2020 Texas Redistricting thread

[Zaybay]

Some of these Republican seats in the DFW area won’t last 5 years.

https://twitter.com/bruneelections/status/1443611465622163457?s=21

The Republicans are caught between a rock and a hard place. Play smart, give the Ds more seats, and you lose support from the Rs being screwed over. Play to the caucus, give into all their incumbent demands, and you get a weak map that doesn't really make that much sense partisan-wise.

The county rule for TX really exacerbates the problem.

(Note: Playing smart in redistricting is almost never chosen over parochial concerns of the incumbents. Its one thing for us detached folk to draw insane gerrymanders, its another for Tim to decide Madison's, who he just had lunch with last week, future political career.)

[Nyvin]

I'm reading online that Democrats could win around 88 seats on this map (out of 150) within the next few cycles.

[Skill and Chance]

I'm reading online that Democrats could win around 88 seats on this map (out of 150) within the next few cycles.

This map has serious AR 2011 potential.  As others have mentioned, there are strict county-splitting rules, so all of the gerrymandering has be within the urban counties, and there is only so much you can do when basically all of the R areas are moving left and you can't attach rural areas.  This chamber is basically gone in the first R midterm of the decade, even if R's still sweep statewide.

BTW if 2030 is an R midterm, there's a very decent chance Dems will have backdoor control of redistricting.  They would only need the house speaker, the governor, and 2 of LG/AG/Comptroller/Land Commissioner.  LG and AG are the weakest statewide incumbents.       

[OSR stands with Israel]

I'm reading online that Democrats could win around 88 seats on this map (out of 150) within the next few cycles.

Trump won 86 seats on this map so I doubt they can get to 88

[Nyvin]

I'm reading online that Democrats could win around 88 seats on this map (out of 150) within the next few cycles.

Trump won 86 seats on this map so I doubt they can get to 88

A lot of those 86 have the R vote spread VERY thin though.

[Roll Roons]

I'm reading online that Democrats could win around 88 seats on this map (out of 150) within the next few cycles.

Trump won 86 seats on this map so I doubt they can get to 88

A lot of those 86 have the R vote spread VERY thin though.

Yeah, I would think at least 10 probably voted to the left of the state. The state house is where the geographical disadvantage for the TXGOP is most noticeable.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

How many seats did Beto win?

[jimrtex]

This has data on the plans including proposed amendments.

https://data.capitol.texas.gov/topic/redistricting

[Gass3268]

Change in Collin County for the House Map as they have drawn a Democratic pack.

https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1445463242239668233?s=20

[Thunder98 🇮🇱 🤝 🇵🇸]

Congressional reps Jackson Lee and Green are unsurprisingly not very happy about the proposed TX maps that put them together in one seat.


https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/04/texas-congressional-map-redistricting/


Texas Tribune:

U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green — both Houston Democrats — testified Monday at the Texas Capitol against proposed district maps that would break up communities of Black voters and pit the two incumbents against each other.

“It doesn’t look right for the only two persons in the state of Texas to be running against each other in a congressional district from the same party to be of African ancestry,” Green said at a hearing of the the Texas Senate Special Committee on Redistricting.

Green and Jackson Lee are two out of five Black members of Texas’ 36-person congressional delegation, but in the proposed redrawing of the districts, Lee is drawn out of her own district and looped into Green’s.

“Thirty-eight districts,” Green said, noting the two new congressional districts added to Texas because of population growth, which was fueled by people of color. “Two African Americans running against each other in the proposed map.”

Despite their objections, the Senate committee voted out the redrawn congressional map Monday without addressing the district overlap. The map heads next to the full Senate for a vote. It also has to be approved by the House and can still change before it is signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Jackson Lee represents District 18, once represented by Barbara Jordan, who in 1972 became the first Black Texan elected to Congress after Reconstruction. There are families in the district who have lived there for 50 years, Jackson Lee said.

“The 18th [District] has been surgically, erroneously and unconstitutionally, under federal law, been drawn incorrectly,” Jackson Lee said.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Change in Collin County for the House Map as they have drawn a Democratic pack.

https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1445463242239668233?s=20

The GOP vote in that county is poorly distributed, isn't it?

[Minnesota Mike]

https://twitter.com/ASchneider_HPM/status/1446560425932427281

There were a couple minor amendments passed that will affect the final map very little.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/We_hit_a_boat/status/1449537031927963650

Interesting

[ProgressiveModerate]

They really trying to squeeze everything out they can

[ChineseConservative]

Pretty satisfied with how the Dallas and Houston metro districts ended up being configured. But I am not happy with the Central and South Texas configurations. Given Austin’s exponential growth rate it is best to have two whole vote sinks completely there. Also need two sinks completely in San Antonio as the current setup puts semi Republican Cuellar in a dangerous primary with progressives in the San Antonio area. Instead draw a RGV sink from Laredo to McAllen that would have Cuellar favored in a primary against Gonzalez, and have the other two RGV districts be Trump +10 districts. On net average a competitive seat is flipped to red and one of the Dem Representatives is a based social conservative instead of a DSA type.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I expect this to get a rather unhappy reception in the courts.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

I expect this to get a rather unhappy reception in the courts.

