2020 Texas Redistricting thread

[Stuart98]

This is very galaxy brain, but would Republicans be able to get away with cracking El Paso between three 60% hispanic double digit Trump seats?


...I need to wash my hands, that was so disgusting to make.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328

Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Seats virtually guarenteed to be drawn because of either VRA or just because it's necessary

-An El-Paso based Hispanic seat
-2 San Antonio Hispanic seats (If VRA didn't exist the GOP might try for 1 San Antonio Sink
-3 Houston seats, 2 of which are Hispanic VRA seats
-Austin sink
-2 Metroplex sinks, one of which is Hispanic VRA
-RGV is a bit weird, because technically the GOP could probably draw R-leaning functioning VRA districts, but most likely they need 2 D VRA districts without going into questionable territory with the VRA.

Seats the GOP will probably want to add:

-3rd Metroplex seat; basically necessary at this point unless the GOP feels comfortable with + 8 seats in North Dallas suburbs
-4th seat in west Houston. If it weren't for the VRA, they could probably get away with 3 seats but because of it, it forces the other 3 sinks the the east of where they "should" be to optimise packing

This totals to 13 D seats, which isn't terrible considering in a partisanly fair map you'd expect them to win 15 - 17ish seats. This is largely thanks to Ds strong geography advantage in the state.

After that, the GOP may considering adding a 2nd Austin sink, and a 4th metroplex sink (technically you can draw 2 Hispanic VRA seats in the metroplex but the case for mandating a second one is still pretty weak).

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

[Greedo punched first]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

You think they would draw out incumbent Republicans, rather than protect as many incumbent Republicans as possible?

[Non Swing Voter]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

Yeah why would we assume any different.  It's exactly what they did with abortion.  Texas Republicans really seem to be bottom of the GOP barrel in terms of integrity.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

Yeah why would we assume any different.  It's exactly what they did with abortion.  Texas Republicans really seem to be bottom of the GOP barrel in terms of integrity.

It is quite silly to behave as though the TX abortion law has any bearing or gives any clue to how they might behave in redistricting. What is clear is that TX has a long-standing tradition of gerrymandering, in both parties.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

Yeah why would we assume any different.  It's exactly what they did with abortion.  Texas Republicans really seem to be bottom of the GOP barrel in terms of integrity.

It is quite silly to behave as though the TX abortion law has any bearing or gives any clue to how they might behave in redistricting. What is clear is that TX has a long-standing tradition of gerrymandering, in both parties.

The point in bringing up the abortion law is that this session of the Texas Legislature shows they are not afraid of court challenges and fighting precedent

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

Yeah why would we assume any different.  It's exactly what they did with abortion.  Texas Republicans really seem to be bottom of the GOP barrel in terms of integrity.

It is quite silly to behave as though the TX abortion law has any bearing or gives any clue to how they might behave in redistricting. What is clear is that TX has a long-standing tradition of gerrymandering, in both parties.

The point in bringing up the abortion law is that this session of the Texas Legislature shows they are not afraid of court challenges and fighting precedent

It's a pretty weak argument. It'd be more pertinent to talk about the history of litigation in regards to TX redistricting.
In which case, the most recent precedent on that suggests they won't do very much, if it has any weight at all. (Their post-2012 map preserved VRA districts while drawing some in particularly advantageous manner for Rs - see TX-23)
What does "ignore VRA districts" even mean? Draw a 95% Latino pack along the Rio Grande? Place Midland in TX-23? Precisely how is "insane map" even being defined as?

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

Yeah why would we assume any different.  It's exactly what they did with abortion.  Texas Republicans really seem to be bottom of the GOP barrel in terms of integrity.

It is quite silly to behave as though the TX abortion law has any bearing or gives any clue to how they might behave in redistricting. What is clear is that TX has a long-standing tradition of gerrymandering, in both parties.

