2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Louisiana

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It's generally better to have a BVAP majority than a BVAP plurality, and generally better to have a BVAP plurality than a white plurality, and generally better to have a white plurality than a white majority.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It's generally better to have a BVAP majority than a BVAP plurality, and generally better to have a BVAP plurality than a white plurality, and generally better to have a white plurality than a white majority.

I don't think that's necessarily correct--the former iteration of VA-03 was struck down because it packed Black voters.

I said "generally". There are exceptions, many of them, but there is a trendline of desirability that exists. And of course overall minority influence is highly important.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/935ef5ef-b252-408c-afcb-84713f1b36f4
easy 4-2 map
Inspiration came from Oryx's signature

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I updated my map. I have two majority BCVAP districts. The New Orleans district is solidly Democratic. Unlike the early 1990s districts that were struck down my second BCVAP majority district is compact enough to be legal.

With parishes.



With numbers.



Partisan composition.

Quite good. Is there a reason two counties are split between the 3rd and 4th, though?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I updated my map. I have two majority BCVAP districts. The New Orleans district is solidly Democratic. Unlike the early 1990s districts that were struck down my second BCVAP majority district is compact enough to be legal.

With parishes.

With numbers.

Quite good. Is there a reason two counties are split between the 3rd and 4th, though?

Yes. Two parishes were split between the 3rd and 4th to give the 4th majority BCVAP. I just fixed that by removing a parish split and keeping the 4th majority BCVAP.

Interesting. That looks better. Good map.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Am I the only one here who uses directional numbering of Louisiana?

So far as I've seen, yes.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I use directional numbering for all 50 states. Who might replace Julia Letlow on my map?

LA-01: Steve Scalise
LA-02: Troy Carter/Karen Carter Peterson
LA-03: Garret Graves
LA-04: OPEN
LA-05: Clay Higgins
LA-06: Mike Johnson

If I had to guess, a Baton Rouge Democrat.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I use directional numbering for all 50 states. Who might replace Julia Letlow on my map?

LA-01: Steve Scalise
LA-02: Troy Carter/Karen Carter Peterson
LA-03: Garret Graves
LA-04: OPEN
LA-05: Clay Higgins
LA-06: Mike Johnson

If I had to guess, a Baton Rouge Democrat.

Maybe Sharon Weston Broome?

Definitely possible.
Is there any indications we have, either way, on whether she would pursue federal office?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/935ef5ef-b252-408c-afcb-84713f1b36f4
easy 4-2 map
Inspiration came from Oryx's signature

I would take St. Bernard and Plaquemines out of LA-02.

Is this what you had in mind?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/935ef5ef-b252-408c-afcb-84713f1b36f4
easy 4-2 map
Inspiration came from Oryx's signature

I would take St. Bernard and Plaquemines out of LA-02.

Is this what you had in mind?

No. Plaquemines and St. Bernard are still in LA-02 on your map. I would put them somewhere else. I didn't have in mind a three way split of EBR.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/935ef5ef-b252-408c-afcb-84713f1b36f4
Duplicate this map and post in thread when you find a solution.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is what a more fair GOP map might look like if JBE can veto a ridiculous map. Who might take LA-05 on my map?

LA-01: Steve Scalise
LA-02: TBD
LA-03: Clay Higgins
LA-04: Garret Graves
LA-05: OPEN
LA-06: Mike Johnson/Julia Letlow



Partisanship.

The 5th has a lot of territory currently in the 4th.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is what a more fair GOP map might look like if JBE can veto a ridiculous map. Who might take LA-05 on my map?

LA-01: Steve Scalise
LA-02: TBD
LA-03: Clay Higgins
LA-04: Garret Graves
LA-05: OPEN
LA-06: Mike Johnson/Julia Letlow



Partisanship.

The 5th has a lot of territory currently in the 4th.

