Where do you think the new House districts in Texas will be located?

[wxtransit]

Personally, I think they'll go to the DFW (particularly the North Dallas area) and Houston suburbs.

[Tintrlvr]

There's going to be such a complete re-draw to shore up the gerrymander that it's going to be impossible to judge which are the "new" seats. It's clear that the million-way split of Austin isn't going to work going forward, for example, so there will be a "new" seat that is a Dem sink in Austin.

[lfromnj]

There's going to be such a complete re-draw to shore up the gerrymander that it's going to be impossible to judge which are the "new" seats. It's clear that the million-way split of Austin isn't going to work going forward, for example, so there will be a "new" seat that is a Dem sink in Austin.

yeah a smart GOP gerrymander would be this
OF the new 3-4 seats cede 2 of them.
Just give up on Texas 32nd and 7th and make them D sinks
Also stop ing trolling Poor Lloyd dogget and just admit he gets his home district back.
That should be a 16-24 or a 16-23. They could try maybe 15-24 or 15-25 but anything lower than is asking for a dummymander.

[Strudelcutie4427]

Pack Austin, Chop up Western Travis, extend some of the fajitas into Bexar, Consolidate 4 dem sinks in HOU and 3 in DFW. Slice up the balance into deep red areas.

El Paso- 1
Fajitas- 3
SA- 1
Austin-1
HOU- 4
DFW-3

I think 26-13 is doable

[Nyvin]

I was going to suggest adding up all the counties in the metro area and see how many districts each one would get if they were all contained in the metro areas...but then I remembered the Texas GOP loves to create districts hundreds of miles long from one metro to another.

[Mr.Phips]

Pack Austin, Chop up Western Travis, extend some of the fajitas into Bexar, Consolidate 4 dem sinks in HOU and 3 in DFW. Slice up the balance into deep red areas.

El Paso- 1
Fajitas- 3
SA- 1
Austin-1
HOU- 4
DFW-3

I think 26-13 is doable

Doing this would likely require cutting one of the seven Hispanic majority districts, which would be prohibited by the VRA.

[Strudelcutie4427]

Pack Austin, Chop up Western Travis, extend some of the fajitas into Bexar, Consolidate 4 dem sinks in HOU and 3 in DFW. Slice up the balance into deep red areas.

El Paso- 1
Fajitas- 3
SA- 1
Austin-1
HOU- 4
DFW-3

I think 26-13 is doable

Doing this would likely require cutting one of the seven Hispanic majority districts, which would be prohibited by the VRA.

I think there would still be 7.
El Paso
Hurd’s seat
3 fajita strips
SA
2 in houston

[Mr.Phips]

Pack Austin, Chop up Western Travis, extend some of the fajitas into Bexar, Consolidate 4 dem sinks in HOU and 3 in DFW. Slice up the balance into deep red areas.

El Paso- 1
Fajitas- 3
SA- 1
Austin-1
HOU- 4
DFW-3

I think 26-13 is doable

Doing this would likely require cutting one of the seven Hispanic majority districts, which would be prohibited by the VRA.

I think there would still be 7.
El Paso
Hurd’s seat
3 fajita strips
SA
2 in houston

Actually there were 8 before.  There would still need to be the same number.

[Strudelcutie4427]

Pack Austin, Chop up Western Travis, extend some of the fajitas into Bexar, Consolidate 4 dem sinks in HOU and 3 in DFW. Slice up the balance into deep red areas.

El Paso- 1
Fajitas- 3
SA- 1
Austin-1
HOU- 4
DFW-3

I think 26-13 is doable

Doing this would likely require cutting one of the seven Hispanic majority districts, which would be prohibited by the VRA.

I think there would still be 7.
El Paso
Hurd’s seat
3 fajita strips
SA
2 in houston

Actually there were 8 before.  There would still need to be the same number.