The point in bringing up the abortion law is that this session of the Texas Legislature shows they are not afraid of court challenges and fighting precedent

It's a pretty weak argument. It'd be more pertinent to talk about the history of litigation in regards to TX redistricting.
In which case, the most recent precedent on that suggests they won't do very much, if it has any weight at all. (Their post-2012 map preserved VRA districts while drawing some in particularly advantageous manner for Rs - see TX-23)
What does "ignore VRA districts" even mean? Draw a 95% Latino pack along the Rio Grande? Place Midland in TX-23? Precisely how is "insane map" even being defined as?

Things like breaking up Fort Worth and El Paso to an extreme, packing the RGV, splitting El Paso, things like that. And an “insane” map as in a dozen or less democrats

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

Yeah why would we assume any different.  It's exactly what they did with abortion.  Texas Republicans really seem to be bottom of the GOP barrel in terms of integrity.

It is quite silly to behave as though the TX abortion law has any bearing or gives any clue to how they might behave in redistricting. What is clear is that TX has a long-standing tradition of gerrymandering, in both parties.

The point in bringing up the abortion law is that this session of the Texas Legislature shows they are not afraid of court challenges and fighting precedent

It's a pretty weak argument. It'd be more pertinent to talk about the history of litigation in regards to TX redistricting.
In which case, the most recent precedent on that suggests they won't do very much, if it has any weight at all. (Their post-2012 map preserved VRA districts while drawing some in particularly advantageous manner for Rs - see TX-23)
What does "ignore VRA districts" even mean? Draw a 95% Latino pack along the Rio Grande? Place Midland in TX-23? Precisely how is "insane map" even being defined as?

Things like breaking up Fort Worth and El Paso to an extreme, packing the RGV, splitting El Paso, things like that. And an “insane” map as in a dozen or less democrats

If that's the definition, then I don't see anything happening along those lines. (I'm least confident about the RGV packing - I think it's a possibly plausible thing, unlike all the others)
Fort Worth doesn't need to be broken up for an effective gerrymander, El Paso has NEVER been broken up or split on US House level, and packing the RGV still has a lot of legal uncertainty (something TX GOPers probably want to avoid - the only time a GOPmander that a general election had been held under, was partially struck down due to the RGV aspects of it).
D gains in Texas' suburbs, the necessity of maintaining Hispanic VRA seats, and the need to accomodate incumbents make a realistic map keeping Ds to 12 seats or less very hard to attain. It'd be very stupid for GOPers to split up El Paso anyway. All that would do is make TX-23 more D. In fact, I did do a Dmander that sent TX-16 all the way to Odessa, which I used to make TX-23 Lean D at worst. Splitting up El Paso is a D gerrymander sort of thing - the GOPmander thing to do is to pack it, because it is a big repository of (effectively wasted) D votes.

[Stuart98]

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1435367198952931328
Governor Abbott has announced a redistricting special session towards the end of the month.

What is the absolute bare minimum number of seats they can draw for democrats? 8-30?

Well, you need at least two Democrats in Dallas, probably three, and at least one of those is VRA mandated (whether or not 33 is mandated is more iffy), for Houston, you need three VRA seats, and maybe a fourth Democratic sink, in the south you need three Hispanic seats, at least one of which would likely end up as Democratic, you need a VRA seat in El Paso, you need a VRA seat in San Antonio, and at least one sink, preferably 2 on the San Antonio-Austin corridor. The bare minimum seems to be 29-9, but that looks like a pipe dream and would probably involve many seats that turn into instant dummymanders. 27-11 or 26-12 are realistically the max that they'd go, and even that could be iffy. My personal guess is somewhere between 26-12 and 23-15.

I’m very curious as to how the maps get laid, as I honestly think it’s going to be very difficult to gerrymander any democrats away without creating a squid monster map. Then again Texas Republicans are going scorched earth tactics so I wouldn’t put it past them to try an insane map and ignore VRA districts to force a court challenge.

Yeah why would we assume any different.  It's exactly what they did with abortion.  Texas Republicans really seem to be bottom of the GOP barrel in terms of integrity.

