Apologies for the lack of maps – I’ve been having untold issues attempting to save and recover images using Dave’s Redistricting App. For the time being, my summary will have to suffice.
In short, as many have rightly observed, the prospect of Texas potentially gaining four additional House seats needn’t be a frightening one. To be sure, it seems almost invariable that the new configuration will be more favorable to Democrats than the current DeLay gerrymander.
The map I created naturally aimed to maximize the strength of the ever-growing Latino vote, particularly in Houston, San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley, and the DFW Metroplex. I also sought to contain districts within county boundaries wherever possible. Having put it through several permutations, I found it possible – if not probable, were politics somehow removed from the redistricting process – that an 18R/18D map could easily be created, and that the potential even exists, without too much re-jiggering, for a Dem-majority delegation.
>CD-12 would be contained completely within Tarrant County, taking in most of Ft. Worth and Arlington and thusly creating a majority-minority district.
>CD-14 would lose Galveston and take in most of Corpus Christie, thus giving it a narrow Latino majority.
>CD-15 would be compacted entirely within Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley, where there has been massive Hispanic population growth.
>CD-16 would remain largely intact within greater El Paso.
>CD-23 would relinquish its share of Bexar County and expand Northward, taking in Odessa, Midland, and/or San Angelo currently in CD-11 – it would do this and still maintain a Latino majority.
>CD-27 would give up most of its share of Corpus Christie and expand Westward, taking in Duval, Jim Wells, and Brooks Counties, all currently in CD-15 and all heavily Latino.
>Democratic Travis County would anchor two separate CD’s.
>Bexar County would wholly contain two majority Latino CD’s.
>Harris County alone could accommodate as many as five Latino plurality districts. They would vary in range of competitiveness depending upon their remaining demographic composition.
>Dallas County could similarly accommodate three Latino plurality districts (one of which could instead be African-American plurality if most of CD-30 is kept intact).
As always, please feel free to comment and critique.
is to take screenshots. It seems entirely impossible to render or recover from the app itself.
Courtesy of ChadInFL.
1. assemble team of monkeys
2. distribute crayons among monkeys
3. supply monkeys with large-size map of state
4. ?????
5. profit!
I did the following notable things with Texas:
– made TX-29 much more heavily Hispanic than before (I think the GOP will do this to concentrate Hispanic votes and avoid weakening someone like Culberson, Olson, or Poe, and to hurt Gene Green in the primary) – 76%, if memory serves. This would once and for all likely ensure a functioning VRA Latino seat in Houston.
– kept all other VRA districts strong.
– messed with Chet Edwards a little, but only minimally…actually, the district I gave him is more like what he represented in the 1990s and early 2000s.
And the four new seats:
– one urban serpent stretching from Fort Worth to Dallas, with a Hispanic pop. of 57% and black pop. of 21% (mixed VRA minority seat). Since it usually takes about 60-65% Hispanic to make Latino representation likely, it’s equally possible that a white or black candidate could win crossover support in the Dem primary and represent this diverse district.
– one seat in north Houston that eats into Montgomery County — very white, upscale, Republican.
– one North Texas seat touching some suburban DFW counties and some rural turf from the Oklahoma border down to about Eastland County. (Mostly exurban and rural, solidly Republican.)
– and one seat, designed with a GOP legislator like Glenn Hegar in mind, stretching from the coast toward east of San Antonio/the Hill Country.
So the four seats would go 3-1 GOP. Assuming Edwards is reelected, my map would produce a 23-13 GOP Texas delegation. Of course, my ideal map would be very different, but I tried to replicate Republican priorities since, unless the Dems can somehow pull off the House in 2010, the GOP will get to draw the lines.
…the easiest thing to do in D/FW is to make a Latino/mixed seat in the area and then shore up the rest of the metroplex for the Republicans.
CD-10, a Republican seat represented by Michael McCaul of Austin, now stretches from Austin across to Houston. That district will be split and a new R district in the Houston area will be created, perhaps to include Bryan/College station depending on how the R’s attempt to target Chet Edwards.
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Just a comment on JFM110’s new CD-15 mentioned above. The Latino community will never let pass a district that packs too many Latinos together as long as they can create the thin “bacon-strip” districts that begin in the valley and jut northward into less Latino areas. My guess is Latino interest groups will try to create a new Austin-to-San Antonio Latino district. You can’t maximize representation by creating an overpacked district self-contained in Hidalgo county.