Maybe we could get one out of Dallas. Does the Corpus Christi seat count? Maybe drop basteop for Kleenex and Kennedy

I might try to draw one on break between classes today

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Assuming 2 new seats, I would expect 1 in Austin and one in DFW. If there are 3 new seats, then one in Houston as well.

The big question is of course the VRA. Do Republicans try to ignore/minimize it in the hopes that the Supreme Court will strike down the VRA entirely, or do they at least claim to be in compliance with it?

If they go for the former, that can mean a slightly better map for the Rs in the short term. But it will alienate non-whites more from the GOP, which is something that at least the savvier Rs are well aware of and mindful of, and will want to avoid. I would probably put Abbott and Bonnen (the apparent new TX House Speaker) in that category. So without ruling out that they just ignore the VRA, I would expect they go for the latter - which means a map with the same # of VRA districts as currently, plus at least some form of additional minority representation reflecting the fact that basically all the growth has been non-white growth, and the fact that they have to give up more seats to be safe against the Beto #s and trends in any case.

So, what does this mean?

1) One of the new seats basically has to be a Dem vote sink in Austin. If it is not, Rs should expect to lose multiple seats in the Austin area over the course of the 2020s. But a single vote sink is not really enough for the Austin area, because now Republicans are going to have to start cracking not only Travis County, but also have to start worrying about Williamson and Hays. So in addition to this vote sink, TX-35 is going to have to stay partly in Austin as well (and anyway this makes a convenient VRA seat for Rs). This is because Travis County alone now has more than 1.2 million people. So even after giving up a new Dem seat entirely in Travis County and having TX-35 partly in Travis County, they will still have some Travis left over and also will still have to crack Williamson in particular.

2) A side effect of conceding a Dem seat in Austin is that TX-10 will necessarily have to become more of a Houston area seat. That means, effectively, TX-10 is partially a "new" Houston seat. That means, in turn, that the actual new seat will likely go to DFW rather than to Houston. I would expect TX-10 to be reconfigured so that it (or maybe alternatively TX-22) expands into the area of current TX-07 to try to salvage what is salvageable there (ie probably The Villages and parts of TX-07 that are west of 610.

3) Meanwhile, TX-07 itself is likely to be reconfigured into some sort of majority minority Dem vote sink. Since it can't. It will almost surely be at least majority Hispanic. If the Rs want to try to ratf*** Fletcher, which I would expect they will, they will draw the White Liberal parts of Houston that are currently in TX-07 and TX-02 into TX-18 and TX-09. And then they will make TX-07 into effectively a new majority-minority (majority Hispanic) district in Northwest/West/North Houston. The only parts of current TX-07 that have a good chance of being included in this district are the heavily Dem trending parts of northern tail of the current TX-07. If I were Fletcher, I would be expecting this and would seriously consider starting to prepare to run for some sort of Statewide office in 2022 rather than running for re-election, since she may not have a seat that is at all the same as the current TX-07. The only incentive Rs have not to try to ratf*** Fletcher like this is fear that she could win a statewide election, in which case they may prefer to keep her in her seat. Meanwhile, since TX-07 will be taking some of the population in North/Northwest Houston from TX-18 and TX-29, that means that TX-09, TX-18, and TX-29 will shift more to the south (and TX-09 into Fort Bend in particular) to keep TX-22 in particular safe. Having made TX-07 at least majority Hispanic, although Hispanics alone probably won't be enough to elect a Hispanic candidate, Rs will claim that they have "expanded Hispanic representation" and use that as propaganda.

4) Turning to the Dallas area, I would expect TX-32 to be similarly reconfigured into a majority-minority vote sink. And rather than calling this district TX-32, I am going to refer to this new district (which Allred will run in) as TX-37. This district will include some White Liberal areas of North Dallas, but should be at least majority Hispanic and should include a lot of North-East Dallas County. As in Houston, Rs will claim that they have "expanded Hispanic representation" by adding TX-37 as a Hispanic majority district and use that as propaganda, although the district won't be drawn in such a way as to make Allred actually at risk of losing to a Hispanic primary challenger (because there are simply too many non-Hispanic Dem parts of North Dallas). TX-32, meanwhile, will be re-drawn to include what limited parts of North Dallas are still salvageable, and will probably have a long crazy tendril reaching into the Park cities, but otherwise will be drawn out of Dallas County and into probably Collin and maybe some rural areas.

