This is a quick hit:
Last night, a TX District court ruled 2-1 that the 2010 redistricting was racially based — and therefore invalid under the VRA.
www.motherjones.com/…
The Mother Jones article has not just the 200-page opinion, but the 450-page finding of facts!
This is a big deal — and we have no idea what’s going to happen next. TX will undoubtedly appeal — we’ll have to wait for more analysis. Short is that appellate courts are usually unwilling to overturn findings of fact, but will frequently do so for findings of law. How the 450 pages affect the next stage is uncertain — but these sorts of findings of fact are what hosed NC.
History: when the 2010 gerrymander came around, it was immediately contested in court. The San Antonio court re-drew several districts — and was overturned by the SC in 2012. In a similar argument as the (more recent) NC defense, Greg Abbot (now Gov, then AG) stated that the districts were drawn to disadvantage Democrats.
The ruling last night affects several districts, primarily in the SW of the state:
CD-35 (race predominated)
CD-23
CD-27
CD-26
The other districts, inc. CD-6 and the Houston area, were found to not violate the VRA. HERE is a map showing how the results came out in 2016 — remember, Clinton ran 10 behind Trump, an astonishing improvement. The 23rd got most of the attention with a heartbreaking 48.5/46.8 loss, but we could see some huge improvements if all four are redrawn — the 27th and 35th, especially.
35th — Travis County (so Austin area)
27th — Corpus Christi and the central Gulf Coast, but stretching to include Austin suburbs
26th — Denton County (also quickly-growing)