2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Louisiana

[Oryxslayer]

I'm glad they're not drawing out Julia Letlow. I like her. I don't agree with a lot of her views, but I tolerate them and respect her for being a young single mother who went to Congress after her elected husband tragically died of Covid before he could take office (and the fact that she tried to combat vaccine hesitancy among Republicans). She's a quiet and hard-working member of Congress who you can tell is in it to get things done for her constituents and not be a bombthrower.

Question though - if Graves runs against her in the primary for the 5th, could he have a shot? Letlow's district will be gaining a good amount of Graves's political base in southern Baton Rouge and the Livingston Parish area. That's got to be a significant chunk of the primary electorate.

Honestly underrated political divide is people who came to Congress in good faith to be genuine vs people who came to Congress for their own self-interests.

Also yes she would certainly be vulnerable given many of Graves areas are higher turnout too. Overall though, the primary prolly comes down to who more prominent Republicans throw their support behind, and that’ll prolly be Letlow.

Usually in incumbent vs incumbent primaries, its just a case of who retains more of their former district. While prominent party endorsements and money can effect things, especially Trump support for example in the AL-01 primary as both incumbents know, the race does start out slanted towards the  incumbent with a bigger continuity. In both instances so far there are more Republicans coming from the 5th than the 6th into the new seat. Additionally, Graves's former seats more or less track with the BR Media market, so his profile isn't that apparent elsewhere in the state, which is again where a majority of Republicans reside.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/ByPiperHutch/status/1747317428843860185?t=n13b0riivW0s0fAZP_...

Johnson ways in. As we saw with Santos, his position of leadership now puts him in a position where he must count votes just like McCarthy did. He represents the other side of the special session which still could emerge, that is to pass nothing and then lose on the merits in 3 months.

A lot of actions so far suggest the state GOP knows they can't win, and so would prefer to choose who gets axed rather then punt. Given Graves's ties to the old leadership, maybe Johnson is being a double face and has to oppose it publicly but privately is in support of preserving Letlow. But we won't know anything until bills get votes.

https://twitter.com/RepClayHiggins/status/1747330090940133444?t=UX3A3RsnZXrC8nYA...

Meanwhile Higgins seems to on board,  giving further support to the idea Johnson just had to say that cause he has to.

[Oryxslayer]

Other not previously mentioned Maps on the state site right now:

SB1 Supreme Court (Pressly, SD38, R)



SB2 Supreme Court (Pressly, SD38, R)



SB4 Congress (Price, SD02, D). This is the former Fairfax report plaintiff map



SB6 & 7. 6 is a proposed amendment to increase the court from 7 to 9. (Seabaugh, SD31, R) Note that the Court District plaintiffs have previously said that 3 seats would be needed to resolve their complaints under hypothetical expansion proposals, this only has the two.



SB10 Congress (Carter, SD07, D)



HB2 Congress (Carter Sr, HD34, D)



HB1 & 3 Supreme Courts. Similar to SB6 and 7, one is an amendment to increase the court to 9. This one has 3 majority AA districts. (Carter Sr, HD34, D)



HB5 Congress is once again the Fairfax report map. (Marcelle, HD61, D)

HB8 Supreme Court (Johnson, HD27, R) This is the map previously proposed by the 5 members of the Court who asked for a redrawing of their districts.



HB15 Supreme Court (Carter Sr, HD34, D) Same map as HB8

[Oryxslayer]

Why do Landry and Graves hate each other?

Graves backed Waguespack to the hilt in the 2023 Gov race, almost sending things to a runoff.

Though I think it goes even further back. Landry was elected in the 2010 wave to then LA03, the district soon dismantled after the Katrina losses. A piece of the district basically went to every neighboring seat, forcing him to run and lose the race vs Boustany in the new LA03 which was mostly the old LA07. At the time it was well known LA06 congressman Cassidy was running for Senate in 2014. I don't know the inner workings of LA politics back then, but it seems like Landry getting axed as the freshman back then with no off ramp or say a LA06 that allowed him to come back in 2014 may have left some scars. Especially since Graves at the time was a insider staffer in both State and Washington politics and likely knew the same facts of the situation.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/ByPiperHutch/status/1747381243342119188?t=Ucoq50zYNABXcm2kRo...

https://twitter.com/ByPiperHutch/status/1747383323746263453?t=T-kNYTe96CaZWCfF3d...

https://twitter.com/ByPiperHutch/status/1747388361147371984?t=-Ez-OhHhzBQ5N3FvA8...

https://twitter.com/ByPiperHutch/status/1747391741081137419?t=POQ3sOz4Uc-RU8aaVO...

