuit a challenge to Section 5 based on the fact that USDOJ can block a law that they can't in other states.

[jimrtex]

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxeOfQQnUr_gOEx1X0dxbllTS3VhVmxtRk9aSjJ6QQ/edit

Ultimately, the court decided that - on an interim basis - the loss of CD-25 was offset for the district’s Hispanic population by inclusion of most of the Hispanic population in the new CD-35 and that the impact on the district’s African-American population was offset by the creation of the new CD-33 in North Texas.

I don't interpret it that way.

23 is kept at benchmark performance;

33 is to address issues of fragmentation of the minority population in the DFW area, and the court doesn't believe a compact Hispanic CVAP majority district can be drawn.

35 addresses statewide retrogression claims, and 25 is not protected.   And because it is not possible to create 8 compact Hispanic districts in south Texas (maybe the Supreme Court will decide that 15, 23, 25, 27, 28, 33, 34, and 35 are all non-compact),

[jimrtex]

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxeOfQQnUr_gOEx1X0dxbllTS3VhVmxtRk9aSjJ6QQ/edit

Ultimately, the court decided that - on an interim basis - the loss of CD-25 was offset for the district’s Hispanic population by inclusion of most of the Hispanic population in the new CD-35 and that the impact on the district’s African-American population was offset by the creation of the new CD-33 in North Texas.

I don't interpret it that way.

23 is kept at benchmark performance;

33 is to address issues of fragmentation of the minority population in the DFW area, and the court doesn't believe a compact Hispanic CVAP majority district can be drawn.

35 addresses statewide retrogression claims, and 25 is not protected.   And because it is not possible to create 8 compact Hispanic districts in south Texas (maybe the Supreme Court will decide that 15, 23, 25, 27, 28, 33, 34, and 35 are all non-compact),

Is the court going to use CVAP? I noticed that submitted documents typically reference Spanish Surname Registered Voters, rather than CVAP.

I think that SSVR is used to estimate registration of Hispanic voters since Texas not use race as a voter qualification.  I think that in general that they are using reconstructed election results, as the actual test.  It gets really messy when you start trying to figure out whether you not only have to choose enough minority voters, and factor in whether they vote the right way or, vote at all even though eligible, and whether other voters vote the same way.