Talk Elections

If Minnesota loses a district, then the courts will have to combine Minneapolis and St.Paul, assuming they action rationally.

Neither 5:3 or 4:4 really match the Metropolitan:Outstate population.  5:3 is only slightly better, and that required including St.Cloud and an outer ring of counties to the south.  But 4:3 is a much better fit.  5:2 is absolutely horrible and would require classifying Mankato and Rochester, and points beyond as part of the central core.

All the evidence that was given in 2001 about the lack of roads between Duluth and Fargo  and Grand Forks is still true.  MN-4 and MN-5 are the two least populous adjacent districts, so are the logical districts to merge.  MN-7 has slightly less than MN-5, but more than MN-4,

MN-8 has about the same population as MN-3.  MN-2 and MN-6 have almost enough population to remain whole under a 7-seat plan, but will of course have to give up population to MN-1, MN-7, and MN-8.  Since MN-8 already includes northern exurbs (this is why it has the same population as MN-3), it can include some more, perhaps from Washington.  Move St.Cloud to MN-7 (or perhaps bring MN-7 south to Iowa, and move Le Sueur, Rice, and Goodhue to MN-2

In 2001, the argument was that if St.Paul and Minneapolis were placed in a single district, that Minneapolis would still need to be split.  But this is no longer true.  It will free up western suburbs of Minneapolis to keep MN-3 in Hennepin, the excess from Mn-4 gets added to MN-6 and MN-2 to make up their outward losses.

The resulting districts should be reasonably stable as the rural districts will be close enough to get exurban growth to maintain their population, and the inner city district can gradually pick off inner suburbs from Ramsey County.  Since Minnesota is unlikely to lose another CD for many decades this is a quite stable result.

Only political considerations would dictate another outcome.  And there is no reason that a court would make a political decision.

What was this evidence? Looking on Google maps, there are roads between Duluth and Fargo and between Duluth and Grand Forks. It looks like US-2 connects the first two cities and Rt. 210 and US-10 connects the latter two. For a large, sparsely populated rural area, transportation doesn't seem that bad. 

Redistricting is inherently a political process because it concerns communities, and communities are political constructs.

Courts, particularly federal courts are instructed to not apply political considerations when making remedial redistricting plans.

This has a lot of stuff about the 2000 Minnesota plan.

http://www.senate.mn/departments/scr/redist/redsum2000/zachman/c0-01-160_index.htm

I think that maybe the only way to keep 4 rural districts would have been to have a district across the whole northern border, so that it would have also split the Red River Valley, not merely combined the Iron Range and Duluth with the western part of the state.

It it goes to court, and the court gets the same evidence that they had in 2001, then combining Minneapolis and St.Paul in a single district in a 7-district plan is inescapable.  Alternatively, you are going to have to get a bunch of people to testify that they were making things up in 2001 in order to get the court to rule a particular way.

A (1-3)-3 plan (core-suburbs)-rural is a much better fit to the population than a (2-2)-3 plan.

The Senate is 37:30.  The rural Democrats aren't going to want to move NW Minnesota into MN-8 since that ends up shifting Peterson into MN-8 and opens up the rest of MN-7 to a Republican.  Since the Republicans managed to knock off Oberstar in MN-8, they won't be interested in helping the Democrats.  It makes a lot more sense to move some more exurbs (Washington or northern Anoka) to tilt it more Republican.  Cravaack had an 8000 vote margin in Chisago and Isanti counties, and 5000 districtwide.

There is no reason for a Republican from a middle suburb to want his area to be submerged in Democratic votes from Minneapolis-St.Paul.  While the inner suburbs are slightly Democratic, they can be outvoted by those further out.  Combining MN-4 and MN-5 is a sure Democrat loss of a seat.  You can make MN-1 a little closer.  But why not go from the current 4:4 to a 4:3, while helping out Cravaack, and perhaps opening up a shot in MN-1.  If the rural Democrats vote their district, rather than party, this moderate plan may even be able to override a veto.

At best the Democrats can hope for is a Dayton veto.  And the Democrat hack plan is going to have Peterson and Walz opposed.

So it then goes to a court whose only interest is getting a 7-district plan.  The plan approved by the legislature makes the minimal amount of changes in the existing plan preserving the core of 6 districts.  When losing a district, (1) you can either combine the two smallest adjacent districts, (2) rip apart one district, or (3) radically alter the map.

We hate Michelle Bachmann is not a legal argument, so (2) is out.  The court will have no basis for making a radical remap.  There only option is (1) to make the minimum amount of necessary changes.  Pairing of incumbents is unavoidable.

The Democrats only hope is if Minnesota holds on to 8 districts, in which case only minimal changes will be made, mainly to shore up MN-8 for the Republicans, and give them more of a chance in MN-1.

If the courts combined MN4 and MN-5, that would mean a lot of Dems would be pumped into MN-3, or MN-6, or MN-2, or some combination thereof.  It would probably tip MN-3 more clearly to the Dem side. A map with just one northern district looks much cleaner, and there is no reason to separate the two northern halves, in favor of having two northern districts go three quarters of the way to the southern border, with MN-8 picking up exurbs that have zero in common with the Iron Range.

jimrtex, I have tremendous respect for your knowledge and work on these issues, and it makes me sad to always see you frame your work as a contrast between what is "reasonable", "rational," "inescapable" logic which always maximizes Republican prospects and concentrates Democratic votes in a few overwhelmingly uncompetitive districts, while the alternative that doesn't have the result is "a hack plan" and "we hate Michelle Bachmann."

Those value judgments are subjective, to put it mildly, and it's hard not to miss that the plan most favorable to Republicans is inevitably described as the fairest, most rational, legitimate plan. We all make our own value judgments based on different criteria and what we believe to be the purpose of representation, and there is a range of views on that which depends, often, on our partisan ends.

Could you direct me to where in that list of files they say there is a lack of roads between Duluth and the Red River Valley? That's a lot of raw material to go fishing through when Google Maps shows there are good links... People can frame things how they like in their testimony to get a desired result, it doesn't mean it's true.