Committee transcripts on the Womack Diagonal district.

[Oryxslayer]

Senate passed Landrey backed msp 27-11

[Oryxslayer]

We're getting Shreveport to BR LFG!!!!

Legitimately has long been my preferred option for a second AA seat for years cause you are following the river. A clear COI compared to the L or the BR octopus. Also in this situation, protects the Speaker by yanking out the uber-AA precincts like how LA-02 does now with BR. Though once it was announced that they were looking at screwing Graves, I explored the options and found that the diagonal actually made the most sense if you want that outcome and a 50%+1 VAP seat. Obviously, compared to how it's drawn by the legislator, it can be neater, and IMO the GOP seats should be neater to prevent compactness allegations:

How can this district be constitutional when 2010's VA-03 was unconstitutional?  This is just ridiculous.  The almost-all BR version preferred by the lower house looks so much better and likely meets the VRA standard.

I mean I'm sure it does. The main difference between the two maps proposed by the GOP so far is the diagonal is majority BVAP, the BR seat is not. And that just goes for general theory about the designs of the two seats as well: the one I call the BR octopus (cause it reaches everywhere possible in the south) can't really reach 50% BVAP without hurting LA-02, the diagonal achieves it easily in most iterations.

Speaking of those iterations, you can go way back into the thread to find my diagonal discussions, and old maps. In general, this version drawn by the legislature isn't all that good, especially when it comes to the seats around the AA ones. But that's mostly a case of politics which eliminated consideration of the "L shape" district or a good diagonal like below. But in the end of the day, that's just my opinion, you are free to have yours.



But now lets talk about why both proposed plans satisfy the VRA as currently imposed, and why some other districts do not. The best place to start IMO is actually a similar and old Louisiana district, District 4 under the second attempt by the GOP and AA legislators to get their map passed a white-Dem led racial gerrymandering suit.



So why does this map fail and IMO the current Womack map succeeds, or other districts like the referenced VA one, fail? Similar to how VRA districts can have fluctuating levels of minority VAP based on RPV in each specific situation, each specific situation also has it's own COI. And the crucial question that should be asked is Can this district only be explained by Race. That's why so many of the 90s computerized African American packs, including the diagonal district 4, fail. Only three parishes kept whole of 15 visited and the cuts are wild going precinct by precinct. That's also why the old VA-03 fell, cause it used water connectivity when there were alternative designs avaiable that followed COIs.

That's why I like the diagonal, cause you have a clear and strong COI in the Red River. Even though there are not many ferry boats these days, that waterway determined the pattern of settlement and development. The Womack map keeps 5 parishes whole and cuts 5, the BR cut being unavoidable no matter what. The echols map keeps 2 parishs whole and cuts 10, which is why I don't like the BR only designs. And a better diagonal design would keep even more parishes whole and when cut them follow the river or city lines.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/ET_Californian/status/1747771492647973261?t=T-dc6BmKCu2fd3pH...

There's being drawn out, and then there's being Drawn Out.


Notably this version carves out LSU (as seen here) and the number of republicans Letlow is taking in from LA-06 is much more iffy versus what she is retaining. IMO I don't like how this version adds another parish cut.

[Oryxslayer]

All 11 Senate Democrats voted against the map, lol, why?  From a purely partisan perspective it really doesn't get much better than that map.  Are they trying to defend Graves or something?

Probably principle, just getting shut out of the process. The fact the map advanced unanimously through committee (which has Dems on it) should show their true beliefs.

[Oryxslayer]

Weirdly, the west of the state looks better than the diagonals proposed so far. But then you look towards the southeast...

[Oryxslayer]

Weirdly, the west of the state looks better than the diagonals proposed so far. But then you look towards the southeast...

They stripped out, I assume, heavily black areas and added them in to New Orleans.
Plus, I have to assume, there's some aim at Garrett Graves...

