2020 Texas Redistricting thread

[Torie]

I've seen speculation that they might try to make a RGV district that's just over 50% Hispanic (for VRA purposes) but still leans Republican (thanks to the rightward shift of the RGV post-2020). Wonder how easy that would be to achieve.

That will not happen. It really isn't that feasible, and the Pubs want to protect Cuellar to boot (Laredo). Having said that, my TX-12 and TX-10 are majority HCVAP (both by design), and both safely Pub, particularly TX-12, which takes in the oil patch, where the percentage between the Hispanic population percentage and HCVAP is not that great. I assume the Hispanics in the oil patch have quite well paying jobs in the oil service industry, and are more or less assimilated, as second or third generation Hispanics or more.

Come to think of it, maybe they are thinking of drawing the TX-12 CD that I drew. It really needs to be drawn to avoid Gingles risk (in addition to my TC-10 CD, that "loses" its bite of El Paso to TX-12 to make it all happen). It also facilitates the larger goals of the Pubmander, by "unpacking" TX-12 of some excess Pubs, that can be deployed elsewhere to firm up other Pub designed seats. So it is an easy call for the Pubs to do it.

[Torie]

I've seen speculation that they might try to make a RGV district that's just over 50% Hispanic (for VRA purposes) but still leans Republican (thanks to the rightward shift of the RGV post-2020). Wonder how easy that would be to achieve.

Trump 2020 probably won what I label TX-08 by 10 points, but it is 62% HCVAP.

[I’m not Stu]

What is the minimum amount of seats that is VRA compliant?

[Torie]

What is the minimum amount of seats that is VRA compliant?

There is no minimum number of seats based on population other than to set a maximum. The VRA requires the number of seats that equals the number of compact CD's that can be drawn that are at least 50% HCVAP, up to the theoretical maximum. The actual seats drawn can have lower HCVAP percentages provided they are performing Hispanic seats, which involves who votes in Dem primaries in general. The map I drew has 10 Hispanic performing seats, all 50%+ HCVAP with the exception of the performing Hispanic seat mostly in Dallas County that is 48.5% HCVAP (which is the maximum I think that can be drawn "compactly" and thus trigger the Gingles requirements). The theoretical maximum might be say 13 seats, if Hispanics are a third of Texas's population.

[I’m not Stu]

What is the minimum amount of seats that is VRA compliant?

There is no minimum number of seats based on population other than to set a maximum. The VRA requires the number of seats that equals the number of compact CD's that can be drawn that are at least 50% HCVAP, up to the theoretical maximum. The actual seats drawn can have lower HCVAP percentages provided they are performing Hispanic seats, which involves who votes in Dem primaries in general. The map I drew has 10 50%+ HCVAP seats (which is the maximum I think that can be drawn "compactly" and thus trigger the Gingles requirements). The theoretical maximum might be say 13 seats, if Hispanics are a third of Texas's population.

What is the possible maximum that can be drawn with 50% HCVAP.

[Torie]

What is the minimum amount of seats that is VRA compliant?

There is no minimum number of seats based on population other than to set a maximum. The VRA requires the number of seats that equals the number of compact CD's that can be drawn that are at least 50% HCVAP, up to the theoretical maximum. The actual seats drawn can have lower HCVAP percentages provided they are performing Hispanic seats, which involves who votes in Dem primaries in general. The map I drew has 10 50%+ HCVAP seats (which is the maximum I think that can be drawn "compactly" and thus trigger the Gingles requirements). The theoretical maximum might be say 13 seats, if Hispanics are a third of Texas's population.

What is the possible maximum that can be drawn with 50% HCVAP.

10 I think in all probability, with my TX-38 a struggle to get there. That assumes you don't have wild Fajita strip action, that splits up my TX-07 zipping up to Austin, which may get one up to another 50% HCVAP CD (unlikely, but maybe possible). That would not be a "compact" CD, triggering the Gingles mandate.

[I’m not Stu]

What is the minimum amount of seats that is VRA compliant?