If the "Democratic Hack Plan" looks something like this, I see no good reason for either Peterson or Walz to oppose it. What Democrat in his right mind wouldn't trade Bachmann for Cravaack?

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(Note to moderators: I think this discussion on Minnesota warrants its own thread.) Done.

Cravaack lives way out in the boonies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisholm,_Minnesota) of the Iron Range in St. Louis County  It is not clear to me he would beat Bachmann in a primary if he moves south into the new district. Meanwhile, Peterson might not win the Dem primary in the northern district, and if he is switched for some conventional liberal from St. Louis County, then his part of the district will be mad (the northwest corner of Minnesota is sometimes one of the most volatile parts of the US politically, up there with with northern Maine, so just because it love Peterson, does not mean it will love some liberal labor backed guy from Duluth after taking their local boy down), and Cravaack if he hung around, might actually whip the Iron Range Dem in that event.

That's Oberstar's home. Cravaack lives in Lindstrom, in Chisago County.

Oh gosh!  Do you know how this happened? I was googling to find where Cravaack lived, and the screen popped up showing this text:  "Cravaack applied a military theme to his campaign. ... he maintains residences at both his boyhood home in Chisholm and in the D.C. area. ..."  So, I thought, aha, he lives in Chisholm!  It is too bad a lot of text that was skipped over by those ellipses, including text that switched from chatting about Cravaack to chatting about where Oberstar lived.

The moral of the story?  Click the link, and read the article, or risk embarrassing yourself. :P

And yes, I should  have known that Cravaack was not some sort of "latte liberal" who likes to maintain multiple residences, including one in the belly of the beast, just so that he can be near the smell or power, or loves Georgetown cocktail parties, or something.  So I really have no excuse for my F up. :)

Not really.  The inner suburban legislative districts were perhaps 55% Democrat.  It is only in Minneapolis and St.Paul proper where the Republicans don't really contest the legislative seats.  And those Democratic-leaning districts get neatly divided among MN-2, MN-3, and MN-6.  Since Minneapolis and St.Paul don't have 1/7 of the population, the suburbs can be cherry picked, putting the most Democratic towns into MN-4/5.

The Republicans won MN-3 59:37.   You are going to have the sitting Democratic congressman from MN-7 arguing against the dismembering his Red River district for the benefit of Twin City politicians.   MN-8 already included Isanti and Chisago.  It's not ideal.  But given that you have enough population for two agricultural districts, you have to make compromises in the name of one man one vote.

A couple years ago I posted some plans for MN assuming a loss of a seat, but drawn to neutral criteria. This was one of them.

The districts were drawn so that Mpls and StP were kept in separate districts and only one county was split. The plan has a 0.5% population variance, so it would have minor tweaks to reach equality. It also keeps the north and south suburbs in separate districts so it is effectively a 2-2-3 plan. The difference between this version and some of the others is a true St. Cloud-based district that naturally links to the western exurbs. I'm not suggesting any legislative body would create this, but an independent special master with the right set of judicial directives could.

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Moe Intervenors' Proposed Redistricting Principles (http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/departments/scr/redist/redsum2000/zachman/c0-01-160_111301_principles.pdf)

The Moe intervenors were the incumbent representatives, including Oberstar and Peterson.   See Page 13, last paragraph in Section VI.

 Final Order Adopting a Congressional Redistricting Plan (http://www.mncourts.gov/documents/0/Public/Court_Information_Office/redistrictingpanel/Final_Congressional_Order.PDF)

This adopted the current (2-3)-3 plan.  In particular it notes that the 11-county metro area had 58% of the population, which was closer to 5/8 than 4/8.   But of course this is much much closer to 4/7 than 5/2.  The court rejected the Moe plan which attempted to preserve a 4:4 map, and noted the significant suburban population that this would place in some of the rural districts.

In drawing 3 districts around the outer edge of the state, the court recognized that one had to include an entire border.  It chose the southern border because of I-90 which runs just north of the Iowa border.  The court noted that Asanti and Chisago had traditionally been associated with the NE district.

In a 7-district plan, there is no way a court will go for a 5:2 split.  In a 4:3 split you preserve the rural districts to the extent possible.  This means moving 1 north, and shifting St.Cloud to the west, and then move the most peripheral metro counties, which would be Sherburne, Wright, and Washington.

In 2001, the proposal to combine Minneapolis and St.Paul actually required Minneapolis to be split, and would have required a 3-way split of Hennepin County.  But it was part of a (1-3)-4 plan.  That is, it would provide 3 suburban districts, while trying to maintain 4 rural districts (and the 2 northern rural districts ran east-west rather than north-south.

But since the court opted for a (2-3)-3 split, it was relatively easy to draw one of the suburban districts in Hennepin, and then have a northern and southern district.

But in a 7-district plan your choices are (2-2)-3 or (1-3)-3.  In a (2-2) plan the "Minneapolis" and "St.Paul" districts bulge outward.  The two suburban districts will have to large half circles.  If they are North and South, you probably have to split Hennepin.  If they are East and West you may end up splitting Anoka and/or Dakota, and make a fiction that the eastern district is really St. Paul suburbs, even though a large share of the commuters commute into Minneapolis or Hennepin.

A (1-3) plan combines the two smallest adjacent districts, either preserves the rest of Hennepin in a single district, or with modest trimming for equal population reasons.  And it also keeps Anoka and Dakota in separate districts.

Republicans have a 37:30 majority in the Senate.    Moreover 8 of the Democratic senators are from your proposed Manitoba South riding.   Do you want to even bother taking your plan to a vote?

The courts have drawn the last two Minnesota congressional plans.  In 2001, the courts switched to a (2:3):3 plan because it best fit the 58:42 population split.

They rejected the 4:4 plan proposed by the Democratic congressmen which attempted to maintain the 4 rural districts in the corners - and would actually give them big chunks of suburban voters.  They also rejected the Republican Hack 4:4 plan, including the Manitoba South riding.  The Democratic congressmen particularly hated that part of the map.