Yes, but I drew Mike Johnson (R-Bossier Parish) and Julia Letlow (R-Richland Parish) into the same district. Who might take the yellow district on my map?

There have been cases of incumbents moving in order to run in the district that has most of their territory.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

here is an article from the Hayride about the politics behind the redistricting process

https://thehayride.com/2021/07/heres-what-larry-sabato-says-about-congressional-redistricting-in-louisiana/

Thanks for sharing this with us. This was an interesting read.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

One thing that’s interesting is we might actually end up with a pretty fair Louisiana House map and Dems might be able to continue to deny the GOP a supermajority.

According to my calculations, Dems actually have a pretty decent geography advantage in the state, mostly thanks to white rurals “hyper packing” and black areas being lower turnout. Combine that with VRA, and you get a bunch of 60ish% Dem districts and 80% R districts. It’s actually pretty easy to make a relatively compact LA House map on 2020 numbers where Biden outright wins a majority of seats.

Am I saying Dems will outright win a majority under the new maps. Def not. However, I do think they will be given a good 40% of the seats or so and have no less of a viable path to a majority than in a state like Ohio or even Wisconsin which is weird to think about.

At first I didn't believe it.
But lo and behold...
https://davesredistricting.org/join/9ec3a530-2366-437b-9bea-014fbf0d2edd
Only 50 Trump districts, out of 105.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

One thing that’s interesting is we might actually end up with a pretty fair Louisiana House map and Dems might be able to continue to deny the GOP a supermajority.

According to my calculations, Dems actually have a pretty decent geography advantage in the state, mostly thanks to white rurals “hyper packing” and black areas being lower turnout. Combine that with VRA, and you get a bunch of 60ish% Dem districts and 80% R districts. It’s actually pretty easy to make a relatively compact LA House map on 2020 numbers where Biden outright wins a majority of seats.

Am I saying Dems will outright win a majority under the new maps. Def not. However, I do think they will be given a good 40% of the seats or so and have no less of a viable path to a majority than in a state like Ohio or even Wisconsin which is weird to think about.

At first I didn't believe it.
But lo and behold...
https://davesredistricting.org/join/9ec3a530-2366-437b-9bea-014fbf0d2edd
Only 50 Trump districts, out of 105.

Nice job! It's def a suprising example of pretty extreme favorable geography

I tried to do the same thing with the State Senate. It definitely is harder. I still was able to get a majority of Biden districts though.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/50529d59-7aed-4668-a24e-7bf09aca8c13

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/6e24626c-029b-478a-b504-74253f34993b

I sought to drew this as a non-partisan map.
One seat is contained completely within the Florida Parishes. No black-majority seats, but there is one that is Biden+9.9, 47% black, 43% white in total population (most of Baton Rouge) and another that is Biden+28.6, 42% black, 40% white (NOLA+all but 49k of Jefferson Parish).
The rest are safe Republican.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

That seems a reasonable decision, and would simply require election from single-member districts. Single member districts had already been ordered in Texas by White v Regester.

Worth mentioning that multi-member districts are fine, just not majoritarian ones.

Precisely which ones would be legal, you think?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Anyone know when we’ll have a final map. This might be one final small W for Dems this cycle but we’ll see if the map survives the decade

https://lailluminator.com/2022/06/22/its-basically-a-race-3-courts-consider-future-of-louisianas-congressional-districts/

Thanks.

Tomorrow will be a big day because it's the last day to stay the ruling by the SCOTUS (the stay has already failed the conservative 5th circuit court). Given how last minute they stayed the Alabama case, there's def a good chance we see a repeat here.

Really hoping they draw the and enact a better map ASAP.

So, no stay yet?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I have questions about what they did to Baton Rouge...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

https://twitter.com/umichvoter/status/1748132861868130592

Not totally shocked as it's more purely urbanized than the L district and I believe it has legit culturally liberal parts of Baton Rouge in it.

Yep. The big rural areas won't count for much in practice, here.