First, NewsHour is dedicating a significant segment to the Texas remap this evening.

Also, I've been looking over the maps and thinking about remedies.  Fixing this district is not too difficult, but it comes at a potential cost elsewhere in the map.  The reconstitution of district 23 ripples rapidly across the South Valley, and requires the removal of one of the "slot car"districts (such as 25) from the map.  As a thought exercise, I decided to plug in the old South Texas districts from Balderas 1151C into the map for HB-3 1374C, and reconciled lines. The first thing that happens is two heavily Hispanic counties currently in district 11 return to district 23 (Reagan and Upton) -- and the loss of population will have to be made up at the east end of the district, to the northwest of San Antonio.  

Then when you reconcile the northern lines of the old South Valley districts that are below San Antonio -- 28, 15, and 27 -- you are left with an expanse of South Texas that roughly approximates part of Ron Paul's old district.  Specifically, you get Bastrop, Fayette, Colorado, Lavaca, and DeWitt counties from current 15; part of Travis, Caldwell, Gonzalez, and Karnes from current 25; and part of Hays, Guadalupe and Wilson from current 28.  Together, this geography had 616,000 residents and was roughly 40% Hispanic in the 2000 census.

One can then move east into either Bexar or Comal counties to pickup the extra 35,000 people you need to make 1p1v, and then move district 21 west to pickup the balance of Kerr, Kendall, and Bandera Counties, which are predominantly white and were shed by current district 23.  Any effort to remap district 23 will first ripple across the South Valley, and loop back in a counterclockwise fashion to arrive on the west side of San Antonio and affecting district 21.

That's one solution, but it illustrates the coming challenge for the person(s) tasked with this remap, namely to restore district 23, while being aware of the need to maintain other opportunities in the South Valley. 

I have a question for the list: What is the obligation of Texas to restore district 23 AND to also maintain opportunities in districts 15, 20, 25, 27, and 28?  And, is it empirically possible? I'm having problems getting there while also maintaining performing districts in the South Valley AND keeping the districts remotely compact.


_____________________________
Ronald Keith Gaddie
Professor of Political Science
The University of Oklahoma
455 West Lindsey Street, Room 222
Norman, OK  73019-2001
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Fax 405-325-0718
E-mail: rkgaddie@ou.edu
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/G/Ronald.K.Gaddie-1