The Dallas County redistricting situation
The previous map, drawn by the Legislative Redistricting Board in 2001, allowed for sixteen seats. It now appears that, due to population loss, Dallas County will qualify for only fourteen seats. Two members are going to lose their seats. The problem for Republicans is this: Four seats belong to African-American Democrats (Helen Giddings, Eric Johnson, Barbara Mallory Caraway, Yvonne Davis). Two seats belong to Hispanics (Rafael Anchia and Robert Alonzo). If Republicans draw the map to eliminate two Democratic seats, by pairing, say, Giddings and Johnson, or Anchia and Alonzo, so that six minority districts are reduced to four, such a solution would likely be regarded as a regression under the Voting Rights Act.
The remaining ten members of the Dallas County delegation are Republicans, and four of them are going to be paired–with other Republicans. There is no way around it. The two seats that Dallas County is going to lose are odds-on to be Republican seats. This is where, shocking as it may seem, politics could get involved. Redistricting reflects the lyrics of that favorite Christmas tune: “He’s making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.” When redistricting chairman Solomons starts making his list, he will remember that Kenneth Sheets and Cindy Burkett, both Paxton supporters, have been naughty. Dan Branch, Solomons himself, and probably Will Hartnett are are going to be on the “nice” list.
The Dallas districts are going to be dicey to draw in any event. Huge population losses in the county will leave GOP members fighting each other for whatever Republican areas they can find — mainly the affluent area around White Rock Lake. Several of the Dallas County Republican members are in the same situation as the Democratic WD-40s used to be: occupying forces in enemy territory. (The term WD-40 is likely to disappear from the institutional memory, as the WD-40′s themselves have vanished, so I had better define it: “Rural white Democrat of middle age.”) Their names were Farabee, Homer, Hopson, Ritter, King, McReynolds, et al. All represented districts that voted Republican at the top of the ticket but might vote Democratic down-ballot. Now the situation is reversed. Several north Dallas Republicans are occupying seats that used to be enemy territory, seats that flipped Democratic in 2008 and Republican in 2010. Some of the new incumbents are going to be hard to protect–Rodney Anders0n, for example, won by couple of hundred votes in the best Republican year since 1994. In towns beyond the Dallas city limits, where the population is increasingly Republican, Driver (Garland) and Button (Richardson) should be safe, but Harper-Brown (Irving) will probably find herself fighting for survival, as usual. And you know what the tiebreaker will be whenever there is a close call: Naughty? Or nice?
[The original version of this article has been edited to make corrections involving the number of minority Democrats (six) and the names of certain members.]
Ted Baxter says:
Democrats have 6 seats – you forgot Yvonne Davis
Republicans have 10 – Branch, Hartnett, Jackson, Button, Driver, Harper-Brown, Carter, Anderson, Burkett, and Sheets
Solomons is in Denton
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paulburka Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 2:05 pm
How could I forget Davis. Thanks.
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Spiro Eagleton Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Rep. Yvonne Davis is easy to forget as she’s the only one of 150 members in the House not to have her photo on the House website. Its like she’s the phantom rep.
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Pat says:
Not population losses, per se – it was population growth under the average, surrounded by areas that had exponential growth.
Is that a typo or does Rodney Anderson go by Ron? Confusing to Dallas readers – Ron Anderson is the longtime Parkland CEO.
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Pri-ista Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 2:44 pm
What’s interesting is Uptown is rather Republican. Goes against the narrative about urban dwellers being liberal.
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Pat Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 5:58 pm
Republican’ish, yes. Its young, educated, high-income, and plurality-white. Dems tend to win it by modest margins. It still went for Craig Watkins in 2010, which (I believe) indicates that it’ll go more heavily blue in non-wave years. Definitely not trending in R’s favor. They’ll put it in a solidly Democratic district.
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Rog says:
I’d settle for court-ordered districts with minimal political gerrymandering. One can always hope.
