US House Redistricting: Texas

[lowtech redneck]

Anybody know why the Republicans didn't create majority-black districts in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth?  The end result would be the same (i.e. four safe Dem districts), and there would be no room left to carve out a fifth majority-minority district within the two metropolitan areas.

Also, those fajita strips seem to serve no practical demographic or political purpose; why do that instead of making an equal number of more compact, more hispanic, and more Democratic districts out of southern texas and San Antonio?

[lowtech redneck]

Anybody know why the Republicans didn't create majority-black districts in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth?  The end result would be the same (i.e. four safe Dem districts), and there would be no room left to carve out a fifth majority-minority district within the two metropolitan areas.

Also, those fajita strips seem to serve no practical demographic or political purpose; why do that instead of making an equal number of more compact, more hispanic, and more Democratic districts out of southern texas and San Antonio?

You might be able to draw one majority Black district in Houston, but not two.  Houston has 3 major Black areas (NW, NE, and South/SW).  They separate 4 major Hispanic areas, east, north, west northwest, and southwest.  These explain  the shapes of the districts, but also require districts to wrap around each other.

The legislature did increase the Black percentage a couple of percentage points, but it would really take a lot of intricate line drawing to get above that.

The DOJ calculates "opportunity to elect a candidate of minority choice" on a statewide basis.  So what is being disputed now is whether the number of minority districts has increased from 10/32 to 11/32.  Almost doesn't count.  It is the number of districts, not the concentration in the districts.

You misunderstand, I'm referring to the creation of one black district and one hispanic district in each metropolitan area, for a combined total of four majority-minority districts.  Its very easily done, and the gerrymandering looks no worse on the map than what the Republicans already produced.  Doing everything I said in my previous post, I was able to produce 12 majority-minority districts, including two hispanic Republican districts.  Of the other 8, 5 were along the Mexican border (one stretching from Laredo to San Antonio, but still more compact than the official map), one in the urban core of San Antonio, one in Austin, and one along the Gulf of Mexico.

I'll add the district profiles later, and if I can figure out how*, I'll post the map.

*The first part of my name is sadly quite accurate, and I already failed at my first attempt at posting my maps.

Edit: I just remembered that the criteria is voting age population, not total population; I'll have to make some changes.  Here's where I'm at right now, with voting age in parentheses.

Edit2: this list now officially serves no point except to drill the information I have learned into my brain.

Mexican border, from left to right:

1.) 81.6 (79.2) hispanic, 66.0 Obama.

2.) 54.1 (49.6) hispanic, 58.4 McCain.

3.) 87.2 (84. hispanic, 69.1 Obama.  This district is comprised of Maverik, Zavala, Dimmit, Frio, La Salle, Atoscosa, most of Webb, and part of Bexar counties.

4.) 90.0 (87. hispanic, 68.3 Obama.  This district is comprised of Jim Wells, Duvall, Jim Hoag, Brooks, Starr, Zapata, part of Webb, and the majority of Hidalgo counties.

5.) 88.8 (85. hispanic, 67.2 Obama.  This district is comprised of Kleberg, Kenedy, Willac, Cameron, and part of Hidalgo counties.

I'll need to adjust #2, but the latter 3 are all more compact and better Democratic vote sinks than the Republican plan.

6.) San Antonio District: 67.1 (63.7) hispanic, 64.7 Obama.

7.) Austin district: 50.1 (44.1) hispanic, 68.4 Obama.  This one wouldn't even have worked with a bare majority, it seems-I might as well have concentrated on creating a maximized Democratic vote sink.

8.) Gulf district: 52.0 (47.7) hispanic, 58.6 McCain.  Another one that would have had to be reworked, but that's a moot point now.

[lowtech redneck]

You have to get around 58% HCVAP for a district to be considered an effective minority district.  Texas is in court now defending TX-23 which is 63.8% HVAP,

Wow...that's friggin' insane.  I admit I was assuming that the number was the same as for black districts.

I'll continue with my list on the previous post for the hell of it, though.

[lowtech redneck]

I was assuming that the number was the same as for black districts.

Wow... that's friggin' insane.

Speaking of which, would limiting the number of 58+ VRA hispanic districts be given legal cover by the creation of two majority-minority black seats (with a large number of hispanic Democrats included in each district by necessity)?  I still don't see why it would not be in the Republican's interests to do this (as opposed to the 40-40 black/hispanic thing they have going in three districts), and I'm assuming 50+ is still the standard for black VRA seats?  For that matter, are the 40-40 seats even VRA seats by some legal standard I am unaware of?

[lowtech redneck]

That's the beauty of the VRA. What it actually does is ban racial gerrymandering, ie the kind of calculations you (and politicians) are currently engaging in.

I love irony.

Anyway, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth are capable of creating black-majority districts whose contortions are no worse (and in many instances look much better) than elsewhere, and the voting patterns of the urban hispanics in both places make a 58+ standard overkill (its the rural and suburban hispanics north of Corpus Cristie that lack pronounced partisan tendencies, which would seem to neccessitate an even higher bar than 58 to screw over non-hispanics in those districts, if the fluid parameters you outlined were to be objectively applied).   

Also, wasn't part of the challenge to the Texas plan the fact that the (compact) black-plurality district in Dallas-Fort Worth prevents the creation of a hispanic VRA district in the area (I'm still confused on that issue)?

[lowtech redneck]

First off, the difference between rural Hispanics and urban Hispanics is not partisanship (this should be obvious, just look at the voting patterns of somewhere like Zavala County). The difference is registration and turnout as well as the partisan/racial voting patterns of non-Hispanics.

Zavalas county is located south of Corpus Cristie, which I noted as safe Democrat territory.  I was basing my claim on hispanic voters living in safe Republican precints wherein the McCain vote was substantially higher than the proportion of white voters (in many instances the hispanics comprised a majority or plurality of the population, oftentimes with large Asian and even substantial black minorities).  Assuming a 75-25 break for McCain among white voters, the numbers have to be accounted for among the minorities; the blacks are obviously not the source, and the Asians are not always present in large numbers where this pattern exists.  I think a likely explanation for the difference from the Mexican border and the barrios (aside from greater integration with the dominant culture) is the proportion of voters descended from illegal immigrants (I don't know if this has ever been subject to credible research).

[lowtech redneck]

This country has a long history of racial discrimination and despite electing a black president there are still pockets where it is going strong.  Protecting minority voting rights unfortunately still mandates that minorities be concentrated enough within a district to elect a member of their choosing.

Whether that's true or not, the minorities in question comprised more than the accepted 'majority' standard in the district under dispute; if that 58% concentration is now viewed as insufficient, then whoever has the authority to determine these things should have been required to make that known beforehand.  To create a new standard after the fact is purely arbitrary government, and an exercise in (and blatant excuse for) Judicial activism.

I could have accepted a decision based on the lack of a second minority district in Dallas, but invalidating the map on the other basis seems like an abuse of judicial authority to me.