MSM Redistricting Coverage

I did my best not to read any MainStream Media Redistricting coverage when writing the last post. I finally had to break down and look at a Chron story and a Statesman story when I saw an email on a list I’m on that contradicted my theories on a couple of districts in the state’s plan. I did, however, swipe several of my maps from the Austin American Statesman.

Anyway, now that I’v finished the post below, I thought I’d round up some of the MSM coverage for you (not that you need bother looking at it if you feel I gave you all the info you would ever want to know in the post below). I will note that not a single MSM outlet that I’ve found actually broke down the plans by ALL OF the changes they made.

This surprises me because, hell, MSM has virtually unlimited resources. They could stick reporters, editors, clerks, secretaries and janitors on every map and run massive coverage. But, they probably think that’s too (to borrow a phrase I’ve heard Charles Kuffner use) “inside baseball” for their readers.

Of course. Because who really cares about La Salle County, right? Or most of the other counties for that matter, I guess.

Anyway, here is the roundup:

CQ Politics Blog actually has the best roundup of changes within the districts I’ve seen.  Here’s their summary of the Plans, which I think is worth quoting in its entirety:

• Republican State Attorney General’s plan: A map produced by the office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott — a Republican whose staff defended the pre-2004 GOP remap in court — envisions a radically different 23rd for Bonilla, whose current district stretches hundreds of miles along the Rio Grande, linking a part of Laredo in the east to the outskirts of El Paso in the west.

Under the Abbott plan, the 23rd would be anchored in southwestern Travis County (Austin) and northwestern Bexar County (San Antonio), which is Bonilla’s political base. The proposal would give the 23rd a Hispanic voting-age population (VAP) of 21 percent.

The district would not be as heavily Republican as the present 23rd District, where Bonilla was re-elected with 69 percent in 2004. But it would not be as politically competitive as it was as configured for the 2002 election, when Bonilla won by a mere 4 percentage point margin over Democrat Cuellar.

The district then encompassed all of Webb County, an overwhelmingly Hispanic and Democratic-voting area that includes Cuellar’s hometown of Laredo. Webb County was subsequently divided between the 23rd and 28th under the GOP’s mid-decade remap, spurring Cuellar to eschew a rematch against Bonilla and run instead in the 2004 primary against 28th District Democratic Rep. Ciro D. Rodriguez, whom he unseated.

The Abbott plan would reunite the two segments of Webb County, but place them in a redrawn 28th District that would take in southern and western Texas counties along the Rio Grande that have long been part of Bonilla’s district. Cuellar would be expected to run here, given his Webb County base, the district’s decided Democratic lean and a Hispanic voting-age population of 77 percent. He would, though, have to familiarize himself with a large portion of the district.

The Abbott map might create some difficulty for Doggett, in that it redraws his 25th District to exclude Travis County, a Democratic bastion in and around Austin that is Doggett’s political base. The district would be heavily Democratic, though, and have a Hispanic VAP of 66 percent.

Smith’s 21st District would still be dominated by the San Antonio and Austin areas and have a Republican lean.

“The map affects only four districts, leaving 28 current districts untouched,” according to a brief Abbott’s office filed with the federal court. “It contains two strong Latino-opportunity districts. It is substantially more compact, and it no longer links Travis County with the border region. It also avoids pairing any incumbents and maintains the current partisan balance of the four affected districts.”

“In short,” the brief continues, “it remedies the violation of federal law, while fully respecting the already enacted policy preferences of the Texas Legislature.”

• Jackson (Democratic) plaintiffs’ plan: A map filed by Texas Democratic plaintiffs would have much different political ramifications for Bonilla. Their map would include all of Webb (including 28th District Rep. Cuellar’s base) in the 23rd, while also keeping Bonilla’s San Antonio home within its boundaries — and adding two heavily Hispanic counties, Frio and LaSalle, that are presently represented by Cuellar.

The new lines would present the possibility of a renewed rivalry between Bonilla and Cuellar.

The Democratic map calls for the 23rd to have a higher Hispanic voting-age population (67 percent) than under the 2002 map (63 percent), under which Bonilla was nearly defeated, or the 2004 map (51 percent), under which he won in a landslide.

The Democrats’ map is kind to Smith, whose 21st would become overwhelmingly Republican-leaning — mainly because it would no longer include any part of liberal-leaning Travis County. The map also is favorable to Doggett, whose 25th would be dominated by Travis — much like the strongly Democratic district he represented in the 1990s.

With Cuellar’s political base moved back into the 23rd, no incumbent would reside in the 28th, which the Democratic map would stretch from San Antonio to the Mexico border.

• GI Forum (Hispanic) Map: The American GI Forum of Texas, a group of Hispanic plaintiffs that was represented in court by the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), submitted a map that would revert the 23rd District to its precise 2002 configuration — and thus would also effectively pair Bonilla and Cuellar.

The GI Forum map “will offer Latino voters the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice,” MALDEF said in its legal brief to the federal court.

That map redraws the 25th District as a narrow band that attaches San Antonio and Austin. It is solidly Democratic and has a 48 percent Hispanic VAP. Doggett could run here, though he is not well-known in Bexar County (San Antonio), where a plurality of district residents would reside. No current incumbent would reside in the redrawn 28th.

