Tag Archives: redistricting

Murray on the Census and redistricting

Posted on July 9, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Professor Murray follows up an earlier post on the recent Supreme Court decision that narrowly upheld the Voting Right Act and considers the redistricting implications for Texas in 2011. The most interesting bit was this: Had the Supreme Court thrown … Continue reading →

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SCOTUS upholds Voting Rights Act

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

For now, anyway. The Supreme Court ruled narrowly today in a challenge to the landmark Voting Rights Act, siding with a small Texas governing authority but sidestepping the larger constitutional issue. The court, with only one justice in dissent, avoided … Continue reading →

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Did Tom DeLay do us a favor on climate change?

Posted on June 19, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Via Yglesias, I see that one of the biggest impediments to a real solution for climate change is Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson, who is the chair of the Agriculture Committee. This has Chris Bowers thinking outside the box. Here is … Continue reading →

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Rerun for Welsh?

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Maverick Welsh is a young first-time candidate who exceeded expectations in his initial campaign. I most certainly do expect we’ll see him run for office again. “I absolutely will run for council again,” Welsh said. “I had way too good … Continue reading →

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Counting on the Census

Posted on June 9, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

I wasn’t really paying attention to this sort of thing ten years ago, so I don’t know how much effort was made at the time to get an accurate count of Texas’ residents for the 2000 Census. I can say … Continue reading →

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Who should represent District H?

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

That’s the question, isn’t it? It took only a few minutes at the District H candidate forum Thursday morning for discussion to turn to the elephant in the room. “District H is supposed to be a Hispanic district,” said Edgar … Continue reading →

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More on the City Council redistricting lawsuit dismissal

Posted on May 28, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s the Chron story about the dismissal of the lawsuit, brought by Vidal Martinez and Carroll Robinson. The lawsuit argued the city was violating its own charter by refusing to redistrict and add two council districts when its population passed … Continue reading →

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City Council redistricting lawsuit dismissed

Posted on May 26, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Marc Campos mentions this in passing: This past Friday, a federal judge threw out Lopez v. City of Houston. That is the lawsuit filed by Vidal Martinez to force the City of H-Town to draw two more district council seats … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Happy Ardmore Day

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Rep. Pena remembers the day six years ago when the House Democrats took a stand against the DeLay/Craddick/Perry re-redistricting scheme. Though they were only able to delay the inevitable, the effort marked the beginning of the resurgence of the Texas … Continue reading →

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Burka on the Census and redistricting

Posted on May 5, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Paul Burka takes a look at Census figures and projections for 2010 and considers the implication for the 2011 Legislative Redistricting Board redraw of State House and State Senate lines. There is going to be carnage in rural Texas, especially … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Wendy Davis

Posted on May 2, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

I’ve been a fan of freshman State Sen. Wendy Davis since I interviewed her last year at the state Democratic convention. You could tell she was smart and ambitious, and if given the chance could really go places. I’ve been … Continue reading →

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It only hurts when it happens to you

Posted on April 26, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

This story is about the likely death of the Wentworth nonpartisan redistricting committee bill, which wasn’t unexpected, but the real story is about how it went down. A move to put redistricting into the hands of a bi-partisan public commission … Continue reading →

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Casey on City Council redistricting

Posted on April 17, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Rick Casey provides an update on the City Council redistricting lawsuit. The burning question of whether the city of Houston must immediately expand its 14-member City Council by adding two new districts in time for November’s election, or whether it … Continue reading →

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White rakes it in for his Senate bid

Posted on April 15, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Among other things, today is the deadline for federal candidates to report their campaign finance status. Of the many contenders for Kay Bailey Hutchison’s Senate seat, whenever that becomes available, I think it’s safe to say that Bill White had … Continue reading →

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Presidential results by Congressional district

Posted on April 13, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Swing State Project has compiled a list of Presidential results by Congressional district, for all 435 DCs around the country. I’ve pulled out the Texas numbers and put them in a Google spreadsheet for ease of viewing. Here are a … Continue reading →

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Danno says his vote on redistricting commission was a mistake

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Sen. Jeff Wentworth’s SB315, which passed on second reading last week in the Senate, may not make it to third reading because Wentworth no longer has enough votes to suspend the rules and bring it back to the floor. The … Continue reading →

