Today in the Texas House, the Committee Substitute to HB 600 was read a 3rd time and passed.
HB 600 redraws the State Board of Education seats.
There has been some talk about increasing the size of the SBOE. It currently has only 15 members which means the ideal population size for the new districts is 1.6 million.
Who cares about some SBOE seats? Considering that Texas is one of the biggest buyers of textbooks (when the state has the money to purchase them), and that these 15 people decide what goes in the textbooks, these 15 seats can have a national impact.
I was working on an extended redistricting of Texas, but I accidentally closed out the file! I had saved it using an .RTF, but I don't know how to open it (can anyone help with that??). But anyway, I did take a photoshot of Southern Texas before I closed out, and I think it might be worthwhile to examine what redistricting will look like along the border.
Previously, I created a 24R-12D map predicting Texas redistricting. Since then, my reading of the tea leaves (mostly Aaron Pena's party switch) has convinced me to revise my predictions somewhat. At the very least we can expect the state to pass a more Republican friendly map, which will almost certainly be challenged in the courts. Something close to the previously drawn map might be enacted if the state loses the court battle. This map then is more of a prediction of what the state might pass before the court battle.
Now that Dave has uploaded Census data for Texas, I thought I'd give one of the most interesting states this decade a go on his website. There are ups and downs re: the realism of this map. Of the four new seats, I made one new heavily Democratic VRA seat in Dallas-Fort Worth meant to elect an Hispanic (though that % is still under 60), one competitive South Texas seat that is majority but not safely Hispanic (again, under 60%), and overwhelmingly Republican seats in north Houston and -- not sure how to describe this region -- between Weatherford/Fort Worth in the north and Killeen in the south. As for protecting Republican incumbents, the new GOP Houston seat made it harder for me to help Mike McCaul, whose district barely voted for McCain, and the Hispanic boom in San Antonio can only hurt Quico Canseco (though a better mapmaker than I could have split the difference with Lamar Smith to help Canseco's reelection chances). But overall, this is a decent map. Take a look below the fold...
Texas has always been, in my mind, the most interesting state for redistricting in 2010, partly because it grew much more than any other state (it gained four seats, while no other state gained more than two), and partly because much of that growth was Hispanic. This sets up a major conflict in the redistricting process: the Republicans, who control the trifecta here, will want to draw as many of those four new seats for themselves as possible, obviously, but the Obama administration's Dept. of Justice, via the Voting Rights Act, will compel the creation of as many majority-minority seats as possible. Given the numbers that came out today, Texas Republicans may actually feel lucky getting away with two of the four new seats... assuming that's what they end up with, after the conclusion of the inevitable litigation process that will result.
Texas gained a whopping 4,293,741 people between 2000 and 2010, growing from 20,851,820 to 25,145,561. Of that 4+ million, only about 10% were non-Hispanic whites. The non-Hispanic white population in 2000 was 10,933,313, and in 2010 it's 11,397,345, a difference of 464,032. Contrast that with the growth in Hispanics, who went from 6,669,616 to 9,460,921, a gain of 2,791,305. Expressed as percentages, Texas now has only a plurality, not a majority, of non-Hispanic whites. They make up 45.3% of the population in 2010, along with 11.5% non-Hispanic blacks, 3.8% non-Hispanic Asians, and 37.6% Hispanics. (In 2000, non-Hispanic whites were 52.4%, along with 11.3% black, 2.7% Asian, and 32% Hispanic. Those don't add up to 100 because there are also categories for Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, two or more races, and "some other" race.)
With Texas about to expand to 36 seats, that means the target average for each new congressional district will be 698,488. Here's a chart that looks at each current congressional district, giving old and new populations, the amount gained (or lost), and the "deviation," which is what we're calling how many people each district will need to shed (or in a few cases, gain) in order to hit its 2010 target. (In case you're wondering, yes, the 2000 data is for the post-2004 DeLay-mander configurations of each district.) I'm also including the 2000 and 2008 presidential election results, so you can see which direction the districts are headed (very different, when you contrast the trend in rural east Texas districts with suburbs for the major cities).
District
Rep.