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Imagine Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 6:23 am
Rog, you got it. You want it delivered on a unicorn or by a magic rainbow?
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just a thought says:
Rodney Anderson beat Kirk England. Miklos was beat by Cindy Burkett, and not by much either, considering the circumstances
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asmith says:
Thanks for the Dallas update Burka. It will be a bloodbath. All of the GOP districts need population. My orginial guess was that Burkett’s district gets eliminated and parts of it go to Sheets, Johnson, and Driver. I also thought Harper-Brown could get moved up into Jim Jackson’s Carrollton/Coppell district.
I think Straus will try to protect Stefani Carter by giving her more of Richardson and drawing her down into Preston Hollow, and Hartnett will get more of the Lake Highlands area which he has part of already.
I think Rodney Anderson in HD106 is a one termer.
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Morris Chestnut Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Anderson will be a one-termer. Look for Kirk England to take back that seat.
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LinesIntheSand says:
Burka you are 100 percent correct. Two of the following are going to get a Texas Style kick in the butt, Rodney “one hit wonder” Anderson, Cindy “five dollar footlong” Burkett or Kenneth “gives me the” Sheets.
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Dallas GOP Protection says:
Sheets is a one termer. Carter is safe. Burkett would be in trouble but for voting rights act issues in splitting Mesquite. Driver might be the odd man out given his issues – Garland split to beef up GOP strongholds in Mesquite and Lake Highlands. GOP must rally around the easiest to defend incumbents.
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MikeO says:
What Burka ignores is that those two seats pretty well just move northward- into Collin County. Home of a whole lot of ‘naughty’ people- that are loved by their constituents and are even more conservative than the districts that could be lost.
While I’m sure there will be efforts to punish the group up here, it will be hard to do so, since we have the growth and our ‘naughty’ people have huge support everywhere up here. Draw them together and all you’ll do is make one them move a bit.
And Carter’s seat might be safe for the GOP, but no guarantee of a political slam-dunk for the candidate herself. There is STILL a lot of bad blood on HOW she handled the Speaker’s race with her constituents- and the ‘lawyering’ related to it that came to light. Whether that fades with time has yet to be determined.
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Morris Chestnut Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 1:59 pm
The Dallas County seats will have to stay in Dallas County. That’s why they are losing two in the first place.
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Spiro Eagleton Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Yeah, they can’t just bust county lines for state house districts like MikeO thinks.
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paulburka Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 3:07 pm
Chestnut is right. Can’t cross county lines.
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Anonymous Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 11:50 am
I think MikeO’s point was that the R seats lost in Dallas County will be gained in Collin county because of the new seats going there because of its massive growth. Not that the seats were going across county lines.
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Republican Patriot says:
The House map has been drawn. There will be disappointments.
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paulburka Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 2:23 pm
I don’t believe that the House map has been drawn. The census data was not out in time to draw a map.
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Censustaker says:
The House Map has not been drawn.
There are a lot of proposed maps that a lot of people have drawn, but there is no one definitve map that has been declared THE map. That is just foolishness, Texas just received the census data a week ago.
As for Dallas County, if many of the districst are just drawn under the average, Dallas can be hooked in with a county such as Rockwall to create a seat that would be shared. So arguably, Dallas could still have 15 seats (technically).
Additionally if someone decides to retire and let’s mapmakers know privately of their intentions, it may avoid having to pair more than two Dallas County Delegation members. That has happened in the past.
The point is, there are a lot of moving parts and a lot of variables, so nothing is definite. We are a long way from a final map.
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paulburka Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Dallas cannot be hooked in with Rockwall. If a county is entitled to multiple seats, those seats must be contained within the county. The county’s population is divided by the ideal population (167,000) to arrive at the number of seats the county receives. If the number of districts is 14, as it appears to be, those districts must be contained within Dallas County and cannot cross a county line.