When the special masters hold their hearings in Moorhead and Duluth, they will get run out of town if they propose that district.

The judges also rejected the Republican Hack plan because it would make a 3-way split of Hennepin County.  You not only have a 3-way split, you place far western Hennepin with Washington county, and cross the Ramsey-Hennepin boundary.  Evidence in 2001 was given that the Bloomington and Minneapolis chambers of commerce had merged.  While Minnesota has given great respect to county boundaries, it hasn't been 100%, and they have given in to strict equality, so you will end up with counties being split.

In 2000, Minneapolis and St Paul had too much population for a single district, and Minneaplis would have to split.  It is one thing to argue that Minneapolis and St.Paul have much in common.  It is hard to make that with a straight face if you are claiming that different parts of Minneapolis have less in common.

Peterson would probably oppose it because he'd might lose the primary. Especially since Bemidji and Moorhead liberals would likely vote against him in favor of a more liberal Duluth or Iron Range Democrat if he had a serious opponent.) And while its true that northwest Minnesota is a fairly territorial place and prone to huge swings, it's not very populated (there's probably more people in St. Louis county than there is in that district's west end north of Moorhead [Clay county]), and it's also not likely that they'd prefer an Iron Range Democrat to either Cravaack (assuming he "moved" there) or some other Republican from west central Minnesota as these people are usually crazies. Republicans have a huge track record of losing elections in that area because of nominating nutjobs. Hell in 2006 they even lost the 10th district in the State Senate which even voted for Mark Kennedy!


Even now, the GOP still didn't win a single legislative seat in MN-5. And the only ones they won in MN-4 was a State Senate seat and its two House districts in the far northeast corner of Ramsey county, of which one of the House seats is only about half in the district, the other half being in Anoka county.

Also while Minneapolis and St. Paul don't have 1/7th the population of the state, they aren't that far off. Put Minneapolis and St. Paul in the same seat and the only places that you could fit in it are probably Richfield and those small towns to the northwest of St. Paul that no one considers suburbs and for whom residents usually list their addresses as St. Paul anyway (Lauderdale and Falcon Heights. And St. Anthony on the Minneapolis side.)

Anyway my prediction is we narrowly hang on to our seat and the courts end up drawing the map again which more or less just keeps the current map.

They may not like it, but if MN has 7 districts, Duluth must be combined with either the Red River valley, St. Cloud, or the northern suburbs of Anoka County. If there are three non-Twin Cities districts, it makes far more sense to keep Duluth and St. Cloud separate than to keep the northern corners separate. Moorhead will have to deal with it.

The city of St. Cloud extends into Sherburne county which reaches into the Mpls exurbs. If there is a St. Cloud-based district it makes far more geographic sense to draw it as I have than to link it to the StP suburbs in Washington County as currently exists in MN 6.


The map I posted had no split municipalities. I would contend that the suburbs immediately south of Mpls are culturally like the north suburbs of StP, and that is reflected in my map as well. I do recognize that politically there is a great barrier to mixing Ramsey and Hennepin, except to keep St Anthony intact.

More likely would be to regroup the districts with Hennepin I show above. Then CD 5 is Mpls and the south and near west suburbs, CD 4 is Ramsey and Washington, and CD 3 outer Hennepin, Anoka and Chisago. Using the Apps estimates to get within 100 and splitting no county more than once the area might appear like the following.

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Does the PVI in Muon2's map for the green district, MN-1, change much from its current number?  His map looks to me like pretty much what the Court will do, if MN loses a seat. It is a pretty obvious kind of map.

I wonder who would win the primary in CD-3. Would it be Paulson or Bachmann?  Or would Bachmann move to CD-6, and fight it out with Craavack?

Bachmann lives in Stillwater, which in the realistic maps above ends up in MN-4 along with St. Paul. In other words a seat she's never winning. A map that connects Ramsey county to the southern Minneapolis suburbs would never happen, even if court-drawn.

Yes, but could Bachmann carpetbag and win a primary in CD-3 or CD-6 in the Twin City area map Muon2 posted above, which is probably how the CD's will in fact be drawn by the Court, if MN loses a seat?  That is the question.  If MN does not lose a seat, I agree with you that the CD's will hardly change at all (CD-4 will need to be expanded some is the main thing).

Walz would run in the dark green district, right?  Or would he run in the blue?

Walz would run in the blue. Kline would run in the green.

I would guess that Bachmann and Cravaack would run in the teal district, and I would say that since the population carryover from Bachmann's district is greater than from Cravaack's, that Bachmann could indeed win the primary. If the rest of the district is shaped like it is in the statewide map, then the carryover from Bachmann's district would outnumber that from Cravaack's districk by about two and a half to one.

The map muon drew isn't going to happen. He used to some standards I know for drawing it but they aren't in Minnesota law, and even the courts aren't going to connect Ramsey county with the south Minneapolis suburbs, especially stretching out to Lake Minnetonka.

A court-drawn 7-district map probably would resemble the one posted above from the redistricting app. Bachmann could win the primary in the sixth there but would have a very difficult time defeating Paulsen in the third.

A particular principle that the court appeared to adhere to in 2001, was community of interest.  This was behind their decision to switch to a 5:3 plan.  They didn't want to have big chunks of suburban territory in the 4 rural districts.  And they didn't want to combine NE and NW Minnesota in a single district and they didn't have to.

If they apply the same principles in 2011, as they did in 2001, they will go with a 4:3 plan.  In 2001, the plaintiffs and the 3 intervening parties each presented their redistricting principles, and then presented their plan, then critiqued the other plans.  If I were a plaintiff or intervenor in 2011, I would emphasize the precedents that they had set in 2001.

In 2001, the 11-county metro area had about 58% of the state population, which was closer to 5/8 than 4/8.  But it still needed some more population.  St.Cloud was the logical choice.  It was close by.  It was populous enough so a large extension wasn't needed, and Sherburne is part of the metro-area.

