Ever since the proposed Texas congressional map was released I have seen VRA complaints about adding another Hispanic district in Dallas and Houston and the lack of a minority majority district in Fort Worth. However I haven't seen any complaints about San Antonio only having one Hispanic majority district completely inside Bexar County. Instead the proposed map splits Bexar County five ways with four minority districts(Bexar County has the population of about two and a half districts). The current and proposed maps are similar in that TX-20 is a Hispanic majority district based in San Antonio and TX-23 is a hispanic majority district, but itis spans from San Antonio to El Paso and includes the rural hispanic counties in between. That got me thinking could a new Hispanic district be created in Bexar County without TX-23 losing its Hispanic majority status?
I went through a couple of rough drafts before I got to this map. I didn't like those maps because I usually ended up with a district over 70% Hispanic and one in the low 50's and I wasn't sure if 50% Hispanic was enough to elect an Hispanic. So my goal was to draw two districts above 60% Hispanic. I didn't put much time into drawing this map, but it is possible to slightly increase the Hispanic population of these two districts.
District 1 (blue)
Pop/Wh/Bl/Hisp/Asn/Nat/Oth
All/25.4/10.1/61.5/1.4/0.2/1.3
18+/29.5/10.3/57.3/1.6/0.2/1.1
Obama 58.3/McCain 41.7
Dem 54.8/Rep 45.2
District 2 (green)
Pop/Wh/Bl/Hisp/Asn/Nat/Oth
All/23.3/5.1/67.4/2.6/0.2/1.4
18+/26.6/5.3/63.8/2.9/0.2/1.2
Obama 59/McCain 41
Dem 55/Rep 45
After I discovered it was possible to draw two very compact 60% Hispanic districts. I was trying to think of reasons why the Texas republicans shouldn't be forced to draw the congressional map this way. The only reason I could think of is it would dilute the Hispanic population of TX-23. So next I wanted to see if I could draw a 60% Hispanic TX-23 without going into San Antonio or Southern Texas.
I ended up with a more rural 67% Hispanic district. Someone correct me if I am wrong but I believe that my TX-23 is more Hispanic than the proposed TX-23.
District 23
Pop/Wh/Bl/Hisp/Asn/Nat/Oth
All/28.7/2.9/66.9/0.5/0.4/0.6
18+/32.6/3.1/62.8/0.6/0.4/0.5
Obama 42.2/McCain 57.8
Dem 44.2/Rep 55.8
So with my map a new Hispanic majority district would be created in San Antonio, the district lines are much cleaner, and community of intrests are respected more compared to the proposed map.