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JK Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 4:32 pm
So what happens if a county qualifies for…say…precisely 1.5 seats? Do they get one or two? This would appear to be an “apportionment” issue among counties. If there’s a way to handle apportionment by aggregating counties, then it can probably be done anywhere.
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anon says:
Carter will be ok, Sheets will be ok, they will give him part of Harnett’s district and move Hartnett up, Anderson has a hard road ahead of him, and Burkett is gone.
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Anonymous says:
The Voting Rights Act is only a backstop for Democrats if SCOTUS says so. Indications have been that they might not.
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Pat Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 6:09 pm
No, a VRA action would be pursued by the Obama administration before a SCOTUS that has already struck down one Texas map in violation of the VRA. See LULAC v. Perry, 548 US 399 (2005). Kennedy was in the majority then. The court hasn’t changed much. So its a near certainty that a map violating the VRA gets tossed by SCOTUS.
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Anonymous Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Wishful thinking, Pat. The VRA may be long gone by then…see the 2/24 New York Times opinion page.
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asmith says:
Sheets can only be ok if more of Lake Highlands is put into his district. I guess that’s what anon 2:37 means. Adding the Mesquite parts of HD101 does not make him safer from a tough Allen Vaught rematch or another strong Dem challenge in a Presidential election year. I bet Vaught’s house in lakewood will be put into Branch’s district.
I think Carter will be ok because Hamilton Park and the apartments and minority neighborhoods along the LBJ corridor by Texas Instruments will likely be split up between Chen-Button and Harnett. She probably picks up more of Richardson proper and goes further down into Preston Hollow. Like I said before Anderson is toast in HD106.
The days of 65% seats for the GOP in Dallas County are over. The incumbents that survive will have to deal with 55-57% seats at best.
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anon Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 10:20 pm
Very interesting especially Hamilton Park. You live in Dallas? Yes?
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Anonymous says:
Sorry to challenge the liberal orthodoxy control of information. Their is a reason that the VRA allows an alternative route for pre certification. Ignore it at your own peril.
Also, public employee unions are the elite employees. Also the rich guys.
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JohnBernardBooks says:
ah censorship. Always the democrats.
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Ted Baxter Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 6:07 pm
JBB and friends are always so persecuted. My heart goes out to yall.
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Kenneth D. Franks says:
Teachers don’t have public employee “Unions” in Texas with collective bargaining rights. It is (there instead of their) (4:44.) Maybe you should have listened when your teacher in the 4th grade taught homophones. What censorship J.B.B.?
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Ted Baxter says:
Can Dallas Co. sustain 4 majority black districts?
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paulburka Reply:
February 25th, 2011 at 2:37 am
Giddings’ district is about the only one in the south part of the county that has grown. She has some population to give away. But the mapmakers cannot pair minority districts, as that would dilute minority voting strength. So Dallas will retain six seats that are represented by minorities.
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Dallas Politics says:
Apparently, Sheets got on the wrong side of the school people just one month into his term. A bunch of PTA moms wanted to meet with him to discuss school finance, and he refused to meet with them without having police protection. A U.S. Marine felt like he needed Dallas Police protection before he could talk public ed finance with PTA soccer moms. Ooops! Looks like James White will not longer be the only freshman fighting for a top spot on the 10 worst.
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J Stay Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 7:31 pm
Dallas Politics,
What are you talking about? I am one of the PTA Dads that was at the Sheets event. He reached out to us and invited us to the event. Also, he was very receptive to our message about education cuts and agreed that we need to use the Rainy Day Fund.
As far as police protection, I did not see any police officers at the event.
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paulburka Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:38 am
People do not get on the Ten Worst list by their behavior back home. They get on the Ten Worst list by their behavior in the line of duty.
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Spiro Eagleton Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 7:38 am
Yeah, what is this clown (Dallas Politics) talking about calling out Rep. Sheets over his Marine Corps service?
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Pri-ista says:
So long as Branch and Harrtnett are okay, I’m happy.