The problem is that even after conceding another Dem district in Dallas, there is probably going to be a significant amount of dangerous territory left over. To avoid conceding a 4th Dem DFW district, Rs are going to have to really crack DFW hard. This includes, if they want to be safe, starting to crack even Collin County and Denton County, which they can no longer count as safe territory. So it is possible that they might want/need to concede an additional Dem district, and if they do so it should be another DFW district more so than a Houston district, I think. If TX continues to trend Dem in 2020, that is more likely. If Trump wins reasonably safely though, then this is much less likely and they will just crack as hard as they can.

5) If there is enough population growth for a 39th district in reapportionment, it should end up in the Houston area, since Austin and Dallas will already have the 37th and 38th seats.

[lfromnj]

Assuming 2 new seats, I would expect 1 in Austin and one in DFW. If there are 3 new seats, then one in Houston as well.

The big question is of course the VRA. Do Republicans try to ignore/minimize it in the hopes that the Supreme Court will strike down the VRA entirely, or do they at least claim to be in compliance with it?

If they go for the former, that can mean a slightly better map for the Rs in the short term. But it will alienate non-whites more from the GOP, which is something that at least the savvier Rs are well aware of and mindful of, and will want to avoid. I would probably put Abbott and Bonnen (the apparent new TX House Speaker) in that category. So without ruling out that they just ignore the VRA, I would expect they go for the latter - which means a map with the same # of VRA districts as currently, plus at least some form of additional minority representation reflecting the fact that basically all the growth has been non-white growth, and the fact that they have to give up more seats to be safe against the Beto #s and trends in any case.

So, what does this mean?

1) One of the new seats basically has to be a Dem vote sink in Austin. If it is not, Rs should expect to lose multiple seats in the Austin area over the course of the 2020s. But a single vote sink is not really enough for the Austin area, because now Republicans are going to have to start cracking not only Travis County, but also have to start worrying about Williamson and Hays. So in addition to this vote sink, TX-35 is going to have to stay partly in Austin as well (and anyway this makes a convenient VRA seat for Rs). This is because Travis County alone now has more than 1.2 million people. So even after giving up a new Dem seat entirely in Travis County and having TX-35 partly in Travis County, they will still have some Travis left over and also will still have to crack Williamson in particular.

2) A side effect of conceding a Dem seat in Austin is that TX-10 will necessarily have to become more of a Houston area seat. That means, effectively, TX-10 is partially a "new" Houston seat. That means, in turn, that the actual new seat will likely go to DFW rather than to Houston. I would expect TX-10 to be reconfigured so that it (or maybe alternatively TX-22) expands into the area of current TX-07 to try to salvage what is salvageable there (ie probably The Villages and parts of TX-07 that are west of 610.

3) Meanwhile, TX-07 itself is likely to be reconfigured into some sort of majority minority Dem vote sink. Since it can't. It will almost surely be at least majority Hispanic. If the Rs want to try to ratf*** Fletcher, which I would expect they will, they will draw the White Liberal parts of Houston that are currently in TX-07 and TX-02 into TX-18 and TX-09. And then they will make TX-07 into effectively a new majority-minority (majority Hispanic) district in Northwest/West/North Houston. The only parts of current TX-07 that have a good chance of being included in this district are the heavily Dem trending parts of northern tail of the current TX-07. If I were Fletcher, I would be expecting this and would seriously consider starting to prepare to run for some sort of Statewide office in 2022 rather than running for re-election, since she may not have a seat that is at all the same as the current TX-07. The only incentive Rs have not to try to ratf*** Fletcher like this is fear that she could win a statewide election, in which case they may prefer to keep her in her seat. Meanwhile, since TX-07 will be taking some of the population in North/Northwest Houston from TX-18 and TX-29, that means that TX-09, TX-18, and TX-29 will shift more to the south (and TX-09 into Fort Bend in particular) to keep TX-22 in particular safe. Having made TX-07 at least majority Hispanic, although Hispanics alone probably won't be enough to elect a Hispanic candidate, Rs will claim that they have "expanded Hispanic representation" and use that as propaganda.

