Redistricting: Maps, Stats and Some Notes

The federal judges in San Antonio unveiled their maps this week, and the analysis started right away. Here's the starter kit: 

• A link to the congressional map on the Texas Legislative Council's redistricting website, where you can take the maps down to street level to see what's going on in detail.

• A link to the House map on TLC's website.

• A link to the Senate map on TLC's website.

• And here (courtesy of TxRedistricting.org) are links to the court's orders on the three maps: Congress, House and Senate.

Below are the new maps, along with some details about each. 

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Texas Interim Congressional Map.

• No incumbent members of Congress were paired in the court map.

• In 2008, Republican John McCain got more than 50 percent of the vote in 24 of the 36 congressional districts. The current delegation has 32 members; 23 of them are Republicans.

• The map puts incumbent Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, in a Republican district — like the one drawn for him by the Legislature — that stretches from the southern border of Tarrant County, on the north, to include much of Hays County, south of Austin.

Doggett immediately announced he will file in the new Congressional District 35, which stretches from Austin to San Antonio. He has already set up a fundraiser at a supporter's home in San Antonio. "As an effective advocate for schools, veterans, health care and retirement security, my service fits well with the neighborhoods that have now been joined from South San Antonio to North Austin," he said in a news release. "I will continue the visits with working families that I already have under way. And I will continue to stand up to Rick Perry and other extremists, whose misguided policies are threatening our families' security."

• The newly created Congressional District 33 in Dallas and Tarrant counties voted strongly for Barack Obama in the 2008 election, and Anglos account for less than 20 percent of the voting age population. Hispanics account for 61.3 percent of the voting age population in that district.

• U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, will be in a district that reaches up the coastline to Matagorda County and inland almost to the Travis County line. But that's still a Republican district, according to the McCain-Obama numbers from 2008.

• According to the state's lawyers, CD-23, which stretches from El Paso to San Antonio, is now back to what the Legislature drew. It's got a Republican incumbent — Francisco "Quico" Canseco of San Antonio — but McCain lost narrowly in the district in 2008. Canseco didn't outright endorse the map, but he's glad the waiting is over. "I am hopeful that this process is finally coming to an end," Canseco said in a press release. "It has been a long road to get here, but in the end we finally have a map that is fair for voters across Texas and we can look forward to the scheduling of elections. In this Presidential election year, it is well past time that Texans know when their voices will be heard in choosing candidates and nominees."

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Texas Interim House Map.

• Republican John McCain carried 97 of the 150 House districts in the 2008 presidential election.

• Several Texas House members were paired, including Erwin Cain and Dan Flynn; Mike "Tuffy" Hamilton and Allan Ritter; Connie Scott and Raul Torres; Jose Aliseda and J.M. Lozano; Warren Chisum and Jim Landtroop; Rodney Anderson and Linda Harper-Brown; Cindy Burkett and Joe Driver; and Jim Murphy and Beverly Woolley.

Most of those are empty challenges. Scott and Torres are both planning to run, but in each of the other pairings, one of the candidates is either retiring, moving to another district or running for another office.

One pairing from the court's original plan is notably missing from this one: Geannie Morrison of Victoria and Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi, both Republicans, are no longer in the same district.

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Texas Interim Senate Map.

The Senate maps are very close to those drawn by the Legislature, with changes made in Tarrant County after an agreement between the state and lawyers for Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, among others. She'll have a district much like the one she has now: It votes Republican most of the time, with her 2008 win a notable exception.

• McCain carried 20 of the 31 districts in the Senate map (including Davis' Senate District 10) in the 2008 presidential election.