US House Redistricting: Texas

[krazen1211]

I really doubt this map will pass muster with the DOJ.  It only creates a net of one new Hispanic majority district, and splits up Hispanic communities in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston that could be used to create at least two more Hispanic majority districts. 

The DFW Hispanic district is the issue.  I've looked at the numbers, and I haven't found a way to create a second Hispanic district in Houston other than the touch-point thing krazen mentioned way back.  The Hispanics are simply too spread out, and it would come at the expense of Al Green anyway.

The Veasey guy in the state legislature didn't bother with a new Hispanic district in Harris presumably for that reason. Instead, he put a bunch of whites in the Bernice Johnson district and chopped Arlington into 3 pieces to draw himself a district, and then rounded up all the Hispanics in a district that looks like a scorpion.

[Sam Spade]

I really doubt this map will pass muster with the DOJ.  It only creates a net of one new Hispanic majority district, and splits up Hispanic communities in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston that could be used to create at least two more Hispanic majority districts. 

The DFW Hispanic district is the issue.  I've looked at the numbers, and I haven't found a way to create a second Hispanic district in Houston other than the touch-point thing krazen mentioned way back.  The Hispanics are simply too spread out, and it would come at the expense of Al Green anyway.

You obviously didn't see the Maldef map that connected the NE Houston and NW Houston portions of TX-18 via a one block strip through North Houston.  This lets TX-29 connect east and SE Houston with the southern part of North Houston via downtown, while TX-18 also connects to the 3rd Ward.  The new Hispanic district then takes in the northern part of North Houston and wraps over the top of both parts northern arms of TX-18 so it can get to Channelview, Spring Branch and Gulfton.

BTW, the legislature is back in special session because they didn't finish with budget, and Governor Perry has added redistricting to the call.

It's actually the Hardy Toll Road - for at least a mile.  When I saw that, I decided not to take the map seriously because there's no way that withstands court scrutiny.

[Brittain33]

Solomons is backing away from the map a bit. We all know we're going to see an aggressive Republican map but perhaps the ridiculousness of this TX-36 or the lack of a Hispanic district in DFW are too big to ignore.

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http://www.texastribune.org/texas-redistricting/redistricting/texas-congressional-map-will-change-leader-says/

[krazen1211]

James White is a tea party black Republican from Tyler County. I'm guessing they accommodate him; the new district already overlaps him well. In a very interesting observation, all 4 new Texas districts are reasonably likely to go to minorities.

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/?district=12

[krazen1211]

http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/?PlanHeader=PLANC130

New plan is out. They fixed the 36th. Put Ted Poe into a somewhat uncomfortable district. Dallas is unchanged.

Someone needs to bang it into their heads that Kevin Brady needs to be the guy to snag downtown Houston.

[Sam Spade]

http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/?PlanHeader=PLANC130

New plan is out. They fixed the 36th. Put Ted Poe into a somewhat uncomfortable district. Dallas is unchanged.

Someone needs to bang it into their heads that Kevin Brady needs to be the guy to snag downtown Houston.

At a quick glance, Poe's CD is probably still 60% McCain - there's still far too much north Harris county. More importantly for the GOP, McCaul gets more north Houston, so his % should be helped.

The CD that will lose GOP % with the change should be Ron Paul's CD upon my quick glance.

[cinyc]

They don't have to always vote for the preferred Hispanic candidate. Just often enough that the Hispanic voting influence is not clearly being diluted. (And what they did with Farenthold reflects that; he got a safe seat, and they created a new Hispanic seat to replace the Farenthold seat.)

TX-23 is similar; it can elect Republicans sometimes, it just has to generally reflect Hispanic voter will. Which the old probably does, but the new one probably does not and may get thrown out. (It would be easy enough to up the Democratic percentage anyway--Corpus has a bunch of Hispanics who could be taken, for example, and the new TX-28 and TX-15 are packed more than they need to be.)

And, yes, the map does have to be 24-12. Or, at least, it has to be at least 24-10-2 or so.

