2020 Texas Redistricting thread

[Brittain33]

TIL Austin white liberals are a minority group?

Is that a 3 way split of central Austin ?

Out of necessity, to create three Hispanic majority districts in Bexar.

well prioritizing hispanic representation is just as nonpartisan as prioritizing white representation.  Racial gerrymandering has partisan outcomes, and you did significantly more than needed legally.

Its not, though.

Finally we agree.  It's not nonpartisan

What? Minority voting rights and representation access should not be a partisan issue.

What? White voting rights and representation access should not be a partisan issue.

The fact is, when you gerrymander for one racial group, another group or groups have fewer representatives of their choice.  There are only so many seats in any given state.  Racial gerrymandering for a group which favors a certain political party is a partisan act.  Your map didn't just do what was legally mandated, you went out of your way to draw it to maximize minority seats and that has a partisan impact.  The idea this isn't a partisan issue is ridiculous.

But in the U.S., there is no symmetry between the political power enjoyed by the dominant ethnic group / caste and political power enjoyed by members of other castes who have historically been suppressed by the majority. A system that favors representation by suppressed and discriminated-against minorities is fairer than one which pretends there’s an equal playing field whereas in reality the dominant caste enjoys inherent advantages in a system they built and maintain.

[Brittain33]

Is that two Hispanic districts in Houston - 29 and the blue one with two lobes on top of 18?

[Brittain33]

We need to keep TX-6 reasonably Republican for when Big Dan Rodimer is elected to statewide office.

[Brittain33]

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

[Brittain33]

Shut up and post your +2 maps already

[Brittain33]

Texas +2 least change map featuring:
* Austin vote sink
* TX-7 conceded
* TX-32 moved north, but a new Dem sink in Dallas
* Williamson County cracked
* TX-34 packed, but I can't be bothered to fix
* Reasonably close population (every district within 2,000)

Things I'm happy about:
* Working out how to make Williamson "safe" for Republicans seeing that Williamson + Waco in TX-31 was a time bomb
* Reconfiguring TX-36 and TX-2 to be more compact and better aligned to county borders (although at the expense of Fort Bend Rs being in a single district)
* Clean boundaries in East Texas despite relative population loss

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9558a137-6a0b-4ba5-a474-8d29b74ac722

What do people think? I'd love to edit.

[Brittain33]

How do you post pictures of DRA maps on this thread?

Take screenshots, get an Imgur account, post pictures to Imgur, post direct links to images in the Imgur post with appropriate width. I figured it out 30 minutes ago.

[Brittain33]

I’m realizing 10 should be the Austin vote sink and 38 should be the north Harris Republican district for historical reasons.

[Brittain33]

Anybody know which Dem would be favoured for a Primary in a New Austin sink district ?

It would be an insane 20 candidate free for all. I wouldn't be surprised if the new person ends up joining the Squad. 

Will the republican also draw a new Houston Sink ?. I think Lina Hidalgo would be very much favoured for a new sink there if they draw one.

I don’t think they need to if they concede and redraw TX-7.

[Brittain33]

What was the rationale for getting rid of the fajita strips in the RGV? I haven't been paying close enough attention to your posts these last 10 years to understand why this changed.

TX-33 was drawn to maximize Hispanic population in the Metroplex.

[Brittain33]

Ok, I redrew TX-15 to be predominantly Bexar, high Hispanic CVAP, and Republican performing. Henry Cuellar pulled out of Bexar and gets more of the Rio Grande and TX-34 falls back, too.

[Brittain33]

I see your TX-33 is more Hispanic (mine is 43% CVAP vs. close to 50%) but it's similar enough to the current district in shape and which communities are included, and without a large Republican vote.

[Brittain33]

My goals were:
1. Least change for incumbents despite population change 
2. Preserve VRA precedents
3. Use Dem packs and cracking risky territory (Williamson, north Dallas) to ensure R districts are solid enough to last most of the decade
4. Avoid excessive snaking

[Brittain33]

My goals were:
1. Least change for incumbents despite population change  
2. Preserve VRA precedents
3. Use Dem packs and cracking risky territory (Williamson, north Dallas) to ensure R districts are solid enough to last most of the decade
4. Avoid excessive snaking

TX-32 or even TX-3 seem tough for the Republicans for an entire decade, although it's hard to be certain without seeing 2020 figures. TX-24 and TX-26 also seem a bit risky. The trends in TX-10 are less strong, but that one seems risky, too.

I split Collin to make it possible for both to start off strong for Rs. Otherwise TX-32 is gone, again, soon. I considered doing a similar north-south split with Denton but TX-24 seemed R enough to hold off. But I probably should strengthen it at 26’s expense.

Similarly, I had to weaken TX-10 in order to make TX-22 stronger (while also cleaning up TX-2, one of the few personal goals I had.)

It seems like a lot of these questions come down to whether it’s possible to avoid conceding another D district in Harris and north Dallas without stretching districts into the rurals or not. Perhaps it’s not. I feel the legislature really doesn’t want to concede more than TX-7 and current TX-32.

[Brittain33]

My goals were:
1. Least change for incumbents despite population change 
2. Preserve VRA precedents
3. Use Dem packs and cracking risky territory (Williamson, north Dallas) to ensure R districts are solid enough to last most of the decade
4. Avoid excessive snaking

That seems about what I posited above in different words, or am I missing something?