It is quite silly to behave as though the TX abortion law has any bearing or gives any clue to how they might behave in redistricting. What is clear is that TX has a long-standing tradition of gerrymandering, in both parties.

The point in bringing up the abortion law is that this session of the Texas Legislature shows they are not afraid of court challenges and fighting precedent

It's a pretty weak argument. It'd be more pertinent to talk about the history of litigation in regards to TX redistricting.
In which case, the most recent precedent on that suggests they won't do very much, if it has any weight at all. (Their post-2012 map preserved VRA districts while drawing some in particularly advantageous manner for Rs - see TX-23)
What does "ignore VRA districts" even mean? Draw a 95% Latino pack along the Rio Grande? Place Midland in TX-23? Precisely how is "insane map" even being defined as?

Things like breaking up Fort Worth and El Paso to an extreme, packing the RGV, splitting El Paso, things like that. And an “insane” map as in a dozen or less democrats

If that's the definition, then I don't see anything happening along those lines. (I'm least confident about the RGV packing - I think it's a possibly plausible thing, unlike all the others)
Fort Worth doesn't need to be broken up for an effective gerrymander, El Paso has NEVER been broken up or split on US House level, and packing the RGV still has a lot of legal uncertainty (something TX GOPers probably want to avoid - the only time a GOPmander that a general election had been held under, was partially struck down due to the RGV aspects of it).
D gains in Texas' suburbs, the necessity of maintaining Hispanic VRA seats, and the need to accomodate incumbents make a realistic map keeping Ds to 12 seats or less very hard to attain. It'd be very stupid for GOPers to split up El Paso anyway. All that would do is make TX-23 more D. In fact, I did do a Dmander that sent TX-16 all the way to Odessa, which I used to make TX-23 Lean D at worst. Splitting up El Paso is a D gerrymander sort of thing - the GOPmander thing to do is to pack it, because it is a big repository of (effectively wasted) D votes.

I literally posted an effective El Paso crack earlier on this page.

If the TX GOP had the will, they could pass an 8-30 map. Some seats might fall later in the decade to be sure, but they'd probably rather take the risk. The only D seats that need to be drawn are one sink each in Austin, San Antonio, and the RGV; two seats in DFW; three seats in Houston. Everything else can be cracked with the rurals.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I literally posted an effective El Paso crack earlier on this page.

If the TX GOP had the will, they could pass an 8-30 map. Some seats might fall later in the decade to be sure, but they'd probably rather take the risk. The only D seats that need to be drawn are one sink each in Austin, San Antonio, and the RGV; two seats in DFW; three seats in Houston. Everything else can be cracked with the rurals.

A map that does not have a district that can more or less reliably elect the Latino candidate of choice in El Paso County is illegal. 60% Hispanic is not a meaningful threshold for anything.
The most likely outcome in the real world if TX GOPers cracked El Paso would be the GOP map getting thrown out with the court drawing its own map and imposing it on the state.

[Stuart98]

I literally posted an effective El Paso crack earlier on this page.

If the TX GOP had the will, they could pass an 8-30 map. Some seats might fall later in the decade to be sure, but they'd probably rather take the risk. The only D seats that need to be drawn are one sink each in Austin, San Antonio, and the RGV; two seats in DFW; three seats in Houston. Everything else can be cracked with the rurals.

A map that does not have a district that can more or less reliably elect the Latino candidate of choice in El Paso County is illegal. 60% Hispanic is not a meaningful threshold for anything.
The most likely outcome in the real world if TX GOPers cracked El Paso would be the GOP map getting thrown out with the court drawing its own map and imposing it on the state.

Texas pubs haven't exactly shown themselves to be risk averse, they've got friendly courts, and they've got an argument that El Paso just being one part of a continuous swathe of majority Hispanic counties means it shouldn't be treated as a differently entity from the more conservative Hispanic areas adjoining it. They can even argue that they create a new Hispanic opportunity district in the process.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I literally posted an effective El Paso crack earlier on this page.