58% is a little bit more than 4/7.  So St.Cloud gets shifted to the rural area, and some metro counties have to be trimmed off.  This logically should come from the outer suburbs, Chisago, Isanti, Sherburne, Wright, Carver, Scott.  Where doesn't really, mainly which of the 3 rural districts need some more population.

St. Cloud gets assigned to CD 7 since it is adjacent, and the district has the least population of the rural districts.  Add Le Sueur, Rice, and Goodhue to CD 1, and then start shifting counties to get the rural districts up to the required population.

In 2001, the court directly addressed the issue of Isanti and Chisago being part of CD 8.  Their rationale still is valid, even if the district now includes part of Sherburne and Anoka, or perhaps Washington.

Not only does Moorhead and Duluth not want to be placed in the same district; it is unnecessary.  Keeping the basic configuration of the three rural districts is eminently doable.  Shouldn't the status quo be maintained to the extent possible - especially if a court is involved?

The hard is not 4:3, but convincing the court that Minneapolis and St.Paul should be combined in a single district.

(1) The evidence will show that doing so will shift the fewest persons between districts;
(2) It is not picking winners.  McCollum and Ellison will have about the same number of their  current constituents just over 60%.
(3) It made sense for Ramsey County to have its own CD, when its population was about equal to a CD.
(4) It made sense for Minneapolis to have its own CD (or its own CD and part of another) when it had enough population.
(5) It made sense for Hennepin County to have two CD's when it had enough population.  Now that it doesn't, it still makes sense to have one whole CD in the county, and the remainder of the county combined with an adjacent area of similar character.

But it did split Hennepin County in 3 parts, which the court gave as one of its reasons for not accepting the combining of Minneapolis and St.Paul

I'm with you up to the last step. Here's why.

I think that both a community of interest argument and core of existing district argument make a case for keeping Stearns, Benton, Sherburne and Wright together. That represents the historical greater St. Cloud area, and will have a population of just over half of a CD. The exurbs are slowly growing up the Mississippi towards St. Cloud, and this four-county area encapsulates that. Trimming Sherburne and Wright from the Metro area is consistent with your observation.

Now if I follow your suggestion that this gets added to the Red River valley, I'll have to jettison all the other counties not in the valley in current CD 7 to bring the population down to a proper size. I now have a district that runs along I 94 from the outer Metro area to Moorhead then north to Canada. I don't think it makes a lot of sense, and Moorhead probably won't like this any better than linking to Duluth. But, let's see what this does to the rest of the map.

As you noted the Duluth district now pushes into northern Anoka and/or Washington, and becomes even more a mixed suburban/rural district than it is now. CD 3 swings south into Carver and Scott so that's OK. However, the southern part of current CD 7 clearly goes into CD 1, but CD 1 ends up with 100 K too many people. The result is that CD 2 comes down the Mississippi and adds Rochester as well. When all is said and done it's the old four corners plan with three mixed suburban-rural districts. I don't think the court would end up there.

I agree that the court plan would be 4-3 with a battle between 2-2-3 and 1-3-3. My examples are designed to highlight the likely form of the rural 3 districts.

St. Cloud is in the borderland between the growing Metro and the rest of the state and is the largest such city. Even the Census now puts it in the combined statistical area with the Twin Cities. As the border area with a large central city it makes the most sense to have it anchor the area that has to come off the Metro area to make the three non-Metro districts. Once that decision is made, there is no need to peel off any other exurban counties for those three districts. The result is a map with essentially three east-west bands across the state for the rural districts.

For the St. Paul district, Muon2, why did you expand it into Anoka to the north, rather than into Anoka to the west, where Anoka dips down towards Minneapolis?  Isn't that prong in MN-5 at the moment? The Court is, all things being equal, going to try to minimize changing the lines - lines which it, itself, drew previously?

For CD-5 I found that adding Bloomington and Edina in the south plus Brooklyn center to the north while subtracting the Anoka section was a close match in population. I will admit that I didn't understand the court's unwillingness to split Hennepin between three districts but it was OK for Anoka (n.b. I once lived in that southern section of Anoka, so perhaps some bias shows. :P) Without any other criteria I preferred the more compact arrangement that I show.

That same stretch of Anoka is not really in the same community of interest as Ramsey, but the areas like Blaine and Lino Lakes are, so I used those for CD-4. It's also likely that CD-4 would instead keep the northern part of Dakota and CD-2 would include the southern part of Washington. I splits counties more that way, but there is a strong connection between the suburbs immediately south of St Paul and the city itself. It's that way in the current plan, too.

OK Muon2. I think which suburbs are in which "community of interest" is overdone, and that prong that I suggest be moved into the St. Paul district, is heavily Dem, and would be a pity to unleash it on to the north suburban district, when it is so "used" to being in an inner city CD, but that is just my little opinion. :)

Split the grey and teal east-west instead, and this is what the courts are exceedingly likely to draw. Perhaps shift the two suburban seats marginally northwards (and thus extend the northwestern district slightly further southwards.)

Yes, that is my guess BRTD. I agree.

Duluth and Moorhead wouldn't really offend anyone. Duluth would prefer to be in the same seat as Moorhead than the exurbs.

I think a court-draw 7-seat map would roughly resemble the area code map (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/MN_Area_Codes.png/551px-MN_Area_Codes.png), at least outstate. One district would take the northern third of the state where the 218 area code is. It'd be a heavily Dem seat where Cravaack wouldn't live and would likely elect a St. Louis county Democrat (like Tom Rukavina). With that type of district Peterson might as well retire as he wouldn't want to have to face constant primary challenges and exist in a caucus without so many of his fellow Blue Dogs. Much like the above map except the teal seat extends out to the Dakotas border. I figure that teal seat is sort of designed for Cravaack but I don't see a court specifically shoring up any incumbents, particularly a fluke one. In the more area-code based map he could run in the central Minnesota seat which would also be the best seat for Bachmann (who obviously needs to move, her home is basically ending up with St. Paul no matter what.), and still would have a good chance at winning, especially as its an open primary.