It would be beautiful if this massively backfires and the courts draw a dem majority map

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I expect this to get a rather unhappy reception in the courts.

It would be beautiful if this massively backfires and the courts draw a dem majority map

A man can dream, can't he?

[Non Swing Voter]

I expect this to get a rather unhappy reception in the courts.

It would be beautiful if this massively backfires and the courts draw a dem majority map

Who would do that?  The crappy right wing Texas courts or the Crappy right wing 5th Cir./Crappy right wing SCOTUS?

Stealing Judicial seats did pay off for Cocaine Mitch..  It's definitely bought his nearly extinct party some time.

[Frodo]

Enjoy it while you still can, Texas Republicans:

Texas House finalizes gnarled US House map that gives GOP bounty from decade of Hispanic growth

The Texas House approved a congressional election plan late Saturday that would lock in an overwhelming Republican edge for a decade — despite a slipping share of the population and the fact that Texas’ two new seats stem from growth in the Hispanic population.

The gerrymandered map allocates 24 of 38 U.S. House seats to the GOP, a generous ratio given that Republicans collected just 53% of votes in congressional races last November.

“They would like to erase African Americans and Hispanics from the state by not allowing them to have access to vote for a person of their choice,” said Rep. Yvonne Davis, a Dallas Democrat, accusing Republicans of “racism” and “racist gerrymandering.”

The state Senate had already approved the map, which has implications far beyond Texas as Republicans try to topple Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the 2022 midterms.

The map is guaranteed to invite litigation on grounds that it leaves minority clout stagnant.

No other state gained as many seats in this year’s reapportionment of the U.S. House. The new map gives white Republicans control of both new districts, even though 95% of the 4 million new Texans the Census Bureau counted are people of color, and half are Hispanic.

[Tintrlvr]

I expect this to get a rather unhappy reception in the courts.

It would be beautiful if this massively backfires and the courts draw a dem majority map

Who would do that?  The crappy right wing Texas courts or the Crappy right wing 5th Cir./Crappy right wing SCOTUS?

Stealing Judicial seats did pay off for Cocaine Mitch..  It's definitely bought his nearly extinct party some time.

If it ends up as a federal case, it would be some random District Court judge (probably in the Western District of Texas, since that's where Austin is) who does the actual drawing, which could be anyone. The Supremes/5th Circuit wouldn't get involved in actually drawing the map.

[ProgressiveModerate]

You know what’s weird to think about. In Texas, the GOP drew 13 D sinks (counting 28 as one). In the most recent Pres election Ds won 46% of the vote. In CA, the commission will likely make 10 R seats or fewer, and in the most recent election, Rs won 34% of the vote.

46% of TX population is about equal to 34% of CA’s

While this gerrymander is brutal, Democrats are extremely lucky to have such a strong geography advantage in TX. 13/38 in an R + 6 state isn’t a terrible baseline at the end of the day (though still proportionately fewer seats than they should have), since according to my calculations Ds should win about 41% of house seats in TX based on 2020 pres, which would only be about 16/38 or 3 more.

However, when geography is factored in, Ds would be expected to win 57% of seats on average in a compact TX map which is insane to think about.

Democrats are really really lucky for TX geography, meaning that they really don’t lose that much even under these horrendous lines as well as the fact the state House is kept relatively in reach.

[Minnesota Mike]

Conference committee has agreed to a map.

https://data.capitol.texas.gov/dataset/planc2193

[Brittain33]

Big changes to the two Houston AA districts, it looks like.

[Non Swing Voter]

I expect this to get a rather unhappy reception in the courts.

It would be beautiful if this massively backfires and the courts draw a dem majority map

Who would do that?  The crappy right wing Texas courts or the Crappy right wing 5th Cir./Crappy right wing SCOTUS?

Stealing Judicial seats did pay off for Cocaine Mitch..  It's definitely bought his nearly extinct party some time.

If it ends up as a federal case, it would be some random District Court judge (probably in the Western District of Texas, since that's where Austin is) who does the actual drawing, which could be anyone. The Supremes/5th Circuit wouldn't get involved in actually drawing the map.

Why wouldn't the 5th Circ. just overturn the random judge and return it to the legislature's map?  And then the SCOTUS refuse to hear any appeal?  That seems like the likely outcome if it even got that far.