Some Corrections To The “Big” Redistricting Post

Thanks to a reader who saw my post on one of the Democratic listservs this morning who sent in some very helpful corrections to my massive redistricting post from last night/this morning/the wee hours.
The first correction is a total flob on my part that I actually got from the Mainstream media. From this reader’s email:

Most amusing: the title “Jackson plaintiffs” has nothing to do with Cong. Sheila Jackson-Lee. The Jackson in this case is a citizen plaintiff named Eddie Jackson, one of many citizen plaintiffs who filed the case originally. Congressional D’s only joined in the case later as intervenors.

Duh, duh, duh! That’s what happens when you write about redistricting at one in the morning. Although I’m too zapped to go and find the references, I know that both the Austin American Statesman and CQ, and another blog refered to this as the Congressional Democrats plan and that  one even said it was called “Jackson” because of Jackson Lee.

I actually thought differently, but sided with the MSM on this one, to my own detriment.

The rest of these, though, are mistakes made as a result of some of my errors of interpretation, so they won’t need much commentary on my part:

1. The State plan would affect 4 districts just like the Jackson plaintiffs’ (also Dem congressional intervenors) plan, not two. The least districts affected by any change has to be four, and if one believes the court is likely to affect as few districts as possible, then the Jackson plan, the state plan, or a Court drawn variation is the most likely outcome. Because a four district plan cannot touch CD10, the Jackson plaintiffs’ plan simply gives CD25 (Doggett) the rest of Travis Co. and makes CD23 “legally” Hispanic, and thus more Democratic, again. Because Cuellar technically lives in the CD23 portion of Webb Co. today, there is no new pairing involved, but Cuellar’s base would go wholly into 23. This same plan could be drawn by flipping Webb Co. into 28 and putting South San Antonio into CD23, but the Supreme Court opinion and the fact that Webb had been wholly in 23 since it was created seem to point to the Jackson version as more appropriate.

Again this clarification is 100 percent correct.

2. The State plan does not “leave District 21 in tact” - it shifts it into just 145,000 folks in SE Travis, and pairs Smith and Doggett in a 60+% R district. Then the state gives Bonilla over 300,000 in Travis Co., including Central Austin Dem boxes that would be swallowed up by suburban and Hill Country R’s in a 62% R district. The state’s goal was to make sure that no Austin D could win any district and that no D could beat Smith or Bonilla - neither Doggett nor Courage.

Again, 100 percent correct, but I want to note that my comment was that the plan left the district “relatively intact enough” for John Courage to mount a campaign there, and I did note the massive rip-out of Travis County:

The only positive about the state’s plan opposed to the Jackson plaintiff’s plans is that the state keeps CD 21 intact enough that Courage can still mount a campaign, but it still tears much of Travis county out of this district.

More corrections:

3. An equally serious flaw in the state’s DeLay impersonation is the way its plan splits the traditional South Side San Antonio Hispanic community - pulling 127,000 Bexar Co. residents out of the current CD28 and dropping them into the “bacon strip” CD25, unnecessarily bringing a fifth district into Bexar Co. and splitting core Bexar Co. Hispanic communities into three districts instead of two.

Again, this is something I had difficulty comprehending—just by looking at a map—where Bexar County’s core hispanic communities are.

This makes my earlier post today that included some information on the Gingles case all that more relevant. Separating a minority community like this surely will not fly before the judges.
Still more:

4. The State plan literally “out-DeLay’s DeLay” and shifts the majority of the residents of these four districts into new districts (save their trick of changing district numbers). It would also leave Austin/Travis Co. as the only major urban area without effective control of a single district - splitting a Dem. majority county into three R districts.

5. Every plan purports to create another “legal” Hispanic district to replace the “illegal” CD23. The Jackson and Travis Co plans do that by enhancing/restoring CD23 to make it a performing Hispanic opportunity district. The state tries to do it by renumbering CD23 as CD28 and maintaining CD25 as a bacon strip Hispanic district that runs all the way from the Valley to the Travis Co. line. Only LULAC tries to enhance CD23 and maintain CD25, thus attempting to create two more “legal” Hispanic seats, although most parties in the case, including MALDEF/GI Forum believe that the Court is unlikely to go that far based on Supreme Court opinions in this case (their plan and the Travis Co. plan add only an additional “influence” district).

I won’t argue with  5 right now.  I made my judgement calls by looking at the maps more than the population trends. I may have wrongfully assumed some counties were more Latino than they are in my estimation that there were additional minority districts in other plans.

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