If the TX GOP had the will, they could pass an 8-30 map. Some seats might fall later in the decade to be sure, but they'd probably rather take the risk. The only D seats that need to be drawn are one sink each in Austin, San Antonio, and the RGV; two seats in DFW; three seats in Houston. Everything else can be cracked with the rurals.

A map that does not have a district that can more or less reliably elect the Latino candidate of choice in El Paso County is illegal. 60% Hispanic is not a meaningful threshold for anything.
The most likely outcome in the real world if TX GOPers cracked El Paso would be the GOP map getting thrown out with the court drawing its own map and imposing it on the state.

Texas pubs haven't exactly shown themselves to be risk averse, they've got friendly courts, and they've got an argument that El Paso just being one part of a continuous swathe of majority Hispanic counties means it shouldn't be treated as a differently entity from the more conservative Hispanic areas adjoining it. They can even argue that they create a new Hispanic opportunity district in the process.

Risk adverse is a relative term that can apply to varying degrees even in regards to the treatment of different regions in a gerrymander.
But the TX GOP has been persisently risk-adverse when it comes to Latino parts of the state and they've persistently created and preserved CDs where Latinos have the true electoral power. The current map is proof enough of that.
The GOP just hasn't shown the desire or willingness to mess with El Paso. No one does that sort of thing. I don't know of any modicum of evidence that even remotely suggests the possibility of El Paso being cracked by either party, especially Republicans (which we have established as not being particularly well off in the scenario of the city split in two).
And you can bet House incumbents in West Texas might have something to say if their seats look set to be scrambled just so that El Paso is cracked. They have allies in the legislature.

[Torie]

Lots of claims here of late, less granular detail with maps. When it comes to redistricting, it takes a near miracle to persuade anyone of anything anyway. Partisan political junkies are just too hard wired on this issue. But if one retreats to generalities and broad brush claims, it becomes asymptotically close to impossible.

On the RGV packing thing, is it against the VRA to draw a district that takes in heavily populated towns on the river, almost all Hispanic, as opposed to traveling over 100 miles of sagebrush and cows where humans are an endangered species to unpack the Hispanics with some whites hanging around over the far horizon? It is also dated. I have a CD in my map (TX-15) that is 90% Hispanic or something in which Biden got a grand total of  58% of the vote and trending Pub at warp speed. Let's unpack it, and make it travel to Victoria to reduce it to 75% and politically marginal to satisfy the VRA! Those annoying little granular details matter in my opinion.

There are legitimate ways to reduce VRA risk, but I am not telling one how. It's proprietary.  

Will this post persuade anyone of anything? F no! I told you!  

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Lots of claims here of late, less granular detail with maps. When it comes to redistricting, it takes a near miracle to persuade anyone of anything anyway. Partisan political junkies are just too hard wired on this issue. But if one retreats to generalities and broad brush claims, it becomes asymptotically close to impossible.

Ok, here's a challenge. Name one election cycle where, when it was mathematically possible and we had one-man-one-vote, one CD has not been nested entirely in El Paso County.
Hell, can anyone even find any evidence at all that this status quo has ever been seriously and credibly challenged? Even the 2003 Texas redistricting left El Paso whole. If there was ever a time they would have tried that, it would have been in 2003.

[Torie]

Lots of claims here of late, less granular detail with maps. When it comes to redistricting, it takes a near miracle to persuade anyone of anything anyway. Partisan political junkies are just too hard wired on this issue. But if one retreats to generalities and broad brush claims, it becomes asymptotically close to impossible.

Ok, here's a challenge. Name one election cycle where, when it was mathematically possible and we had one-man-one-vote, one CD has not been nested entirely in El Paso County.
Hell, can anyone even find any evidence at all that this status quo has ever been seriously and credibly challenged? Even the 2003 Texas redistricting left El Paso whole. If there was ever a time they would have tried that, it would have been in 2003.

Not to my knowledge. Not nesting a CD in El Paso County to do a Pub snatch would of course raise VRA issues*. That would be like a slow hanging curve ball for a Dem lawsuit to swat out of the park.