The EBR cut itself is baseically identical wen it comes to LA-06 as the map passed by the senate. LA-03 is now just doing a bunch of weird stuff to get into the county and take what was previously in LA-05, and it seems to force pop rotation to LA -01 and another seemingly road-only connection in Lafourche. I have to imagine Scalise is behind this, pulling his seat more from the BR media market compared to the senate map and causing oddities to LA-03 so that LA-05 doesn't have too many EBR GOP voters.

[Oryxslayer]

Here's a DRA link to my (close enough) transcription.


Here's the two tenuous connections.






And here's how you fix it while maintaining all stated desires:

[Oryxslayer]

House just passed the Semi-Original Womack map, aka the version that was sent to them by the senate. 86 Yea, a bipartisan vote.

The amendments from yesterday were rejected.

This now goes to the governor, meaning that for now the legislatures congressional work is probably done.

EDIT: Even though they chucked nearly all amendments, the House version seemed to have shifted a literal handful of voters around. So the senate had to do a quick concurrence vote by the same margins as before. So now it actually should be done.

[Oryxslayer]

HB8 Supreme Court (Johnson, HD27, R) This is the map previously proposed by the 5 members of the Court who asked for a redrawing of their districts.

Also, for the Supreme Court, this map passed the house on Wednesday with a large Bipartisan supermajority and it seemingly passed should Senate today but the gov site lacks the vote scheduling atm.

This is the map proposed by the 5 members of the Supreme Court to redraw their lines and resolve the lawsuit against their district lines. The legislature seems to have deferred with minimal objections to their authority.

[Oryxslayer]

HB8 Supreme Court (Johnson, HD27, R) This is the map previously proposed by the 5 members of the Court who asked for a redrawing of their districts.

Also, for the Supreme Court, this map passed the house on Wednesday with a large Bipartisan supermajority and it seemingly passed should Senate today but the gov site lacks the vote scheduling atm.

This is the map proposed by the 5 members of the Supreme Court to redraw their lines and resolve the lawsuit against their district lines. The legislature seems to have deferred with minimal objections to their authority.

So apparently the session actually ended even though this map passed the house, passed third reading and was teed up in the senate, and had more sponsors in both chambers than I can list? Look for it to reemerge when the legislature reconvenes.

[Oryxslayer]

I think this Congressional map is designed to get SCOTUS to strike it down. A similar district was struck down in the 90s (and I'm not referring to the infamous "Z" district).

I doubt it. The single biggest reason is that the Trial Court would do that. But beyond that,  it's not that hard to understand how we got here if you follow the thought process:

1) Louisiana is ordered by the 5th to conduct redistricting.  They could ignore this, since the 5th vacated the PI given the lack of urgency, but the Trial Court would just find them guilty in a full March Trial and impose a master map.

1.5) Get angry that you are going to lose no matter what, since Purcell can't reasonably apply to a November jungle primary state, and plan to do away with it.  After all, there are other lawsuits against the legislative maps.

2) The court has already released a master "Template" map, the L shaped Fairfax report.  Are you fine with cutting Letlow?

3) We would prefer not to lose Letlow,  so we must draw our own map. L shape option is out.

4) Since the 5th is hearing a case on coalition seats Right Now, and will probably force SCOTUS to slap them yet again, let's not draw seats under 50% BVAP. Even though the threshold for performance is below that - way below in NOLA, we don't want to give the court a reason for the L. So the "BR blob" south-of-the-state only version is out.

5) That leaves us with the Red River diagonal.  However,  we want two northern based White districts,  especially since one is the Speaker.  So we can't really draw the most sensible diagonal,  since both White districts need ways out of the north and can't be locked in.

6) Since Johnson is the most hesitant about the process,  let's remove any danger from his district as well. Take all the Dem voters for the New seat, and put as many dissonant Republicans elsewhere.


So there's two questions whether the seat would get scrutinized for racial gerrymandering.  The first is that none of the decisions look at things by race more than is necessary. Everything is about (backroom) politics,  and the Supreme Court has said that is fine. Now obviously untangling race from politics is hard in the southern states, what is a racial gerrymander and what is a political one. But here the prominent actors laid their cards on the table, which we have tracked here, perhaps to prove that their actions were political and personal.