There is no minimum number of seats based on population other than to set a maximum. The VRA requires the number of seats that equals the number of compact CD's that can be drawn that are at least 50% HCVAP, up to the theoretical maximum. The actual seats drawn can have lower HCVAP percentages provided they are performing Hispanic seats, which involves who votes in Dem primaries in general. The map I drew has 10 50%+ HCVAP seats (which is the maximum I think that can be drawn "compactly" and thus trigger the Gingles requirements). The theoretical maximum might be say 13 seats, if Hispanics are a third of Texas's population.

What is the possible maximum that can be drawn with 50% HCVAP.

10 I think in all probability, with my TX-38 a struggle to get there. That assumes you don't have wild Fajita strip action, that splits up my TX-07 zipping up to Austin, which may get one up to another 50% HCVAP CD (unlikely, but maybe possible). That would not be a "compact" CD, triggering the Gingles mandate.

What is the most GOP map possible without creating too few majority-minority districts?

[Torie]

Mine I think.

In that regard, I came up with a better solution for the Pub's problems in the Dallas area, that causes my TX-34 to turn a deeper shade of red (now Trump 2016 by a 12% margin), by elongating the TX-30 prong into Dallas County and losing its mother of all snakes into Collin County and then back into Dallas County to take in the City of Richardson. Now, with its elongated Dallas County prong, it absorbs the most Dem precincts in Richardson County. In turn TX-34 pushes into Collin County to take some more Pub precincts, but not too Pub, since TX-35 is a very Dem trending area, so it is in the nature of a Goldilocks snatch of some Collin County precincts, that do respect municipal lines there.

[Brittain33]

Torie, you’ve explained your TX-38, but what is your TX-37 doing, racially?

[Torie]

Torie, you’ve explained your TX-38, but what is your TX-37 doing, racially?

It’s the United Nations CD. Come on down!



The thing is, is my instinct is that the Pubs are going to draw something like this. Texans are not known to be unstated types. They think big.

Wasserman btw is drawing even worse maps, e.g., check out his latest map to zero out the Pubs in Maryland. So, believe it or not, this map could with some more effort be made even more ugly and disgusting. But I believe trading a few basis points (basis points, not percentage points) of partisan advantage to make things more aesthetic, is the gentlemanly thing to do.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f4a598c6-1f16-4045-9b9d-5ff8dbec424d

[Torie]

By the way, the census bureau called me the other day to inform me that the metro areas in Texas have been redrawn, which match perfectly my CD lines, so with the exception of my TX-09, which goes into both the Austin and Houston metro areas, my map as to the four major metro areas in Texas has no Muon2 pack and cover penalties. Everything is perfectly nested. Who knew? All 4 metro areas I now notice voted for Trump 2016, although San Antonio was close. Interesting!

[Torie]

My Texas map has now had the CD's renumbered, so they match as best one can the current numbers. The CD's that least fit the existing map, or where two CD's overlapped too much over one existing CD, got new numbers. So the new VRA district in San Antonio gets number 37, the CD wedged between San Antonio and Austin gets number 38 (a new Pub seat), and the CD Britain33 asked about is wedged in between the existing CD's (a new Dem sink), gets number 39. Houston does not get a new numbered CD, but one mostly rural CD that stuck its nose just a bit into Harris County, TX-10, is now fully nested in Harris County. It used to be TX-23 on my maps above.

So basically the map with some effectiveness takes out the Dem incumbents in TX-07 in Harris County, TX-32 in Dallas County (mostly), and TX-34 on the Gulf, where the Dem incumbent has already announced that he is packing it in. The Pubs then "give" the Dems two of the three new seats, one in San Antonio because it is VRA required (although the geography makes it near impossible to deploy the excess Pubs there who are far, far away in any event), and TX-39, because the Dallas area has too many white Dems in the area and because the trends make the surrounding CD's not able to be very generous in giving away any more Pubs. So the net total for the Dems is -1 net, albeit with all of the dozen CD's allocated to them now uber safe. Such is the nature of gerrymanders of course.