Of course an east/west split in northern Minnesota would effectively wipe out Bachmann by completely carving up her district. She'd have to either run against Paulsen, Kline or Cravaack in the primary or move to St. Cloud and run against Peterson. She'd lose against Peterson obviously, and would have a tricky time against Kline as the seat would still be south suburbs based. Bachmann can't win a seat that includes St. Louis County even if she defeated Cravaack. That leaves Paulsen, who has a bit of a solid base in Hennepin and benefits from the open primary. It looks like Bachmann may be doomed unless Minnesota holds all its seats as their isn't really a viable seat for her in a 7-district map (might be true of Peterson as well.)

BTW I'd say that unless he ends up with a sort of exurbs+north central Minnesota map that excludes St. Louis County, Cravaack is probably doomed at some point, you can't survive a seat with St. Louis County at the next Dem wave year. Think of Melissa Bean and Rob Simmons who won under similar circumstances, defeating a long-term very old incumbent who was very detached from the district. And actually Bean got re-elected only in two Dem wave years, Simmons only won some bland pro-incumbent years when the hot issues were greatly to his benefit. Cravaack is no doubt a top target in 2012 and if the seat largely remains the same if Minnesota keeps a seat probably the favorite to lose unless the DFL really blows it with nomination.

Here is the scenario where Craavack perhaps survives. Peterson is primaried out in the new northern district, and his voters all flock to Craavack for the General. Northwest MN is quite volatile. Craavack should watch and wait to see if that seems in the cards, before deciding which CD to run in, perhaps. Perhaps the GOP should finance a Dem challenger to Peterson from the Iron Range. :P  The new Stearns CD is safely GOP anyway, and any Pubbie could win it. This way, the GOP does have a shot of causing the Dems to lose a seat.

Cravaack won't be in the same seat as Peterson. Northeastern Minnesota will be with the northwest or exurbs. And it can outvote the northwest easily, especially as Bemidji, Moorhead and the Reservations will still be voting Dem.

Yes, in my scenario, Cravaack would need to move to another part of his existing district. He might be competitive, if Peterson is primaried, is all I am saying. Bermidji and environs might not be too keen on voting for some liberal Dem from Duluth, who took out their local (and quite moderate) boy.

Bemidji liberals aren't going to flock to a Republican because a candidate who is probably closer to their views beat him in a primary. See Snowguy and ask if you can see him doing that.

Besides we're not talking about someone like Margaret Anderson-Kelliher or Keith Ellison being nominated. Even Duluth people usually don't give off a latte liberal or far leftist image. The most talked about candidate is State Rep. Tom Rukavina from northern St. Louis County. He is extremely popular and clearly looking at higher office as he did run for Governor this year. Northwestern Minnesota would have no problem with someone like him. He's pro-choice but otherwise fits the area's politics like a glove. Rukavina is very willing to play regional issues and anti-metro sentiment and rural northern Minnesota would prefer that to some carpetbagger from the exurbs. Someone from Duluth proper is unlikely, the most high-profile name there was Dayton's running mate and thus will be Lt. Gov.

Here's a pretty good description of Rukavina: http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/3522/rukavina-for-governor-popular-and-populist

The growth in Wright is on the eastern fringe.  According to the 2009 estimates, St. Michael is now the largest city.   The same is true for Sherburne, where Elk River is now the largest city.  A split of Sherburne can probably be justified.   If Minnesota were still in the business of creating counties, the two logical candidates would be St.Cloud and Mankato.  The rivers simply aren't the barriers they once were.  MSA definitions are based on commuting patterns, if X% of county residents commute into a core area it gets included, as well if X% of county jobs are for residents of the core area.  Shelburne gets included in the St.Cloud MSA because part of St.Cloud is in Shelburne, and then the St.Cloud MSA gets included in the CMSA because Elk River residents are commuting into Anoka and Hennepin counties.

Based on 2009 estimates, Goodhue, Rice, and Le Sueur just barely put MN-1 over, and we can switch Pipestone and Murray to MN-7.  Or perhaps all of Northfield can be left in MN-2.  It is common practice in Minnesota to split counties rather than split cities.

MN-7 should really be seen more as a western district than a Red River district (ie East Dakota).  It has an interstate the full length of the district, just over the border.  It then shifts southeastward along I-94 and the Minnesota River.  The largest towns outside of Moorhead, are Alexandria. Fergus Falls, Marshall, and Willmar, and it stretches to Sibley, McLeod, and Meeker.   It already includes part of Stearns County.  It doesn't make sense to force a representative to work with both Wisconsin and Dakota representatives on concerns of joint interest.  MN-1 is really a SE district, with Rochester and Mankato as the large cities (Rochester has far surpassed Duluth as the 3rd city of the state), and its smaller towns like Albert Lea, Austin, Winona, Red Wing, and Faribault, are all in the east.

In the Metro Area.  If we combine Minneapolis and St. Paul, then the remainder of Hennepin County is just over the ideal population, and can be preserved as MN-3.

This then puts Dakota, Scott, Carver, and Wright in MN-2.  The strongest areas of growth in Dakota are in places like Burnsville and Lakeville, along I-35 which is just east of the Scott line.  They are complementary with high growth areas in Scott and Carver, such as Prior Lake and Shakopee, Chaska and Chanhassen.  South Saint Paul and Hastings aren't representative of the population of Dakota as much as they once were.  Wright isn't the ideal county, but it isn't horrible and could get shifted to MN-3 when Hennepin no longer has quite enough people for a district.

Minneapolis has just over enough for 1/2 a district, so we go ahead and add areas outside St. Paul in Ramsey county to balance the two parts of MN-4/5.  Hennepin and Ramsey together have enough for 2.210 districts.  If we kept Ramsey whole, then Minneapolis would be split, and there would be another piece of Hennepin that  would need be split off.