*Notice how in each and every iteration of about the 20 or so drafts of the TX CD maps that I drew, I nested two Dem Hispanic CD's in Bexar County. That was not an accident.

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

A map that does not have a district that can more or less reliably elect the Latino candidate of choice in El Paso County is illegal.

Sure, it is illegal under existing law, but Republicans have seized partisan control of the Supreme Court. So similarly as to how abortion will now suddenly no longer be a protected right, now it will be perfectly legal to dilute the Hispanic vote. This will be rationalized in various ways, e.g. "Trump narrowly won Zapata county, therefore anything is fine." Between Roberts/Gorsuch/Kavanaugh, they can certainly come up with a rationalization to kill off what is left of the Voting Rights Act.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

A map that does not have a district that can more or less reliably elect the Latino candidate of choice in El Paso County is illegal.

Sure, it is illegal under existing law, but Republicans have seized partisan control of the Supreme Court. So similarly as to how abortion will now suddenly no longer be a protected right, now it will be perfectly legal to dilute the Hispanic vote. This will be rationalized in various ways, e.g. "Trump narrowly won Zapata county, therefore anything is fine." Between Roberts/Gorsuch/Kavanaugh, they can certainly come up with a rationalization to kill off what is left of the Voting Rights Act.

I'll believe that the VRA is dead under the Court as it is currently constituted, when it actually rules to that effect.
More generally the likes of you generally overestimate how partisan the Supreme Court behaves overall, but that's a debate for another time and place.

[_.]

I'm thinking what's realistic is:

4 seats in DFW
4 seats in Houston
2 seats in Austin
2 seats in San Antonio
1 seat in McAllen
1 seat in El Paso

Maybe take one or two seats out of this by using strings between cities (but also a possibility that they give another seat to DFW or Houston). So overall a 15D - 23R to 12D - 26R range looks likely

But this would be


The thing is that population growth, diversification, and bluing are happening very quickly in Collin, Denton, Tarrant, Harris, and Fort Bend Counties as well as the surrounding areas.

Population growth alone could take a district that may be R+25 today and turn it Democratic by the end of the decade, especially if it's done in the wrong place (*cough* Frisco *cough* Plano *cough*)

I think Republicans will be mindful of this.

If they aren't though, then it will be a feast for the Democratic Party sometime down the road that Republicans will regret.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

So I was trying out my "Damn the Courts!" idea and I was able to get the map down to an 11-27 map, wit one of them being a swing (R+1 in the RGV). It does score an 80 on Dave's for minority representation. I'd wager there'd be roughly a dozen minority representatives, three to six might actually be republicans.



View the map here:
https://davesredistricting.org/join/e07b1154-e468-405c-aeb1-f7b1fa175965

Personally I hate this map and no one show this to the TXGOP

[Torie]

So I was trying out my "Damn the Courts!" idea and I was able to get the map down to an 11-27 map, wit one of them being a swing (R+1 in the RGV). It does score an 80 on Dave's for minority representation. I'd wager there'd be roughly a dozen minority representatives, three to six might actually be republicans.



View the map here:
https://davesredistricting.org/join/e07b1154-e468-405c-aeb1-f7b1fa175965

Personally I hate this map and no one show this to the TXGOP

That insane illegal Pubmander fantasy of yours seem to have netted the Pubs a grand total of one seat as opposed to something that might actually be legal and realistic. You know, like the map I drew after about 20 drafts. Congrats!

[Roll Roons]

If the Texas GOP doesn't draw a new Austin sink for whatever reason, would it be an instant dummymander?

[BoiseBoy]

If the Texas GOP doesn't draw a new Austin sink for whatever reason, would it be an instant dummymander?

Depends where they stretched Austin into.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

If the Texas GOP doesn't draw a new Austin sink for whatever reason, would it be an instant dummymander?

Unless they baconstrip Austin all the way to the panhandle, probably.