It took me half a day to figure this all out, and renumber. Sad! But then I have read nothing in the public square either that gets it right either, as Wasserman et al chatter about the Pubs will get two of the new seats, but take away the Gulf seat, leaving the Dems even with 13 seats, or the Dems get 2 of the 3 new seats, losing only the Gulf seat, for a gain of plus one, or the Dems keep all of their seats, and get one of the three new ones, etc., etc. No wonder there is mass confusion!

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f4a598c6-1f16-4045-9b9d-5ff8dbec424d

[Torie]

I was dissatisfied with my Pubmander in the Metroplex, and reworked it. This map, unless the Rio Grande Hispanics snap back to the Dems, should without any material VRA risk at all, give the Pubs 4 new seats that should hold, while the Dems lose one seat for some time. Poor Tarrant County. It is chopped seven times. One oddity is that my TX-13 now has two thirds of its population in Tarrant County.

I share that one image of that district, where the one third of the TX-13 in the vast open spaces, joins a densely populated urban area. It will be interesting to me how closely this map matches what the Pubs enact into law.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/b9bb0297-8932-4e5f-b3ac-d82cfd30f83e

[S019]

I was dissatisfied with my Pubmander in the Metroplex, and reworked it. This map, unless the Rio Grande Hispanics snap back to the Dems, should without any material VRA risk at all, give the Pubs 4 new seats that should hold, while the Dems lose one seat for some time. Poor Tarrant County. It is chopped seven times. One oddity is that my TX-13 now has two thirds of its population in Tarrant County.

I share that one image of that district, where the one third of the TX-13 in the vast open spaces, joins a densely populated urban area. It will be interesting to me how closely this map matches what the Pubs enact into law.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/b9bb0297-8932-4e5f-b3ac-d82cfd30f83e


This map would also give Republican incumbents lots of new rural territory and people who don't know them, which could lead to primary challenges.

[Torie]

For those of you who think I have lost the ability to draw a map based on neutral redistricting principles, I tried my hand at it to assess the impact of a Pubmander in TX that has minimum VRA risk and has some nexus with what might happen in the real world.

The results are below. You can make your own decision as to the impact, but my best estimate is that the Pub-snatch score is from 4 to 5 seats, depending on whether your score counts  lean seats as 1 for the favored party, or a partial count of 0.75. (My Pubmander had 3 Pub lean seats.) The Pubmander of course also makes GOP seats that might evolve into lean seats over time, far less likely.


Non gerrymandered TX map:



https://davesredistricting.org/join/3cdf5158-5e0a-4326-ae81-7edbfd2c3ed4

Pubmander TX map:



https://davesredistricting.org/join/b9bb0297-8932-4e5f-b3ac-d82cfd30f83e

Chart of TX Pubmander impact:

[Torie]

I put up my TX maps on RRH, and yes, you guessed it, the consensus is that my Pubmander was too kind to the Dems – way too kind. Krazen among others chimed in, and offered up his map in riposte.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/acd5d905-fd98-4c60-b8a7-72d4a23ac108

After examining his map, I made the comments below, which I copy and paste.

Thank you all for your comments.

One of the benefits of Krazen’s map being adopted into law, is that SCOTUS will be deciding LULAC et al. v. Krazen, and we will get an update on what the VRA currently means (assuming the Dems don’t succeed in amending it in the meantime). One issue that will would be clarified is if hitting the 50% HCVAP percentage is really an airtight safe harbor or not. Many of the gerrymandered 50%+ HCVAP CD’s in his map are not really performing Hispanic districts, and when you gerrymander a CD to make it not performing, you have issues.

One example of this, is that his barely above 50% HCVAP CD in the Houston area given the high percentage of blacks in it, is likely to elect a black, assuming Gingles still applies to Hispanics in that area. And given the huge Pub surge in the RGV, perhaps Gingles would be held not to apply to Hispanics in that area at all. Another issue is whether when two compact performing 50%+ HCVAP CD’s can be drawn in Bexar County, it is legal to instead gerrymander one of the CD’s so that it instead takes in the Laredo area. That will be a revisiting of the LULAC case where arguably that type of a CD was struck down.