2000 total
2010 total
Total change
Deviation
2000 election
2008 election
TX-01
Gohmert (R)
651,652
723,464
71,812
24,976
33/68
31/69
TX-02
Poe (R)
651,605
782,375
130,770
83,887
37/63
40/60
TX-03
Johnson, S. (R)
651,782
842,449
190,667
143,961
30/70
42/57
TX-04
Hall (R)
651,500
846,142
194,642
147,654
34/66
30/69
TX-05
Hensarling (R)
651,919
725,642
73,723
27,154
34/66
36/63
TX-06
Barton (R)
651,691
809,095
157,404
110,607
34/66
40/60
TX-07
Culberson (R)
651,682
780,611
128,929
82,123
31/69
41/58
TX-08
Brady (R)
651,755
833,770
182,015
135,282
31/69
26/74
TX-09
Green, A. (D)
651,086
733,796
82,710
35,308
69/31
77/23
TX-10
McCaul (R)
651,523
981,367
329,844
282,879
34/67
44/55
TX-11
Conaway (R)
651,590
710,682
59,092
12,194
25/75
24/76
TX-12
Granger (R)
651,770
831,100
179,330
132,612
36/64
36/63
TX-13
Thornberry (R)
651,665
672,781
21,116
(25,707)
26/74
23/77
TX-14
Paul (R)
651,837
779,704
127,867
81,216
36/64
33/66
TX-15
Hinojosa (D)
651,580
787,124
135,544
88,636
54/46
60/40
TX-16
Reyes (D)
652,363
757,427
105,064
58,939
59/41
66/34
TX-17
Flores (R)
651,509
760,042
108,533
61,554
32/68
32/67
TX-18
Jackson-Lee (D)
651,789
720,991
69,202
22,503
72/28
77/22
TX-19
Neugebauer (R)
651,610
698,137
46,527
(351)
25/75
27/72
TX-20
Gonzalez (D)
651,603
711,705
60,102
13,217
58/42
63/36
TX-21
Smith (R)
651,930
856,954
205,024
158,466
31/69
41/58
TX-22
Olson (R)
651,657
910,877
259,220
212,389
33/67
41/58
TX-23
Canseco (R)
651,149
847,651
196,502
149,163
47/54
51/48
TX-24
Marchant (R)
651,137
792,319
141,182
93,831
32/68
44/55
TX-25
Doggett (D)
651,477
814,381
162,904
115,893
47/53
59/40
TX-26
Burgess (R)
651,858
915,137
263,279
216,649
38/62
41/58
TX-27
Farenthold (R)
651,843
741,993
90,150
43,505
50/50
53/46
TX-28
Cuellar (D)
651,259
851,824
200,565
153,336
50/50
56/44
TX-29
Green, G. (D)
651,405
677,032
25,627
(21,456)
57/43
62/38
TX-30
Johnson, E. (D)
652,261
706,469
54,208
7,981
74/26
82/18
TX-31
Carter (R)
651,868
902,101
250,233
203,613
32/69
42/58
TX-32
Sessions (R)
650,555
640,419
(10,136)
(58,069)
36/64
46/53
Now let's turn to the changes in racial composition in each district. The Hispanic population increased in all of Texas's 32 districts, with the smallest increase being 35,816 (in TX-32 in north Dallas, the only district which lost population overall - I'm not quite sure why this district lost population, other than the fact that it's fairly dense, and boxed in by other urban districts, so it's unable to sprawl in any direction). Eight districts gained more than 100,000 Hispanics each, with the biggest gain in the Laredo-based TX-28, gaining 166,375. The second biggest gain was 159,747 in TX-10, the wormlike district that links Houston's western suburbs with Austin's eastern suburbs and which gained a whole lot of everybody of all races. TX-10 is also more remarkable in that the Hispanic share of the total population nearly went up 10%, from 19% to 29% (by contrast, in TX-28, the Hispanic share barely increased, seeing as how they're already the vast majority there).
These two existing districts point to where two of the new VRA districts are likeliest to pop up: the Rio Grande Valley, and the Houston area. (A new Hispanic-majority Houston seat would probably be located in the downtown and western parts of town, pushing TX-07 and then TX-10 further west.) The third possibility is a Dallas area Hispanic-majority seat, which might be anchored in downtown and western Dallas but wander further west to grab areas near DFW airport and maybe even in Fort Worth. The GOP, I'm sure, would prefer to try to limit the number of VRA seats to two, but it may be a difficult balancing act; in particular, it'll be hard to avoid having a new VRA seat pop up in the Rio Grande Valley (thanks to huge growth in TX-15 and TX-23, too) if they're going to try to reconstruct a more Republican-favorable TX-27 in order to protect unexpected new member Blake Farenthold (maybe linking Corpus Christi with Victoria instead of Brownsville, for instance).