The second question is if the diagonal design is just inherently uncompact and can only always be explained by race. This would just mean every diagonal is a racial gerrymander. Now IMO I think no cause there are COIs here, especially when compared to the alternatives, but that's my opinion.  Admittingly the legislature didn't draw the most sensible diagonal for political reasons of protecting Johnson,  and that's where a lot of the issues stem from. Long districts aren't inherently evil either. Look at the illegally cut FL05, or the new AL02. (EDIT or even LA02. Going to EBR was illegal but NOLA + the River Parishes/Cancer Alley areas makes more sense then a whiter NOLA only seat) We also have plenty of minority districts that become uncompact because of political purposes in Texas mainly,  but also in the Midwestern states at various previous points.

 IMO the main sin of the 90s map is not the design, as you can see on the previous page, but the decision to cut 12/15  parishes and do so in extremely racially selective ways. Thats what makes it similar to the old orlando-facing FL05s, NC12, VA03, and numerous more. The new map cuts 6/10 and none are exactly purely racial in nature. That's before we talk about how Lafayette , EBR, and Rapides are cut under all three general designs, sometimes in more apparently racial ways, leaving us with only three cuts semi-unique to the diagonal.  But that's just my opinion,  and the court will have the final word.

[Oryxslayer]

Map signed by Landry

[Oryxslayer]

Several White GOP voters today (with the support of Graves) filed their own a Racial gerrymandering claim against the legislatures map. This very well may mean the legislature's map is deemed insufficient by the trial court when it reconvenes and imposes their own more visually appealing L shape, just so that these guys have no case when it does get moving much further down the road. If so, the legislature tried their best to protect who they wanted, but would be brought down by the racists who want to die on their hill.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1755725527229305028?t=rfqvpv2ACHkGCNkrn...

Several things:

This is separate from the congressional suit in it's entirely.

The plaintiffs alledged that an appropriate 1/3 of seats should be majority minority.
 
This will likely be fought much harder than the congressional plans, given whose jobs are at stake, and this is only the first court decision on the issue.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1755725527229305028?t=rfqvpv2ACHkGCNkrn...

Several things:

This is separate from the congressional suit in it's entirely.

The plaintiffs alledged that an appropriate 1/3 of seats should be majority minority.
 
This will likely be fought much harder than the congressional plans, given whose jobs are at stake, and this is only the first court decision on the issue.

In the context of a safe state, the veto override threshold is likely all that matters.  Wouldn't making exactly 1/3 of the seats as ironclad Dem as possible be optimal for GOP policy goals in the long run?  Unless there are other state constitutional restrictions that would prevent them from distributing R voters evenly between the other 2/3rds of the seats?

Well right now they have the threshold and are not likely want to lose it. And complying will likely mean losing it in at least the state House, since you cannot fully deny the White NOLA libs at least one seat there.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/mcpli/status/1757915723509403952?t=rXSDTIFUD94CVusycahnUQ&am...

A bold request,  since a huge part of the legislature would be up if new lines get implemented.  Since the fight seems to only have started,  I doubt this ends up as part of the resolution,  since delays will push us close to the election.  But it will be interesting if it did.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/JAHeale/status/1758092089806512238?t=tQdNMil7y5S2oX2rSjLhxQ&...

A bold request,  since a huge part of the legislature would be up if new lines get implemented.  Since the fight seems to only have started,  I doubt this ends up as part of the resolution,  since delays will push us close to the election.  But it will be interesting if it does.

What is this tweet supposed to be about? I'm seeing stuff about an UK special election.

Oops, wrong copy paste in the morning. Thank you for catching that. Fixed.

It's a new filing that's asking for a bunch of special elections.

[Oryxslayer]

So two expected things happened today in LA:

1) The State Appealed the  legislative ruling.

2) State Rep Johnson reintroduced the courts desired remap for the regular session.

HB8 Supreme Court (Johnson, HD27, R) This is the map previously proposed by the 5 members of the Court who asked for a redrawing of their districts.

Also, for the Supreme Court, this map passed the house on Wednesday with a large Bipartisan supermajority and it seemingly passed should Senate today but the gov site lacks the vote scheduling atm.

This is the map proposed by the 5 members of the Supreme Court to redraw their lines and resolve the lawsuit against their district lines. The legislature seems to have deferred with minimal objections to their authority.

So apparently the session actually ended even though this map passed the house, passed third reading and was teed up in the senate, and had more sponsors in both chambers than I can list? Look for it to reemerge when the legislature reconvenes.

[Oryxslayer]

As anticipated,  the court's desired map is moving through the regular session. Passed the senate first this time.