The GI Forum’s map would expand Smith’s 21st District but retain its basic configuration as a Republican-leaning San Antonio-Austin district.

That GI Forum map also makes minor modifications to two other districts — the 11th District, a heavily Republican district in and around Midland that is represented by freshman Republican Mike Conaway, and the 20th, a San Antonio-based district that is decidedly Democratic and Hispanic and is represented by four-term Democrat Charlie Gonzalez. Both districts would retain their basic configurations, and Conaway and Gonzalez would be heavily favored to win re-election.

• LULAC Maps: The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) submitted two map proposals — one that puts Webb County in the 23rd District and another that puts Webb in the 28th District.

Both maps allowed for deviation from near-perfect population equality — a criterion often deemed inviolable by the Supreme Court under the equal representation rulings of the 1960s. In one map, the population of the 21st District would be 655,037, whereas the population of the 20th District would be 648,608.

Nearly all of the other maps all have deviations among the districts of only 1 voter — and that is only because Texas’ 2000 population of 20,851,820 is not perfectly divisible by its number of districts (32).

• Travis County maps: Officials from Travis County, who also were plaintiffs in the case, submitted two maps. One would put all of Webb County in the 23rd District, while the other would put Webb in the 28th. Both maps would give Doggett a relatively compact 25th District in the Austin area.

• Bonilla/Cuellar/Smith map: A proposal was also submitted jointly by Bonilla, Cuellar and Smith. The map would continue to divide Webb County between the 23rd and the 28th District, but it would boost the Hispanic VAP in the 23rd to 62 percent by appending southern Bexar County. It would give Doggett a more compact 25th District centered in Austin.

It would also make changes to the 15th District, a south Texas district represented by five-term Democratic Rep. Ruben Hinojosa. Cuellar would represent a smaller portion of Bexar County and recoup some territory in south Texas that is presently represented by Hinojosa and Doggett.

Cuellar told CQPolitics.com on Friday that the proposal is “both constitutional and fair, at the same time causes the least amount of disruptions to the voters of those districts.”

Cuellar added that he thought the federal court would reject any map that pairs him with Bonilla in one district. “I just don’t foresee the judges pairing two Hispanic incumbents,” he said.

• New elections? The federal court must also decide whether a remedial map should be effective for this year’s elections — as many assume. This is no small matter: Texas held its primary elections in March, so new primaries in the districts affected would be required if the federal court decides the revised map it accepts should be implemented immediately.

There is precedent for a federal court to order new elections late in an election cycle, following a Supreme Court finding that a congressional map is illegal. In 1996, the Supreme Court rejected three Texas congressional districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders, and a federal court redrew 13 districts and ordered primary elections in November and runoff elections that December.

In a brief filed with the federal court, the defendants requested that the panel, if it chooses to order new elections, should make a ruling by Aug. 7 — four days after oral arguments — in order to give state election officials ample time to allow for a candidate filing schedule, certification of ballots, preparation of voting machines for voters with disabilities and preparation of ballots for military personnel who live overseas.

The brief filed by the state Attorney General’s office said that state officials are “ready to expeditiously implement whatever changes are ordered by the Court as part of a remedial map” — though it also cited cases in which courts have allowed elections to proceed under maps that had been invalidated under federal law, with any changes deferred until the next election cycle.

But the Democrats insisted that the federal court implement a remedial map immediately. “This Court should remedy the illegalities in the 2003 plan immediately,” their brief states.

The Chron has this story (with a somewhat misleading but probably true headline). They also have this one, evidently on their Saturday’s front page, that says three incumbent lawmakers are in jeopardy via the plans:

All of the proposed new maps put Webb County back together in one congressional district or another.

But they also had a varying political impact on three incumbents: U.S. Reps. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio; Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo; and Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.

Bonilla would be politically safe in some maps, but he would face possible defeat in others. The maps have the same effect on Doggett.

No map would clearly cause Cuellar’s defeat or re-election, but in some he would find greater political difficulties than others.

The number of congressional districts altered in the proposed maps ranges from four to six.

A pair of maps submitted by Travis County would make minor changes in the 10th District of U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul. If that map is adopted, it likely would trigger a special election in the Republican district, which reaches from Austin to western Harris County.

The Statesman has multiple pieces. This one notes that the State’s plan would give Travis County to three GOP Congressmen. Note that Doggett and the Statesman seem to think that the AG forgot where Doggett lives:

Doggett said Abbott’s lawyers got his residence wrong.

“This sounds like the same folks the who think Tom DeLay lives in Virginia,” said Doggett, referring to the Sugar Land lawmaker’s attempt to get off the November ballot by saying he’s moved to his Virginia condo.

Doggett said he lives in East Austin, just off Rosewood Avenue, and would be paired against Smith, a San Antonio Republican, under the state’s map.

That prompted negotiations among the affected members of Congress: Doggett, Smith, Bonilla and Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.

All but Doggett filed a last-minute alternative that would keep Travis County split three ways among Smith, McCaul and Doggett. But Doggett would get more of Travis County, and his district would be centered in Central Texas.

Here is another Statesman story. Here is another one about the state’s plan.

Also: New York Times, San Antonio Express News, Dallas Morning News/AP;

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