District
2000 white
White %
2010 white
White %
% change
2000 Hispanic
Hispanic %
2010 Hispanic
Hispanic %
% change
TX-01
485,238
74.5
514,939
71.2
-3.2
59,688
9.2
109,499
15.1
6.0
TX-02
462,830
71.0
493,830
63.1
-7.9
82,578
12.7
176,196
22.5
9.8
TX-03
467,828
71.8
539,627
64.1
-7.7
111,121
17.0
186,890
22.2
5.1
TX-04
540,477
83.0
666,802
78.8
-4.2
50,410
7.7
110,993
13.1
5.4
TX-05
505,283
77.5
523,328
72.1
-5.4
83,113
12.7
157,037
21.6
8.9
TX-06
477,168
73.2
537,602
66.4
-6.8
103,380
15.9
185,397
22.9
7.0
TX-07
505,703
77.6
529,586
67.8
-9.8
117,392
18.0
198,587
25.4
7.4
TX-08
553,472
84.9
686,659
82.4
-2.6
58,820
9.0
128,027
15.4
6.3
TX-09
213,041
32.7
240,882
32.8
1.1
213,195
32.7
310,931
42.4
9.6
TX-10
490,353
75.3
676,833
69.0
-6.3
122,894
18.9
282,641
28.8
9.9
TX-11
523,788
80.4
577,078
81.2
0.8
192,811
29.6
257,633
36.3
6.7
TX-12
505,402
77.5
635,292
76.4
-1.1
154,032
23.6
239,268
28.8
5.2
TX-13
526,737
80.8
544,719
81.0
0.2
114,488
17.6
157,732
23.4
5.9
TX-14
491,492
75.4
588,513
75.5
0.1
162,778
25.0
226,440
29.0
4.1
TX-15
504,686
77.5
674,927
85.7
8.3
506,447
77.7
649,297
82.5
4.8
TX-16
483,295
74.1
620,074
81.9
7.8
507,249
77.8
617,465
81.5
3.8
TX-17
512,489
78.7
585,982
77.1
-1.6
100,241
15.4
157,049
20.7
5.3
TX-18
240,569
36.9
281,511
39.0
2.1
231,548
35.5
313,533
43.5
8.0
TX-19
502,156
77.1
549,589
78.7
1.7
188,932
29.0
235,973
33.8
4.8
TX-20
425,519
65.3
500,530
70.3
5.0
437,800
67.2
509,208
71.5
4.4
TX-21
531,029
81.5
680,337
79.4
-2.1
138,599
21.3
240,713
28.1
6.8
TX-22
464,216
71.2
557,629
61.2
-10.0
132,379
20.3
244,900
26.9
6.6
TX-23
467,321
71.8
672,404
79.3
7.6
423,648
65.1
562,913
66.4
1.3
TX-24
476,428
73.2
488,398
61.6
-11.5
116,586
17.9
214,851
27.1
9.2
TX-25
439,574
67.5
584,962
71.8
4.3
220,942
33.9
315,776
38.8
4.9
TX-26
474,910
72.9
652,345
71.3
-1.6
93,451
14.3
193,973
21.2
6.9
TX-27
495,162
76.0
623,615
84.0
8.1
443,919
68.1
543,306
73.2
5.1
TX-28
518,245
79.6
748,669
87.9
8.3
505,754
77.7
672,129
78.9
1.2
TX-29
357,764
54.9
398,350
58.8
3.9
430,980
66.2
514,861
76.0
9.9
TX-30
238,931
36.6
256,028
36.2
-0.4
223,200
34.2
280,508
39.7
5.5
TX-31
477,328
73.2
647,694
71.8
-1.4
106,121
16.3
195,753
21.7
5.4
TX-32
439,551
67.6
422,818
66.0
-1.5
235,626
36.2
271,442
42.4
6.2
Unfortunately, for some reason, while American Factfinder has "Hispanic or Latino by Race" available for entire states, the only data it currently has available at the CD level is the less precise "Race and Hispanic or Latino." While that seems like a minor semantic distinction, this means there's no way to parse out non-Hispanic white (and non-Hispanic black, etc.) for CDs. Bear in mind that "Hispanic," for Census purposes, isn't a race unto itself, but a box that gets checked in addition to race. So, while most people who check "Some other race" are Hispanic, not all Hispanics identify as "Some other race;" in fact, more than half of Hispanics identify as "white" (with most of the rest as "some other") instead. This makes a big difference, in making the sample look whiter than it actually is (at least if one defines "white" in the narrow non-Hispanic sense). At the state level, in 2010, Texas appears as 70.4% white, 11.8% black, and 3.8% Asian in this format, in addition to 37.6% Hispanic. (Considering that adds up to 124%, it's very confusing. Here, it's also confusing because it makes districts with an already-large Hispanic majority look like they got even whiter, at the same time as they gained more Hispanics.) So, I'd focus more on the Hispanic column than on the white column in this table, and maybe I'll revisit this when we get data on non-Hispanic whites.