A “conservative” approach to the VRA is not to gerrymander minority CD’s beyond what is necessary to make them performing. I did that with my TX-11 CD that takes in a slice of the El Paso area, rather than a CD that goes into San Antonio. It is a 50%+ HCVAP CD, but since it is Republican may not be deemed performing (because a majority of Hispanics still vote Dem, and those voters will not be able to elect a candidate of their choice), but it cannot with any merit be argued as being gerrymandered. Ditto for my TX-23 CD that takes in most of what remains in Bexar County after the two nested CD’s there are drawn.

One thing my Pubmander map could do better is unpack my TX-02 more effectively than it is, which should move my TX-07 from lean GOP to safe GOP. Krazen did a good job in the Houston area on that score. For a moment I was wondering if he had drawn a performing black CD in the Houston area, but low and behold he had with a CD that is about 40% BCVAP, which should do the trick (with whites 20% CVAP there). However, this was done with his TX-09 rather than his TX-18 which is at 35% BCVAP with a lot more whites in it (37% CVAP), who vote in Dem primaries, rather than Asians and Hispanics who vote in lower percentages, making that CD problematical, again assuming Gingles applies in this part of Harris County vis a vis whites, who vote Dem in relatively high percentages. Anyway, that was very creative on Krazen’s part.

Voila.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/2330f00e-d043-4e3f-9362-64c7d0dd5d40



Well, Krazen brings out the worst in me, but his bold excesses drove me over the edge (as well as give me evil ideas). Here is a map, that would seem to leash the Dems to 12 seats (with next to zero VRA risk of course), absent a big Hispanic snap back to the Dems, or ongoing massive trends against the Pubs in the outer Metroplex.

TX is fun to gerrymander because the partisan extremes are so great between town and country, as if folks live on two different planets there. I need to take a shower now.

I suppose the next project would be to try a Dem gerrymander that hews to the VRA. How many seats would the Dems get with an extreme but legal Dem gerrymander as opposed to an extreme Pub gerrymander? 10 more seats perhaps?



https://davesredistricting.org/join/91f9da94-1ac4-46b2-9e0a-84cfc829971c

[Roll Roons]

So with Texas gaining 2 seats, how are they gonna do this? There absolutely needs to be an Austin vote sink, but they can make at least one RGV seat that Trump carried. And the trends in DFW are worse for the GOP than they are in Houston, so Allred's district probably gets turned into a sink.

[Stuart98]

RIP literally everyone's maps

[Skill and Chance]

So with Texas gaining 2 seats, how are they gonna do this? There absolutely needs to be an Austin vote sink, but they can make at least one RGV seat that Trump carried. And the trends in DFW are worse for the GOP than they are in Houston, so Allred's district probably gets turned into a sink.

1. Obvious Austin vote sink
2. Allred vote sink in Dallas suburbs to make TX-03/06/24 all ~60% R again
3. In South Texas, make Pete Gonzales much safer and put Vicente Gonzales in a Trump-leaning district in a way that won't lose conservative votes at SCOTUS.
4. Decide whether to draw out or vote sink Fletcher in Houston.  This is the hardest call IMO.     

[lfromnj]

So with Texas gaining 2 seats, how are they gonna do this? There absolutely needs to be an Austin vote sink, but they can make at least one RGV seat that Trump carried. And the trends in DFW are worse for the GOP than they are in Houston, so Allred's district probably gets turned into a sink.

1. Obvious Austin vote sink
2. Allred vote sink in Dallas suburbs to make TX-03/06/24 all ~60% R again
3. In South Texas, make Pete Gonzales much safer and put Vicente Gonzales in a Trump-leaning district in a way that won't lose conservative votes at SCOTUS.
4. Decide whether to draw out or vote sink Fletcher in Houston.  This is the hardest call IMO.     