Riddle me this, then - if 40% of Hispanics generally prefer to elect Republicans, why should Hispanic-preferring Republicans always be forced into districts in which their preferred Republican candidate could never win?  Why should you have to pack every Hispanic-majority district with the requisite number Hispanics and Democratic voters so that they almost always elect Democrats?  In other words, if there should be, say 18 minority-majority CDs drawn for Hispanics in Texas, why shouldn't a Republican be electable in 8-10 of them, instead of creating racial Gerrymandered districts that cater to the preferred candidates of a bare majority of the "special" race?  Why should Hispanic Republicans get disenfranchised due to their race?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Fun fact: Every single Hispanic Republican lives in a Democratic district. Every single one. This is due to the fact that all Hispanics live in Hispanic-majority Democratic districts. Every single Hispanic in the country. Very interesting, huh?

If Texas had 18 Hispanic districts yet still voted the same way it does now, there WOULD be Republicans elected in some of those Hispanic seats. You can already draw a Hispanic majority seat where a Republican would win. When I was drawing LDs in Washington I figured out that it was easy to draw Hispanic-majority LDs won by Rossi, but impossible to draw any won by Murray. I doubt Hispanics make up anywhere near the majority of voters in those Rossi LDs though. The issue is SPECIFICALLY diluting the Hispanic vote into districts backed by white suburbanites. Hispanics in districts like Gene Green's obviously aren't voting 40% for Republicans either.

But it's moot because it's pretty obvious that even the Texas Republicans get this.

[minionofmidas]

Have a look at precinct results in Texas. You don't find many Hispanic-dominated areas voting anywhere near 40% Republican. (There are a few, yes. Mostly the nicer parts of the Lower Valley, which are also the parts that have an Anglo minority presence. Though there are pockets elsewhere.) Two things are happening here: Those Hispanics (or sometimes "Hispanics") not living in Hispanic areas but rather among the White suburbanites tend, in Texas, to vote Republican (if at a lesser rate than their Anglo neighbors). They are also more likely to vote at all. These folks don't meet the Gingles test, the VRA wasn't meant for them. The Barrios do.

[Deldem]

http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/?PlanHeader=PLANC130

New plan is out. They fixed the 36th. Put Ted Poe into a somewhat uncomfortable district. Dallas is unchanged.

Someone needs to bang it into their heads that Kevin Brady needs to be the guy to snag downtown Houston.

At a quick glance, Poe's CD is probably still 60% McCain - there's still far too much north Harris county. More importantly for the GOP, McCaul gets more north Houston, so his % should be helped.

The CD that will lose GOP % with the change should be Ron Paul's CD upon my quick glance.

This seems to be correct... Paul picks up Beaumont and Port Arthur, it seems. He still looks like he has a pretty safe seat overall, though.

[BigSkyBob]

They don't have to always vote for the preferred Hispanic candidate. Just often enough that the Hispanic voting influence is not clearly being diluted. (And what they did with Farenthold reflects that; he got a safe seat, and they created a new Hispanic seat to replace the Farenthold seat.)

TX-23 is similar; it can elect Republicans sometimes, it just has to generally reflect Hispanic voter will. Which the old probably does, but the new one probably does not and may get thrown out. (It would be easy enough to up the Democratic percentage anyway--Corpus has a bunch of Hispanics who could be taken, for example, and the new TX-28 and TX-15 are packed more than they need to be.)

And, yes, the map does have to be 24-12. Or, at least, it has to be at least 24-10-2 or so.

Riddle me this, then - if 40% of Hispanics generally prefer to elect Republicans, why should Hispanic-preferring Republicans always be forced into districts in which their preferred Republican candidate could never win?  Why should you have to pack every Hispanic-majority district with the requisite number Hispanics and Democratic voters so that they almost always elect Democrats?  In other words, if there should be, say 18 minority-majority CDs drawn for Hispanics in Texas, why shouldn't a Republican be electable in 8-10 of them, instead of creating racial Gerrymandered districts that cater to the preferred candidates of a bare majority of the "special" race?  Why should Hispanic Republicans get disenfranchised due to their race?

There is a simple enough answer to this question: 50% of the voting age citizen population could be the threshold. If the Republican, White or Hispanic, wins a higher percentage of the White vote than the Democrat wins of the Hispanic vote, so be it.

People here seem to be arguing the absurdity that if the Hispanics are 51-49 Democrat, while Whites are 75% Republican,  the VRA requires a district that is 98% Hispanic.