If we try to maintain the current 3, 4, and 5, then MN-3 needs several 100,000 voters outside of Hennepin county, and CD-5  extends into Anoka, Dakota, and perhaps Washington counties chopping all of them apart.   Two splits are necessary in Hennepin+Ramsey.  Given a choice, it is better to split larger counties rather than smaller counties.

To get MN-4/5 up to enough population, Maplewood, Roseville, Lauderdale, and Falcon Heights are included with St.Paul from Ramsey.  To get to precise equality, St. Anthony, Little Canada, and North St. Paul are available.

The remainder of Ramsey, along with Washington, Anoka, and Sherburne form MN-6.  So the basic configuration is:

MN-2 suburbs south of the Mississippi.
MN-3 Hennepin suburbs
MN-4/5 Minneapolis-St.Paul
MN-6 suburbs north of the Mississippi

MN-7 besides gaining Pipestone and Murray, picks up the remainder of Stearns, plus Benton counties.  MN-8 may not really need to go much further south.  I shifted Todd, the reminder of Beltrami, Sweetwater, Lake of the the Woods and Roseau from MN-7 to MN-8.

This gives:

MN-1 1.001
MN-2 0.987
MN-3 1.025
MN-4 1.000
MN-6 1.051
MN-7 0.960
MN-8 0.987

This is with no county splits, other than splitting Minneapolis from the rest of Hennepin, and a split of Ramsey that will make MN-4 equal to 1.000.  Obviously, additional adjustments will be necessary, but they will be rather small.  It is presumed that the western part of Sherburne will be shifted to MN-7, placing all of St.Cloud in that district, while keeping the southeastern part of the county in MN-6.

If I were ranking counties to shift out from the metro area, it would be:

Isanti
Chisago
Sherburne
Wright
Carver
Scott

The growth in the first two is less.  They likely got flipped simply because they had less of a base economy to support employees in the first place.  There can be people from Rice commuting into the Metro area - but Faribault provides enough jobs to keep the area being counted as part of the MSA. 

Sherburne is next, because of the part that is in St.Cloud.  Wright ranks ahead of Carver because of the way Carver forms an indendation in Hennepin County, with Chaska and Chanhassen being closer to Minneapolis than the extreme western part of Hennepin County.  Scott is the fastest growing county in terms of added persons from 2000-2009.  The other 5 counties are indespensible to metro districts.

So I think that a very good case can be made for maintaining Isanti and Chisago in MN-8.  Under an 8-district plan, MN-8 and MN-3 were closest to the ideal population.  MN-3 would still need modification because of the need for more people in MN-4, but MN-8 would need very minimal changes.

So all the evidence to the contrary in 2001 was just to snow the courts?

Emmer had a plurlaity in Hennepin County excluding Minneapolis - and presumably independent voters would break Republican. 

All the areas Emmer won are obviously already in MN-3. The suburbs in MN-5 which would be displaced obviously didn't vote for him.

Dayton carried Hennepin County 237,998 to 168,524 and 57,116.

Dayton carried Minneapolis 100,664 to 22,919 and 13,854.

Therefore Dayton lost the portion of Hennepin County that does not include Minneapolis

137,334 to 145,606 and 43,362

The portion of Hennepin County that does include Minneapolis includes MN-3 (except Coon Rapids in Anoka County), and the portion of MN-5 that is not in Minneapolis and would constitute MN-3 under my reform proposal.

QED

Yes but like I said the parts that are going to be displaced out of MN-5 if this somehow passed (unlikely, Dayton would veto any map that combined the Twin Cities and the courts aren't likely to draw that either) all would've been strong for Dayton. Emmer's strongest legislative seat that is mostly in MN-5 is 45A where he got 40.97% to Dayton's 46.32%. And that's including parts of Plymouth in it that are not currently in MN-5. Most of the inner-ring suburb seats had Dayton winning by about 20 points. All the Republican parts of Hennepin county are already in MN-3.

Also Obama won Hennepin County outside of Minneapolis by about 12 points, so it's kind of foolish to assume all those independent voters are Republican-leaning and that the same turnout numbers will apply in presidential years as the evidence shows otherwise.

Coleman defeated Franken in Hennepin County outside of Minneapolis, and the Barkley support correlated more with Coleman than it did with Franken.

The courts have drawn the last two plans, and if they follow the logic they used in 2001, then combining Minneapolis and St.Paul is the logical conclusion.

There is population for 4 districts in the metro area, 1.5 northeast of the Mississippi, 2.5 southwest of the Mississippi so there has to be at least one cross-river seat.  Minneapolis-St.Paul makes more sense than far western Hennepin-Anoka,

But doing so would not be logical. In 2001, they had the prospect of making the minimal change needed to preserve population equality among eight districts, some of which had grown faster than others. In 2011, they are dealing with (potentially) eliminating one district and altering the other districts to accommodate 15% more people in new territory; more than that in districts which are lagging in population. It would be irrational and immoral to consider arguments for a completely different scenario as binding on a new one with new parameters and a potentially different conclusion. In particular, there is the open question of whether 2001 testimony was flawed if someone claimed that there are no roads between Duluth and Grand Forks or Duluth and Fargo, when the evidence shows rural highways link them.

Using Google Earth, I asked for directions from Duluth to Fargo, and for Duluth to Grand Forks. This was the result:

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The red lines are the current congressional district boundaries.

We totally agree on Minnesota regarding redistricting, but few believe in our little way of seeing things. Such is life. :)

Don't worry, all sanes know that putting Minneapolis and St. Paul in the same CD would cause rioting.

Yeah no one would like it. Even people outside the cities. People in St. Louis Park or Roseville don't want to be in the same district as places willing to vote for Michele Bachmann.

Roseville would be included in the Twin Cities district.

Is it really that big of a deal?  I was under the impression that the Twin cities functioned like the DFW Metroplex in that they're just two urban areas of a larger metro.  Is there some kind of blood feud between the two cities?