Nope
Double vote sink Austin.

White liberals have the highest turnout in the state. Its also relatively center to the state. The less you need to crack to the rest of Austin the more rurals one can use for Dallas/Houston.

[Skill and Chance]

So with Texas gaining 2 seats, how are they gonna do this? There absolutely needs to be an Austin vote sink, but they can make at least one RGV seat that Trump carried. And the trends in DFW are worse for the GOP than they are in Houston, so Allred's district probably gets turned into a sink.

1. Obvious Austin vote sink
2. Allred vote sink in Dallas suburbs to make TX-03/06/24 all ~60% R again
3. In South Texas, make Pete Gonzales much safer and put Vicente Gonzales in a Trump-leaning district in a way that won't lose conservative votes at SCOTUS.
4. Decide whether to draw out or vote sink Fletcher in Houston.  This is the hardest call IMO.     

Nope
Double vote sink Austin.

White liberals have the highest turnout in the state. Its also relatively center to the state. The less you need to crack to the rest of Austin the more rurals one can use for Dallas/Houston.

I don't think that is necessary.  They can always keep the arm of Doggett's district to capture extra Dem-trending areas if they want to.  Conceding 2 Austin CDs but trying to flip Allred's seat would be playing with fire.  Collin County will be voting left of statewide by 2024.   

It probably does make sense to go after Fletcher's CD now. 

[lfromnj]

So with Texas gaining 2 seats, how are they gonna do this? There absolutely needs to be an Austin vote sink, but they can make at least one RGV seat that Trump carried. And the trends in DFW are worse for the GOP than they are in Houston, so Allred's district probably gets turned into a sink.

1. Obvious Austin vote sink
2. Allred vote sink in Dallas suburbs to make TX-03/06/24 all ~60% R again
3. In South Texas, make Pete Gonzales much safer and put Vicente Gonzales in a Trump-leaning district in a way that won't lose conservative votes at SCOTUS.
4. Decide whether to draw out or vote sink Fletcher in Houston.  This is the hardest call IMO.    

Nope
Double vote sink Austin.

White liberals have the highest turnout in the state. Its also relatively center to the state. The less you need to crack to the rest of Austin the more rurals one can use for Dallas/Houston.

I don't think that is necessary.  They can always keep the arm of Doggett's district to capture extra Dem-trending areas if they want to.  Conceding 2 Austin CDs but trying to flip Allred's seat would be playing with fire.  Collin County will be voting left of statewide by 2024.  

It probably does make sense to go after Fletcher's CD now.  

No you still pack Allred's, and it isn't neccesary to double pack Austin. Its just very efficient. 2 packs has almost like 350k net votes.  A Houston pack for Fletcher might not even have 50k. Considering Austin's central location you can rotate surrounding rurals to help in other regions.

[Brittain33]

Shut up and post your +2 maps already

[Torie]

Shut up and post your +2 maps already

It will be a 26-12 map rather than a 27-12 map. The rest is noise

I wonder if the Alabama Pubs will try to keep a 6-1 map, which means SCOTUS will be hearing that case. However, NY losing but one seat might mean the seat kept will be Pub, depending on where the non anticipated extra people are.

[I’m not Stu]

So with Texas gaining 2 seats, how are they gonna do this? There absolutely needs to be an Austin vote sink, but they can make at least one RGV seat that Trump carried. And the trends in DFW are worse for the GOP than they are in Houston, so Allred's district probably gets turned into a sink.

1. Obvious Austin vote sink
2. Allred vote sink in Dallas suburbs to make TX-03/06/24 all ~60% R again
3. In South Texas, make Pete Gonzales much safer and put Vicente Gonzales in a Trump-leaning district in a way that won't lose conservative votes at SCOTUS.
4. Decide whether to draw out or vote sink Fletcher in Houston.  This is the hardest call IMO.    

I think making TX-07 Republican violates the VRA. TX-07 should be another Hispanic district.