[Dgov]

Have a look at precinct results in Texas. You don't find many Hispanic-dominated areas voting anywhere near 40% Republican. (There are a few, yes. Mostly the nicer parts of the Lower Valley, which are also the parts that have an Anglo minority presence. Though there are pockets elsewhere.) Two things are happening here: Those Hispanics (or sometimes "Hispanics") not living in Hispanic areas but rather among the White suburbanites tend, in Texas, to vote Republican (if at a lesser rate than their Anglo neighbors). They are also more likely to vote at all. These folks don't meet the Gingles test, the VRA wasn't meant for them. The Barrios do.

Well, the problem then is that those areas are the ones seeing large increases in Hispanic growth rather than the Barrios.  Aside from Central Houston, South San Antonio, El Paso and South Texas, there's really no large enough concentration of Hispanic to create "Barrio" districts, and those areas alone can't support the current 7, let alone 9.  It's the reason why we have the bacon-mandered South Texas--Heavily Hispanic parts of the lower valley are matched with Hispanic-presence (like 30-40% usually) areas further north.

If the VRA was only intended to prevent vote-dilution of block-minority votes, then you could legitimately argue that aside from maybe a Metro-plex one (which is ugly to draw BTW, and included many such 40% Hispanic areas) Texas shouldn't be forced to create any more VRA districts.  The Vast majority of Hispanic growth since the last census has been areas jumping from 15% Hispanic to 25-30% Hispanic as they move towards the Suburbs rather than South San Antonio gaining 200,000 or so people.

[Dgov]

http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/?PlanHeader=PLANC130

New plan is out. They fixed the 36th. Put Ted Poe into a somewhat uncomfortable district. Dallas is unchanged.

Someone needs to bang it into their heads that Kevin Brady needs to be the guy to snag downtown Houston.

I think they're nervous about creating a purely East Texas District, which has a history of voting for Conservative Democrats.  But logically they should bring the 8th in--Its not like Montgomery County is lacking in Republican votes.  Brady can take the entire county, downtown Houston, and still be at like 67% McCain, leaving Poe to pick up the less Democratic areas East of Houston in the 36th in that map and shore him up.

[Dgov]

Also, why on earth does the 11th take in Hood and Palo Pinto County?  It's not like the 75% McCain district needs the extra support, and the rest of the DFW districts probably could use the boost.

For that matter, why not bring the 11th into West Austin instead of the 25th, which can be kicked up towards Dallas to lend some extra support.  Does Mike Conaway really need all the extra Republican votes in his district?

[jimrtex]

Fun fact: Every single Hispanic Republican lives in a Democratic district. Every single one. This is due to the fact that all Hispanics live in Hispanic-majority Democratic districts. Every single Hispanic in the country. Very interesting, huh?

TX-17 is a Democratic district?

[minionofmidas]

Have a look at precinct results in Texas. You don't find many Hispanic-dominated areas voting anywhere near 40% Republican. (There are a few, yes. Mostly the nicer parts of the Lower Valley, which are also the parts that have an Anglo minority presence. Though there are pockets elsewhere.) Two things are happening here: Those Hispanics (or sometimes "Hispanics") not living in Hispanic areas but rather among the White suburbanites tend, in Texas, to vote Republican (if at a lesser rate than their Anglo neighbors). They are also more likely to vote at all. These folks don't meet the Gingles test, the VRA wasn't meant for them. The Barrios do.

Well, the problem then is that those areas are the ones seeing large increases in Hispanic growth rather than the Barrios. 

True enough, of course. True enough. (What else to expect when the concept of "Hispanic" is specifically defined so as to include anybody with any Hispanic ancestry whatsoever?)

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Although those rural Hispanics don't vote 40% Republican, actually. (Those northeast of Corpus seem to to, though.)

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Yes. That seems to be exactly what everybody but uber-partisan Republicans (as in, more so than the Republican state house leadership) seems to be arguing. -_-

Fun fact: Every single Hispanic Republican lives in a Democratic district. Every single one. This is due to the fact that all Hispanics live in Hispanic-majority Democratic districts. Every single Hispanic in the country. Very interesting, huh?

TX-17 is a Democratic district?

I'm not entirely sure what Red was even trying to say in the bit you quoted... Flores is, of course, whiter than me of countenance*, an army-bases-bred Southern Baptist, and doesn't speak a word of Spanish. But is apparently of "part Spanish" ancestry - around election time, I had looked for something to clear up the matter of this white dude with a Spanish surname, couldn't find anything on him personally, but found that the name also exists in Italy (where it's considered a Napolitan name), and left him tentatively at "not Hispanic". But apparently he is, sort of.