Also, such a move might actually help the Democrats out.  It pushes the other Democratic-leaning parts of the 4th and 5th districts into the other suburbs, which could result in 3 Democratic-controlled Twin Cities districts rather than the current 2.  In fact, it would basically guarantee Bachman's defeat as her district would have to take in the non-St. Paul portions of Ramsey county, which should push her district to at least D + 5.

There's an interesting dynamic in the Twin Cities. In many ways the metro area has more strong regional organizations than other similar metro regions. At deeper level there is a longstanding competition between the Cities. One newspaper used to run a regular feature noting the times a business or group took one city's label while being located in the other - they even kept score. Most suburbs take up an identity associating with one city or the other, largely based on transportation patterns. It is a bit like the Cubs - Sox rivalry in Chicagoland, where everyone seems to take a side.

Someone should see what happens to the PVI's of the Twin City suburban districts if you combine St. Paul and Minneapolis in one CD. It will look pretty ugly for the Pubbies I would guess. Be careful what you wish for.

The testimony was that from Duluth to Moorhead you either had to go as far south as Brainerd or use forest roads.  Mapquest says to go south through Brainerd.  Google shows a route further north.  But if you try to force that route into Mapquest it mightily resists going directly east from Park Rapids.  And try going from Noyes to Grand Portage.

In 2001, they made radical changes.  The Democratic congressmen proposed keeping four rural districts in the corners.  But Governor Ventura among others pointed out that the 11-county Metro Area had 58% of the population which was close to 5/8 than 4/8, and that in a 4/8 plan some of the rural districts include substantial rural territory.

In the 1990s, MN-2 was in the SW corner but included Wright, Carver, and Scott counties.  MN-7 then included St.Cloud  (incidentally both Benton and Sherburne were split so as to include all of the city and immediate areas in MN-7).  MN-1 was encroaching into Dakota and was going to need some more population.  MN-6 wrapped around MN-4 on 3 sides and was the most populous district.

MN-8 was slightly overpopulated.  I think what has happened is that all the traditional extraction jobs (timber and mining have largely disappeared or reach low levels), so that now the economy is based on recreation, and people whose work schedule means they can live outside cities (airline pilots, firemen, etc.), folks who are retired, or who can afford two residences (a place up north, and an apartment in the city).  MN-8 has had the most stable population share over the past 2 decades.  If Minnesota retains its 8th seat, then it can remain virtually unchanged.

Over the past couple of decades the inner cities have lost the most population; followed by the farming areas; with MN-8 stable, and growth in the suburbs.

I suspect the reason that there was a push for a 5-3 split was that 2 inner city, and 2 suburban districts was an uncomfortable split, with MN-6 wrapping around southwest of Minneapolis around  the eastern side of St Paul to northwest of Minneapolis.   And the suburban districts would have become worse as there was a continued need for the inner city districts to expand ever outward.

So in 2000, the court examined where the population actually resided, and eliminated MN-2 in the SW corner of the state, and made it a southern metro district.  Because the metro area was short of 5/8 of the population they added St. Cloud and another tier of counties to the south.  MN-7 was extended south to replace St.Cloud which was shifted to the Metro area, MN-1 was extended west to replace the counties it had lost south of the Metro area.

In the metro area, you could then create 3 suburban districts, while preserving the 2 inner city districts which continued to expand outward.

The basic principles applied in 2001 were:

(1) Population equality.
(2) Place districts where the population resided.
(3) To the extent possible avoid combining Greater Minnesota with the Metro area.
(4) Use St.Cloud as a transitional area to achieve (1).

Once they made the decision to go to three rural districts, then they drew one along the Iowa border where there is an interstate highway.  One along the Dakotas border where there is an interstate highway, and one north of the Metro Area where there is an interstate highway.

So let's apply the same principles to 2011.

If there are 8 districts, then you have to shift some population from the metro districts to the farm districts.  So you probably move the tier of counties south of Minneapolis in to MN-1 and then bring MN-7 further south.   MN-8 is right at 1/8 of the state population.  Then you move 4 and 5 further out into the suburbs.

But if Minnesota loses a seat, then a more radical change is required.  The 11-county metro area has a bit more than 4/7 of the population.  St.Cloud is not enough to get anywhere close to 5/7.  So you need to trim a little bit.  So you keep Isanti and Chisago out.  These are the most non-urban metro counties.  The Census Bureau defines metro areas based on commuter patterns.  Because Isanti and Chisago had less of a local-based economy in the first place, some long-distance commuters moving in can tip an area into the metro area.  Rice had similar growth to Isanti and Chisago, but Faribault provides enough jobs to keep it from being included in the metro area so far.  Sooner or later, it will tip.  

The growth in Wright is much more suburban, with towns on the extreme eastern edge,  Otsego and St.Michael, topping 10,000 during the decade.  Wright had more growth in the 2000s, than Isanti had people in 2000.  So principles 1 and 2 say that we use a 4:3 split. Principal 4 says that St.Cloud goes with Greater Minnesota.  We return St.Cloud to MN-7 where it was before 2001.  There is simply no reason to combine NE and NW Minnesota in a single district.  Why would a district stretch from the Dakotas into the metro area?  That is why MN-2 was disassembled in 2001.

If a court ends up doing the redistricting, they are going to want a reason for putting Moorhead and Duluth in the same district.  It is not necessary for population equality.  It is not necessary for purposes of keeping the Metro Area separate from Greater Minnesota to the extent possible.  It is not necessary in order that St. Cloud may be assigned to MN-7.

All I had to do to force that route into Mapquest is change the default from "Shortest Time" to "Shortest Distance." The difference is less than 20 minutes on a 4-1/2 to 5 hour trip, according to Mapquest. According to Google, that route is actually 11 minutes faster.

The Grand Portage to Noyes route looks horrible on the map, but it's caused by lack of roads in Superior National Forest, not lack of roads in North-Central Minnesota. Anything travelling west from Grand Portage is funnelled into Duluth. So this route can basically be reduced to a Duluth-Noyes route, which is fairly direct. International Falls to Noyes is also very direct.