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Just Another Joe Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 9:32 am
Even though he is the Speaker’s boy, there is a 50 – 50 chance Branch gets paired. The geographics of where he lives and where the R’s in his surrounding districts live are hard to get around. In that part of Dallas, seems like everyone lives right on the lines.
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Anonymous says:
Welcome to the club Rep. Sheets! When Straus decides he doesn’t like you, his staff goes on BurkaBlog to spread rumors. Consider it a badge of honor.
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paulburka Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:43 am
Something else I don’t believe: that Straus has his staff post inane things on this blog.
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Censustaker says:
You are incorrect Mr. Burka. Dallas is entitled to slightly more than 14 seats. It becomes an issue of rounding up or rounding down – as occurred with Harris County in the last redistricting. So any excess in Dallas could potentially go into a district with Rockwall County (as an example).
As for the splitting of county lines, the case of Smith v. Craddick (1971) in effect rendered this state constitional provision useless if it prevents the state from meeting federal requirements. The issue at hand is how much variance the legislature chooses to establish.
Given that standards for congressional districts are now essentially zero variance, it raises the question of whether the state is legally vulnerable for not meeting that standard for legislative seats. That legal test has yet to be met and the legislature will have to decide what is prudent and what is legally risky.
Redistricting law continues to be an evolving process from census to census.
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Dave Shapiro says:
Paul is incorrect in stating that Dallas County lost population, and Pat is correct in his comment above that it just grew by less than the 20.6% rate of growth of the entire State between the 2000 Census and the 2010 Census. While State’s population increased by 4,293,741 (up from 20,851,820 in 2000 to 25,145,562 in 2010, Dallas County only grew by 6.7%, a mere 149,240 increase, from 2,218,899 in the 2000 Census to 2,368,139 in 2010. There are areas of West Texas that would kill for any population increase. The census data is readily available at http://www.census.gov.
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paulburka Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 1:34 am
Yes, I should have said that Dallas County failed to keep pace with the population gain of the state as a whole.
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Aren Cambre says:
I was at the Sheets event (and am a dad of a DISD student). This was a previously announced open house, not a PTA meet up. Education funding was important to many attendees.
I saw three cops: one in a cruiser in the mid-rise building’s parking lot and two in the hallway outside his office. It was pretty crowded.
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retrocon says:
Censustaker, you’re not quite right. True, Dallas is entitled to slightly more that 14 seats — 14.1266 to be more precise. But if that number is rounded UP to 15 districts, the average population of each would be too low to be within an acceptable range. So 14 it is and must be.
And… if a county CAN be allotted a whole number of districts (within an acceptable range), then it must be given that number of whole districts. No combining with neighboring counties. Only when a county CANNOT be apportioned a whole number of districts (within acceptable range, like in the 1.5 example) will it be combined with an adjacent county. This is spelled out in the Texas Constitution. Such will be the case again with Collin county; it will have 4 whole districts but some surplus population that will have to be joined to Rockwall or Hunt or maybe even Fannin.
You are correct, however, in noting that Harris county can be rounded either way, 24 or 25 districts will still yield districts within acceptable range of population.
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retrocon says:
By the way, Harris county had 25 districts throughout the 90′s and even though they only merited 24.46 districts in 2000, they were rounded UP to remain at 25. Now, with the 2010 census numbers, Harris has dropped slightly to 24.41 districts. I don’t think you can justify keeping the number at 25 this time around, especially when to do so would be at the expense of a rural district somewhere.
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anonymous from FTW says:
It appears that Tarrant County will gain one seat from 10 to 11, right? I am guessing that this will be another R seat in NE Tarrant County unless the growth of the hispanic population in Fort Worth and Arlington would somehow justify the creation of another minority district (although the hispanic majority in FW keeps electing Burnam for some inexplicable reason).
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team player says:
I know Representative Pitts represents Ellis County, but does he have a house in Highland Park, also?
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