The state of Texas is one of the Republican Party's most valuable strongholds. It adds a good 38 electoral votes to the Republican candidate's electoral vote; Democrats have not been competitive in the state for at least a decade.
One of the only Democratic regions in Texas lies along the Rio Grande River:
A hyper-partisan Democratic gerrymander of Texas. Probably not VRA compliant and Texas might even have some laws against such whacked-outness. However when drawing hyper-partisan maps I like to take "screw the other party over as much as possible and forget the law" approach. This another full Texas map, the first I drew was before partisan data was available.
The two crowning achievements of this map are the three Democrats out of Travis County (City of Austin), which is something I posted earlier and worked to further perfect, and six Democrats out of Harris County (City of Houston).
Every Republican seat is a major vote sink, only 4 of the 14 GOP seats are less than 70% McCain. Which means there are 10 seats that are R+24 or higher including what would be the most Republican district in the country at R+30.
For the sake of classifying districts 59% Obama and higher are labeled as Safe D, 56-58% is Likely D and <56% is Lean D. There is only one district that is less than 56% Obama than isn't a GOP vote sink.
Overall this is a 22-14 Democratic Map with one district that could be won by the GOP in a wave year. So I think the worst case scenario for the Dems would be 21-15
The most Republican district in the state and probably the most conservative in the country. Interestingly enough despite being a R+30 district it is 22% Hispanic.
This is a third West Texas district that is over 20% Hispanic. That definitely doesn't help in this district. Includes the cities of Abilene and Lubbock
This is my favorite GOP vote sink based on unattractiveness. It gets all the Republican vote that would have ended up jeporadizing district 10, 31 and 9 if no counties were split.
Shedding some of the more Republican counties and picking up part of Southern El Paso shifts this district 4 points towards the Democrats compared to it's previous 51% Obama/48% McCain breakdown. In 2010 Conseco beat Rodriguiz by 5 points.
Solomon Ortiz's loss to Blake Farenthold was definitely a sign of a GOP wave. The old district 27 was 53%/46%. I would want to rate this district Safe D since Farenthold won by 1 point and the shift by 5 probably would have safed Ortiz, but I'd be breaking break my own rules.
This district shifts a few more points Democratic from his current 56%/43% district. It was difficult to get a good image capture of this district since it is drawn like it is.
I tried so hard to get two 59% Obama districts in San Antonio and just couldn't do it. 58% is really close and as much as I want to label this a safe D district I can't since my intro says 59% will be considered a safe D district.
Squeezing a third Democratic district out of Travis County was great. This district includes parts of Travis County, Waco, Killeen, Temple, College Station
The most Democratic district in the state with Obama winning by a 22 point margin. It loops around the very conservative Park Cities and Preston Hollow area of Dallas County
First, I have no illusions that there is anyway a map that would have the chance to elect 16 Democrats would ever pass the current legislature, let alone survive a veto by Rick Perry.
I just wanted to see if i could a map that had districts that were a little more compact.
Let me just say that I threw out most of the current map and renumbered the districts and probably ended up redistricting a lot of current reps out of their districts.
I also threw out the old numbers. I just have this pet peeve about numbering. I hate to have district 1 and then district 2 on the other side of the state. You can pretty much follow a trail from NE TX to SE TX, over to Houston, down the coast to the border, up to San Antonio, then Austin, then to El Paso, up to the Panhandle and south, then over and north into DFW.