4) Turning to the Dallas area, I would expect TX-32 to be similarly reconfigured into a majority-minority vote sink. And rather than calling this district TX-32, I am going to refer to this new district (which Allred will run in) as TX-37. This district will include some White Liberal areas of North Dallas, but should be at least majority Hispanic and should include a lot of North-East Dallas County. As in Houston, Rs will claim that they have "expanded Hispanic representation" by adding TX-37 as a Hispanic majority district and use that as propaganda, although the district won't be drawn in such a way as to make Allred actually at risk of losing to a Hispanic primary challenger (because there are simply too many non-Hispanic Dem parts of North Dallas). TX-32, meanwhile, will be re-drawn to include what limited parts of North Dallas are still salvageable, and will probably have a long crazy tendril reaching into the Park cities, but otherwise will be drawn out of Dallas County and into probably Collin and maybe some rural areas.

The problem is that even after conceding another Dem district in Dallas, there is probably going to be a significant amount of dangerous territory left over. To avoid conceding a 4th Dem DFW district, Rs are going to have to really crack DFW hard. This includes, if they want to be safe, starting to crack even Collin County and Denton County, which they can no longer count as safe territory. So it is possible that they might want/need to concede an additional Dem district, and if they do so it should be another DFW district more so than a Houston district, I think. If TX continues to trend Dem in 2020, that is more likely. If Trump wins reasonably safely though, then this is much less likely and they will just crack as hard as they can.

5) If there is enough population growth for a 39th district in reapportionment, it should end up in the Houston area, since Austin and Dallas will already have the 37th and 38th seats.

Honestly I see the texas GOP anti white dem enough they might try to avoid the obvious Austin Vote  sink.
They really hate Llloyd Dogget. Lloydd dogget should go full resistance in the next 4 years to piss of the texas GOP as much as possible if he wants to help texas democrats.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Honestly I see the texas GOP anti white dem enough they might try to avoid the obvious Austin Vote  sink.
They really hate Llloyd Dogget. Lloydd dogget should go full resistance in the next 4 years to piss of the texas GOP as much as possible if he wants to help texas democrats.

With or without keeping the current TX-35?

If they keep the current TX-35, it is just going to keep electing him even if they are somehow successful in splitting up the rest of Austin.

If they don't keep the current TX-35, good luck... I would really love to see them try that, tbh. Austin would have to be split up between more than 10 different districts to be safe against the Beto numbers, and every single one of them would be at risk of flipping if the Dem trend continues.

[lfromnj]

Honestly I see the texas GOP anti white dem enough they might try to avoid the obvious Austin Vote  sink.
They really hate Llloyd Dogget. Lloydd dogget should go full resistance in the next 4 years to piss of the texas GOP as much as possible if he wants to help texas democrats.

With or without keeping the current TX-35?

If they keep the current TX-35, it is just going to keep electing him even if they are somehow successful in splitting up the rest of Austin.

If they don't keep the current TX-35, good luck... I would really love to see them try that, tbh. Austin would have to be split up between more than 10 different districts to be safe against the Beto numbers, and every single one of them would be at risk of flipping if the Dem trend continues.

yeah but the texas GOP hates him and they don't want to give him a white majority district that would elect a democrat. I can really see them ignoring the Beto numbers and just see it as a one off.

[Tintrlvr]

Honestly I see the texas GOP anti white dem enough they might try to avoid the obvious Austin Vote  sink.
They really hate Llloyd Dogget. Lloydd dogget should go full resistance in the next 4 years to piss of the texas GOP as much as possible if he wants to help texas democrats.

