Texas Politics & Government: Ideas and Institutions

 On Saturday, January 23rd, the Austin City Auditor used a random sampling application to select the first eight members of Austin's Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (ICRC). With the selection of these members, my term as a member of the first ICRC ended. I remain interested in the Commission and its efforts to ensure fair and legal districts for Austin's City Council. The first eight members are listed below: There can be no doubt that the first members are diverse, well-educated, and represent most of Austin's current districts. These eight will meet and select the remaining six members from the list of 60 most qualified applicants. The eight commissioners will need to include one student member (there are two students among the 60 most qualified applicants). They should ensure that the districts that aren't currently represented get representation, that the ethnic composition of the ICRC reflects the ethnic composition of Austin, and that the gender iden...

  Let’s start with the most populous county in Texas, Harris County, and its suburbs. There are nine counties that Wayne Thorburn considered in his study of Texas turning Red. [i] The map depicts Harris County and the nine suburban counties (Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Liberty, Montgomery, Waller, and Washington). We will consider voting in Harris County and the nine suburban counties in elections between 2010 and 2020. In each case, we will consider the presidential election years (2012, 2016, and 2020) separately from the gubernatorial election years (2010, 2014, and 2018) because the electorates are different. Voter turnout is always higher in presidential election years. In each election, we will consider only the two-party vote and the vote in the contest with the highest number of votes. Democrats have made some gains in gubernatorial election years, but the changes are minor. Table 1 depicts the votes during the gubernatorial election years in 20...