*Mind you, so are all the Cuban-American politicos including Bob Menendez - But Cuba's demographics are very different from Mexico's or New Mexico's. And G.K. Butterfield.

[jimrtex]

Fun fact: Every single Hispanic Republican lives in a Democratic district. Every single one. This is due to the fact that all Hispanics live in Hispanic-majority Democratic districts. Every single Hispanic in the country. Very interesting, huh?

TX-17 is a Democratic district?

I'm not entirely sure what Red was even trying to say in the bit you quoted... Flores is, of course, whiter than me of countenance*, an army-bases-bred Southern Baptist, and doesn't speak a word of Spanish. But is apparently of "part Spanish" ancestry - around election time, I had looked for something to clear up the matter of this white dude with a Spanish surname, couldn't find anything on him personally, but found that the name also exists in Italy (where it's considered a Napolitan name), and left him tentatively at "not Hispanic". But apparently he is, sort of.

*Mind you, so are all the Cuban-American politicos including Bob Menendez - But Cuba's demographics are very different from Mexico's or New Mexico's. And G.K. Butterfield.

He said that the Flores family emigrated to Nacogdoches in 1725.  There are also Raul Labrador and Jaime Herrera.

[freepcrusher]

Fun fact: Every single Hispanic Republican lives in a Democratic district. Every single one. This is due to the fact that all Hispanics live in Hispanic-majority Democratic districts. Every single Hispanic in the country. Very interesting, huh?

TX-17 is a Democratic district?

Well Waco has been a traditionally democratic city having been held by a democrat in congress from reconstruction to 2010. Of course, with Edwards and Dunnam both being unseated, its safe to say its finally flipped at the local level.

[minionofmidas]

Fun fact: Every single Hispanic Republican lives in a Democratic district. Every single one. This is due to the fact that all Hispanics live in Hispanic-majority Democratic districts. Every single Hispanic in the country. Very interesting, huh?

TX-17 is a Democratic district?

I'm not entirely sure what Red was even trying to say in the bit you quoted... Flores is, of course, whiter than me of countenance*, an army-bases-bred Southern Baptist, and doesn't speak a word of Spanish. But is apparently of "part Spanish" ancestry - around election time, I had looked for something to clear up the matter of this white dude with a Spanish surname, couldn't find anything on him personally, but found that the name also exists in Italy (where it's considered a Napolitan name), and left him tentatively at "not Hispanic". But apparently he is, sort of.

*Mind you, so are all the Cuban-American politicos including Bob Menendez - But Cuba's demographics are very different from Mexico's or New Mexico's. And G.K. Butterfield.

He said that the Flores family emigrated to Nacogdoches in 1725.

That's... unlikely. Unless they came from an abandoned Caddo town. It was purely a mission at the time, and remained so for the next two generations.

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I know, I know. I was just speaking because I had really been wondering about Flores' background.

[jimrtex]

He said that the Flores family emigrated to Nacogdoches in 1725.

That's... unlikely. Unless they came from an abandoned Caddo town. It was purely a mission at the time, and remained so for the next two generations.

http://books.google.com/books?id=9xhKe6Zc__EC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=flores+nacogdoches+1725&source=bl&ots=F0vJC0MFoz&sig=xg9tFcTyMVknkTSPtORUwIpfU2I&hl=en&ei=mWbtTYCOC6O_0AHC5-SrAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=flores%20nacogdoches%201725&f=false

[krazen1211]

Just passed the Senate. Probably no more amendments at this point from the House either.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-redistricting/redistricting/texas-senate-approves-gop-drawn-congressional-map/?utm_source=texastribune.org&utm_medium=alerts&utm_campaign=News%20Alert:%20Subscriptions

26-10, lock and load.




Edit: Amusing argument.

 "This plan belongs in the 20th century, not the 21st century ," said Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville.



I guess he means this is like the Dem drawn plans.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

At least until the inevitable court challenge.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

At least until the inevitable court challenge.

...assuming the DOJ even approves it.

[jimrtex]

At least until the inevitable court challenge.

...assuming the DOJ even approves it.

DOJ won't have anything to say about it.  It will go to the D.C.Court of Appeals

[krazen1211]

3 things.

1. Marc Veasey can't count.

2. Poe and Brady and their allies are fighting over 300 acres for the new Exxon Mobil Headquarters.

3. Apparently this is being kicked back to the Senate.