With or without keeping the current TX-35?

If they keep the current TX-35, it is just going to keep electing him even if they are somehow successful in splitting up the rest of Austin.

If they don't keep the current TX-35, good luck... I would really love to see them try that, tbh. Austin would have to be split up between more than 10 different districts to be safe against the Beto numbers, and every single one of them would be at risk of flipping if the Dem trend continues.

yeah but the texas GOP hates him and they don't want to give him a white majority district that would elect a democrat. I can really see them ignoring the Beto numbers and just see it as a one off.

Not going to happen. It's not just the Beto numbers - five R Congressmen came within 5 points of losing, and another 4 came within 10 points of losing. Those 9 Congressmen are all going to be strong voices in favor of additional D vote sinks to keep the Democrats out of their districts.

[Sol]

If Gene Green could represent a mostly hispanic district in Houston, why couldn't Lizzie Fletcher?

[Oryxslayer]

One way I could see R's try and avoid the white dem issue is Fajita stripping South Texas up to Austin, but that I believe has already been ruled Unconstitutional. I really don't see how they get away without an Austin Pack, A fair map now would have TWO safe dems seats in the region -  One Austin, the other Austin+Hays and a Bit more.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Texas 2020 redistricting, reminds me a lot of when Arkansas Democrats drew the new maps in 2010.

[lfromnj]

Texas 2020 redistricting, reminds me a lot of when Arkansas Democrats drew the new maps in 2010.

Yeah I have a feeling texas gop still thinks the 7th and 32nd are still winnable despite the fact that cruz only won Highland Park by 20 points instead of the 60 romney got

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Texas 2020 redistricting, reminds me a lot of when Arkansas Democrats drew the new maps in 2010.

Yeah I have a feeling texas gop still thinks the 7th and 32nd are still winnable despite the fact that cruz only won Highland Park by 20 points instead of the 60 romney got

I think North Dallas is the #1 place where there is dummymander potential. They know that Austin can hurt them, but it feels like they are only in the beginning stages of realizing what has happened to North Dallas (and increasingly bleeding into Collin/Denton/Tarrant). So if there is one place they do something stupid and bite off more than they can chew, I think it will be that area.

[Vosem]

Depends on whether the TXGOP decides to try for one-citizen-one-vote; if they do the size of nearly every Democratic vote-sink can be expanded (to the extent that one of the fajitas might be eliminated and replaced with an Austin vote-sink) and pretty much all of the new seats can be Safe R.

If the TXGOP doesn't go for one-citizen-one-vote, or SCOTUS finds it unconstitutional, then they're going to have to tread pretty lightly.

EDIT: SCOTUS ruled unanimously in Evenwel v. Abbott (2015) that states do not have to adopt one-citizen-one-vote (ie, districts are drawn based on the voting-eligible rather than the total population; this strongly helps Republicans since areas where much of the population is not citizens or are young tend to be Democratic), but they did not address whether states have the right to do so, noting that without a citizenship question on the census (which Trump has added) one-citizen-one-vote is impossible. Alito and Thomas explicitly did not adopt the court's reasoning, which might as well be a ruling in favor of the permissibility of one-citizen-one-vote. If Texas and Florida choose to do this (unclear whether the legislature in Arizona can force the commission to adopt this policy as well), it could be worth a high-single-digit number of House seats for the GOP.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

The TX GOP is sufficiently in denial that I think they try for a 28-10 map with some atrocious gerrymandering. This of course goes to sh**t immediately, with Democrats winning the majority of seats in every election.

[lfromnj]

The TX GOP is sufficiently in denial that I think they try for a 28-10 map with some atrocious gerrymandering. This of course goes to sh**t immediately, with Democrats winning the majority of seats in every election.