Everyone who gerrymanders knows about the infamous GOP cracking of Austin during the GOP gerrymander of Texas. If the Democrats magically got control of the state House, state Senate and Governorship they would be out for blood over the GOP mid-decade gerrymander
Time for the GOP's turn to cry over a gerrymander of Austin!
CD-10
Obama 59%
McCain 40%
White 55% Black 6% Hispanic 35%
Since Doggett's District has grown by over 120,000 people in the past 10 years it has been easy to make it more compact by removing several of the conservative counties, some of Austin was also removed to make room for the other districts. Austin comprises the majority of the population, but San Marcos and Seguin are also in the district. The PVI remains the same as Doggett's old district. If he can win with an 8 point margin in one of the worst years for Democrats in decades this new district should be no problem.
Safe Democrat
CD-33
Obama 60%
McCain 39%
White 65% Black 8% Hispanic 20%
Clearly most of Austin is in this new district. It is 2 points more Democratic than Doggett's district and includes Round Rock and Georgetown in addition to the majority of Austin. Again the massive population growth in Austin made this district possible. Not much else to say on this one.
Safe Democrat
CD-31
Obama 56%
McCain 43%
White 52% Black 21% Hispanic 21%
As if two safe Democratic districts weren't bad enough a third district including parts of Austin, Waco, Killeen/Temple and College Station/Bryan. This is the crown jewel of this gerrymander. This district is beautifully drawn for one reason, to get the GOP angry. I couldn't quite make this district Democratic enough to be a safe Democratic Seat, but it is definitely winnable, toss-up at worst and lean D at best.
Redistricting Texas was a bit of a chore. To do this with an eye to how the GOP legislature might do so requires balancing a number of considerations. These are at loggerheads with each other to some degree:
(1) A desire to protect new GOP incumbents Farenthold and Canseco;
(2) A desire to shore up increasingly vulnerable GOP incumbents in TX-10, TX-24 and TX-32
(3) Compliance with the VRA.
First, a primer on the VRA. It does not require that a state with a 38 percent population have 38 percent of its districts be Hispanic opportunity districts. It doesn't necessarily require any.
Instead, it requires only that distinct populations be given a reasonably compact district if it is possible to draw one. This is a problem in Texas, where the Hispanic population is fairly subsumed within the anglo and African American populations. West Texas has a fairly large Hispanic vote, but it is impossible to create anything approaching a minority majority district there -- in fact, almost all of these districts have at least a 15% Hispanic population, but they can't be used to draw a compact district. In the 2006 Texas redistricting litigation, the district court found that Texas could support only 6 Hispanic opportunity districts (although I counted 7). I don't think it has increased all that much recently.
There's a second complication in Texas, which is that there's a difference between the population and the voting population. Both undocumented and documented workers count for census purposes, even though neither can vote. In Texas this creates a substantial discrepancy between the numbers shown by census voting-age population (VAP), and the Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP). Throw in lower turnout among hispanics in general, and it gets very difficult to draw VRA districts.
The basic theory behind the map, therefore, is as follows. Keep all the present Hispanic opportunity districts as close to the current lines as possible. Anything that's around 60 percent Hispanic should be an Hispanic opportunity district (the district Court in 2006 seemed to accept that TX-25 would be an Hispanic opportunity district with 55% Hispanic population; it was struck down because it was not sufficiently compact to count as a VRA district). If you can keep the white vote below 30% or so, that can change, although an African American population that starts to approach the Hispanic population can overwhelm it in a Dem primary.
I created something looking like an Hispanic opportunity district in the DFW area. To illustrate just how difficult this is, you'll note that this and the 30th are now awfully close to electing an Anglo Democrat, and these lines are pretty convoluted. It may well be that the VRA doesn't require any additional minority-majority districts in Texas, although drawing close to one in DFW is a good idea for shoring up GOP incumbents.
A few other notes. I didn't know exactly where Blake Farenthold lived, so I drew his new district to where Farenthold Consulting was located. The baconmander of Dallas county is avoidable with precise locations for the incumbents; because I didn't want to draw two Congressmen together, I kept the Dallas portions of their old districts more-or-less intact.
The centerpiece of the map is the 8-way split of Austin. I don't know where Lloyd Doggett lives and I don't think it matters; he runs in a 58 percent McCain district no matter what.
I have to say, given what I did, I was pleasantly surprised that the districts look as regular as they do. It might actually look better than the current map . . .