I wasn’t disagreeing, I was just articulating exactly what I thought.

[Brittain33]

What might a dummymander look like?

Any suburban district near Houston, Dallas, or Austin less than R+8, I think, and not conceding 7, 32, and Austin. Possibly R+10 if you’re worried about trends.

[Brittain33]

What might a dummymander look like?

Any suburban district near Houston, Dallas, or Austin less than R+8, I think, and not conceding 7, 32, and Austin. Possibly R+10 if you’re worried about trends.

You have TX-08 as a vote sink, while ceding TX-07. Houston should have only 3 Dem CD's in a well designed Pubmander, bearing in mind that the Dem trend in the Houston area was much milder than in the Dallas area. That CD running between Austin and SA needs to go. You have a VRA risk without two nested Hispanic performing CD's in Bexar County. The light blue CD's down there in south Texas need to be in the red family, not the blue family. One should not count on the Trump 2020 surge fully holding down there. Trump 2016 should be ahead there by at least 5 points if possible, with 10 better. Those are my thoughts so far.

Thanks. Are you responding to my screen captures or the updated version on DRA? I made changes to Bexar and RGV online but didn’t take screen captures.

Interesting point that TX-8 should be cracked somewhat to help out with other Harris County R districts. I hadn’t thought of that but it makes a lot of sense.

[Brittain33]

I used your link which I assume included your changes, but I will export and import it again. This is unless you made changes in a new file, in which event you would need to share the new link.

Addendum: It appears you made your changes in a new file so I can't access it.

Oh, my bad. I didn't know that would happen. Here's a fresh link with changes to north of Houston and Bexar/RGV:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9558a137-6a0b-4ba5-a474-8d29b74ac722

[Brittain33]

The TX GOP has a massive problem in this state. The DFW metroplex is zooming left and leaving aside the fact that they need to keep either 1 of 24/6 competitive or add a new Dallas tossup-ish seat to save 24/6, you also have the issue of Collin and Denton having massive swings to the left, which provides another major issue, the only way I see around that is pairing each with multiple Red River Counties with would of course anger neighboring incumbents, who'd not only lose turf, but also likely be forced to pick up turf to account for the fact that such seats would be overpopulated if Collin/Denton were kept whole.

I'm not convinced they keep "zooming" because we don't know what will happen in the post-Trump era. I doubt they go back to 2012 margins, but a change in issues may stop the bleeding for Rs.

[Brittain33]

I used your link which I assume included your changes, but I will export and import it again. This is unless you made changes in a new file, in which event you would need to share the new link.

Addendum: It appears you made your changes in a new file so I can't access it.

Oh, my bad. I didn't know that would happen. Here's a fresh link with changes to north of Houston and Bexar/RGV:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9558a137-6a0b-4ba5-a474-8d29b74ac722

Thanks.

You appear to have taken "remedial" action in the Houston area but not in the Hispanic zone, and the nesting issue in Bexar County in particular.

The image below was Bexar County before I made any changes. I moved TX-28 out of that part of the state completely and now TX-15 is predominantly a Bexar-based district. Perhaps I'm not understanding what exactly "nested" should mean. Or is it that keeping TX-35 as a Travis-Bexar Hispanic district means the map is wrong from the get-go?

[Brittain33]

Britain33, you need to have two Democratic performing Hispanic CD's contained entirely in Bexar County to be safe under the VRA in my opinion.

Ok. Apologies if you covered this in a past map, but what do you propose happens to TX-23 in this scenario? Does it become one of the two performing CDs (an unlikely move for a Republican map) or does it take up the 20% of the county that is most Anglo with approx. 400,000 people, with TX-21 moving out completely? Also, since the RGV doesn't have sufficient population for 3 full Hispanic districts, where do you connect the leftovers to since fajita strips are now out, too? I would like to see the whole that is made from the sum of the parts of your proposition.

[Brittain33]

Thanks Britain33. Moving right along, I still see in your map 4 dark blue blobs in the Houston area, one more than the Pubmander quota that is allowed there for advocates of the "socialist agenda."  Naughty!

I’m guessing I can do better if I break up my compact TX-2 and TX-36 to bacon strip east Texas and diluted more of Harris’s blue districts like I did with 10, 22, and 8 already. It’s hard to do more in Central TX because those rurals are also needed for Austin. Do you think it’s possible to do much better to break up TX-7 without the minority districts shedding Hispanics and African-Americans to east Texas R districts?

In other words, talk to me after you’ve solved for Williamson and the bits of Travis you haven’t assigned yet. 😘

[Brittain33]

If McCaul lives in Austin, isn't that his problem if he wants to remain an R in Congress?

[Brittain33]

I completed my revisions to Britain33's map, but I won't post it now in case he or others want to do they own map and try to be more effective for the Pubs. I will post the stats in a moment.

To be honest, I’m not likely to make changes because it would mean dismantling my neat TX-2 and TX-36 districts to make 3 baconstrip R districts and rebalancing the minority districts in Harris, precinct by precinct, to inch them west while surrendering minorities to the eastern R districts at a managed pace. I recognize it may be doable in a way that dissolves TX-7 wouldn’t find that exercise much fun, it’s not what I enjoy about redistricting. Bring on your new solution.

[Brittain33]

Apparently Loving County came in at far below its estimate and a drop from 2010? Could there have been fraud involved in the inflated estimates?