Surely all this will end when the black man Obama is gone. Its just a phase of the hicks
Arkansas Dems in 2010

[dpmapper]

GOP won't want to concede areas like River Oaks or West University Place in Houston.  With TX-14, TX-8, and TX-36 still very strong, and TX-10 freed up from cracking Austin, they can probably shore up TX-2 and TX-22, and still keep TX-7 competitive in most years.  Give Port Arthur and parts of Beaumont to TX-36, give Pearland to TX-14 and run TX-22 out to Lake Jackson instead, and put TX-8 and TX-10 to work grabbing some troublesome spots of north and west Houston. 

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

The TX GOP is sufficiently in denial that I think they try for a 28-10 map with some atrocious gerrymandering. This of course goes to sh**t immediately, with Democrats winning the majority of seats in every election.

Surely all this will end when the black man Obama is gone. Its just a phase of the hicks
Arkansas Dems in 2010

"Yes, Texas swung Democratic, but it's still a GOP State, and the Democrats have a ceiling at 48% if Beto isn't on the ballot." -Dan Patrick

2022 Texas House Elections
Democratic   49.66%   16   23   +7
Republican   47.19%   20   15   -5
Libertarian      2.22%   0   0   0
Green   1.03%   0   0   0


Ok, maybe not.

[jimrtex]

Depends on whether the TXGOP decides to try for one-citizen-one-vote; if they do the size of nearly every Democratic vote-sink can be expanded (to the extent that one of the fajitas might be eliminated and replaced with an Austin vote-sink) and pretty much all of the new seats can be Safe R.

If the TXGOP doesn't go for one-citizen-one-vote, or SCOTUS finds it unconstitutional, then they're going to have to tread pretty lightly.

EDIT: SCOTUS ruled unanimously in Evenwel v. Abbott (2015) that states do not have to adopt one-citizen-one-vote (ie, districts are drawn based on the voting-eligible rather than the total population; this strongly helps Republicans since areas where much of the population is not citizens or are young tend to be Democratic), but they did not address whether states have the right to do so, noting that without a citizenship question on the census (which Trump has added) one-citizen-one-vote is impossible. Alito and Thomas explicitly did not adopt the court's reasoning, which might as well be a ruling in favor of the permissibility of one-citizen-one-vote. If Texas and Florida choose to do this (unclear whether the legislature in Arizona can force the commission to adopt this policy as well), it could be worth a high-single-digit number of House seats for the GOP.

The Texas Constitution used to specify that senate districts should be based on "qualified electors", and also that counties could not be divided. The restriction of dividing counties had long been abandoned because on OMOV.

When redistricting, the lawyers always advised that basing on registered voters was probably not constitutional, but you could use citizen voting age population - but that was not collected by the census, so you would have to conduct your own census, and it would be expensive, and scary, and lots of lawsuits, etc. So the legislature continued to use population, even though it was in violation of the state constitution.

In 2001, there was an amendment to clean up obsolete parts of the constitution. They eliminated the part about splitting counties, and they removed the provision about qualified electors. The Texas Constitution now only requires that senate districts be of contiguous area. It is not a state requirement that they have any equality on any basis.

This is one reason 'Evenwel v Abbott' was filed in Texas and only challenged the Senate apportionment. Provisions for House apportionment do provide for population equality.

In effect the plaintiffs said that the legislature chose to use population equality arbitrarily and in violation of equal protection of the right to vote. 'Reynolds v Sims' says that it should not matter where you live, one vote in one area of the state should have as much influence in the election of representatives as another area of the state.

So the Texas legislature could adopt CVAP equality as the basis for senate districts, and make an argument that it was to provide electoral equality, and diversity between the two houses of a bicameral legislature, since the House would continue to provide representational equality. Texas already provides some diversity because of the difference in size of the two chambers.

You are correct about the concurrence by Alito and Thomas. Ginsburg wrote the decision, and she so wanted to write that electoral equality was bad for Democrats unconstitutional. If you don't read her opinion carefully, you would come to that conclusion. It could be that she had to rewrite an original draft so as to not foreclose on electoral equality. The Alito concurrence is essentially saying that Ginsburg's opinion should not be misread.