The Judges said as much in their opinion and alluded to the plan providing a split likened to previous party line votes, thus a majority to democrats. I'm not familiar with the districts to know which may become swing districts if the GOP gets a good candidate. I'm in the 9th and it's locked down solid for the dems along with the Ken Turner district just to our north.
It appears the GOP will pick up the two newly created districts and hopefully have a chance at others in a few years. I doubt this will be reversed on appeal, imo.
Also, CD4 held by Ralph Hall running from Sherman to Tyler and Longview, which will easily go GOP if Hall ever retires.
I doubt it, too. I like having Tom DeLay as my Representative and that certainly isn't going to change under this plan. But my vote is essentially wasted here because the district doesn't contain any Democrats to speak of. DeLay doesn't have to spend a dime campaigning because he's going to win by a 40% margin every time.
It's even worse in John Culberson's district representing the western affluent neighborhoods of Houston. The last political battle of his life was winning the Republican primary to replace Bill Archer. Now that he's done that, he has a lifetime job if he wants it because the district is carefully gerrymandered to scoop in the GOP precincts.
The reality is that Harris County (which is essentially greater Houston) is a GOP county. Democrat judges often don't even bother running for election, because they don't stand a chance of being elected. Yet, three of the four current congressmen representing parts of Houston are Democrats in safe Democrat seats.
That's what I'm complaining about.