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Precinct analysis: The City Council districts

Posted on April 2, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

I’d been wondering for a long time how the 2008 vote broke down by City Council districts, as well as for the city of Houston versus non-Houston Harris County. I finally did something about it awhile ago and made a … Continue reading →

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The Heflin plan for voter ID

Posted on March 30, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

While I still have hope that voter ID can be stopped one more time, I can certainly understand the viewpoint that a sufficiently determined Republican majority can push through what it wants to if it really tries, especially if we … Continue reading →

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Redistricting commission advances

Posted on March 27, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

We know about Sen. Jeff Wentworth’s biennial efforts to create a nonpartisan redistricting commission for Texas. On Monday, those efforts advanced forward a step. By a vote of 21-10, senators approved Senate Bill 315 that would create the nine-member commission … Continue reading →

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We keep on growing

Posted on March 21, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Don’t know how much longer we can or will keep this up, but the Houston metropolitan area just keeps growing like gangbusters. The Houston metropolitan area added more than 130,000 residents between July 1, 2007 and July 1, 2008, the … Continue reading →

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More on the AG and the LRB

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

As we know, in the aftermath of the Senate pajama party on voter ID last week, State Rep. Mark Homer touted HJR 53, which he had filed earlier in the session, which would replace the Attorney General on the Legislative … Continue reading →

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If he can’t testify, he shouldn’t redistrict

Posted on March 11, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

One of the questions that was raised during the Voter ID All-Nighter in the Senate was why Attorney General Greg Abbott took a pass, even though the Democrats wanted him to be there, since he was a leading crusader of … Continue reading →

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Voter ID: All through the night

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

According to Elise Hu’s liveblog of the voter ID hearing in the Senate, they’re on witness number 3 of 15, and they haven’t gotten to any public testimony yet. Suffice it to say, this is gonna go on for awhile, … Continue reading →

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On gerrymandering and partisanship

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The subject of the partisan polarization of Congress came up in conversation recently, and along with it was the topic of redistricting and gerrymandered districts. That made me hunt up this paper (PDF) from Princeton’s Nolan McCarty, UCSD’s Keith Poole, … Continue reading →

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Is redistricting reform about to become a reality?

Posted on March 4, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Patricia Kilday Hart reports that Sen. Jeff Wentworth’s redistricting commission bill has a chance this session, thanks to the change in Speaker. Wentworth, who presented his bill to the Senate State Affairs Committee, tells me he has confirmed pledges from … Continue reading →

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Interview with Vidal Martinez and John Castillo

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

As you know, I’ve been following the issue of Houston City Council redistricting with a lot of interest. After the lawsuit was filed a week ago Thursday, I wanted to speak to the protagonists and ask them some questions about … Continue reading →

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The Census and City Council redistricting

Posted on February 19, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Looks like Mayor White has an interesting ally in the city council redistricting debate. Frumencio Reyes, the dean of Houston-area redistricting litigation, said he believes the mayor made the right decision in putting off redistricting. […] Reyes, who has taken … Continue reading →

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More on the city council redistricting lawsuit

Posted on February 13, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s today’s version of the story, which adds a little more detail to yesterday’s. Population consultants and planning officials have said that redistricting now would require the city to rely on 2000 census data outlining population figures in voting precincts. … Continue reading →

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Lawsuit filed to force city to redistrict

Posted on February 12, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Former City Council Member Carroll Robinson, who has been a strong proponent for redistricting City Council boundaries and drawing two new districts now rather than waiting till 2011, has said that the city should not fear any litigation that might … Continue reading →

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Round and round we go with City Council redistricting

Posted on January 31, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Vidal Martinez made the case in yesterday’s Chron for tackling the task of City Council redistricting in time for the 2009 elections, on the grounds that this is the deal the city agreed to with the Justice Department back in … Continue reading →

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Here we go again with City Council redistricting

Posted on January 25, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Or at least, here we go again with arguing about when we should be redrawing City Council lines. Mayor Bill White’s decision to delay redrawing the boundaries of City Council districts has angered numerous community activists, who say his stance … Continue reading →

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