Minneapolis and St.Paul are physically adjacent to each other.  Originally, they were separated by the Mississippi River, which runs along the south side of St.Paul and then turns north, but Minneapolis includes areas east of the river, so that you can drive between the two.  There are no border controls.  Dallas and Fort Worth are about 25 miles apart and there are suburbs between the two (Arlington is larger than either Minneapolis or St.Paul).

St.Paul is the state capital, while Minneapolis developed more as a commercial and industrial center, though it also has the University of Minnesota.  Early on Minneapolis was much more Scandinavian, while St.Paul more Irish and German.  The Archdiocese of St.Paul only added Minneapolis to its name in 1866.  Minneapolis has long been the larger city, and but for the capital St.Paul would probably be regarded like a large suburb (Long Beach, Oakland, Arlington, Newark).

When they first received separate congressional districts, each was 95% or so of their respective counties.  And at one time Minneapolis had enough population for 1.6 representatives.  But the cities have lost population, the suburbs have gained, and the number of persons per district has increased.  If Minnesota loses its 8th representative, then districts need 14% more population plus whatever is needed to keep up with population growth.  The cities together have less than 1/4 of the metro population, so one district centered on the two cities is quite reasonable.

In the governor's race Ramsey County it was Dayton 56, Emmer 32, Horner 12

But in St. Paul, Maplewood, Roseville, Falcon Heights, and Lauderdale it was Dayton 64, Emmer 24, Horner 12.

In the remainder of northern Ramsey County it was Dayton 44, Emmer 43, Horner 13 (actual margin was 0.6%).

Anoka was Emmer 50, Dayton 39, Horner 13, while in Washington it was 48, 39, 13.

Overall it was Emmer 48, Dayton 40, Horner 12.

In the governor's race Ramsey County it was Dayton 56, Emmer 32, Horner 12

But in St. Paul, Maplewood, Roseville, Falcon Heights, and Lauderdale it was Dayton 64, Emmer 24, Horner 12.

In the remainder of northern Ramsey County it was Dayton 44, Emmer 43, Horner 13 (actual margin was 0.6%).

Anoka was Emmer 50, Dayton 39, Horner 13, while in Washington it was 48, 39, 13.

Overall it was Emmer 48, Dayton 40, Horner 12 (and this doesn't include Sherburne)

It was similar in Hennepin County, excluding Minneapolis, and the same was true in the 2008 senatorial race.

In Metro South it was Emmer 52, Dayton 35, Horner 13

In a northern district, Bemidji would easily dump Peterson for a more liberal DFLer.  The city of Bemidji and the indian reservations around here are heavily DFL while the surrounding townships are more or less split down the middle.  Some of the MN-8 townships in Bemidji supported Cravaack with a strong margin, while others went for Oberstar.  Cravaack won some townships that went DFL for governor and other state legislative seats.  In the city of Blackduck, northeast of here, Oberstar won with 61% in 2008, but lost to Cravaack in 2010 by a substantial margin.  Turnout was also about 35% lower in 2010 compared to 2008.

The city of Bemidji and the most populous townships are in MN-7, however, which voted for Peterson with large margins (the smallest of which was 54-39).  Bemidji proper was 2-1 for Peterson.

In a high turnout scenario, a northern district would easily break for a liberal over a conservative "tea-party" type.

So now that Minnesota hasn't lost a seat, what is likely to happen? Presumably everyone gets made safer, with MN-1 becoming more Democratic and MN-8 becoming more Republican?

Basically it'll be an incumbent protection map, now, so jimrtex's heretical wet dream will thankfully not be a reality.

If that is what both parties want, but I doubt the Dems will. They will want MN-08 to remain vulnerable to them. And the Dems will get their way, because the last map was drawn by the courts, none of the CD's need much in the way of population shifts, except that MN-04 needs about 50,000 people I think (the St. Paul district), and so the default option is basically a no change map, and I suspect that that is what will happen.

It will make even more sense in 2020.

For 2010, the two inner city districts, and the western district are the most underpopulated.  The Hennepin ane the NE district are just about perfect, though the Hennepin district won't be after the Minneapolis district expands outward.  There likely isn't a need to switch St.Cloud to the west, so instead you bring the SE district northward taking in the tier of counties that are outside the metro area, and shifting the west end of the SE district to the western district which will then  extend from almost Winnipeg to just short of Council Bluffs.

The Hennepin district gets extended west into Wright or Carver, and drops Coon Rapids, so that the Anoka district can give up some more population to St.Paul.

By 2020, you'll be able to include all of Ramsey and Minneapolis and some inner suburbs in the twin cities district.  Base the other metro districts in Hennepin, Anoka, and Dakota, and move St.Cloud to the west,  By that time, that district will need to include both Fargo and St. Cloud.

Yeah I bet the DFL in the legislature will be telling Dayton to veto any map that makes any significant changes. Please note that making 7 more DFL and 8 more Republican would be incumbent protection and could be easily done, but Peterson DOESN'T want Duluth in his district.

You can't really change MN-01 much and it probably won't much, though I bet it will become more Dem since it'll need to gain a little population, which can be easily done with DFL precincts in Rice County. Which the GOP would probably be relieved to get out of MN-02 in case Kline retires too.

Here are the 2009 ACS estimates, plus deviation from average (658,000 vs. 664,000 for census).  The growth in the average is 43/49 of the census to census difference, which suggests that we could simply multiply the deviations by 10/9 and get pretty good 2010 estimates.  But we can simply balance the shifts to see what a minimally modified map would look like.


1   635,331   -22,946
2   731,468    73,191
3   651,676    -6,601
4   614,059   -44,218
5   618,840   -39,437
6   749,383    91,106
7   614,738   -43,539
8   650,720    -7,557


CD 3 and CD 8 are really close to perfect.  So there is no reason to adjust CD 8, other than moving townships.  CD 3 will have be shifted to accommodate make up CD 5.

The most non-metro portion of the current map are the 3 counties to the south of Dakota: Goodhue, Rice, Le Sueur.  So shift CD 1, and move the western end of CD 2 into CD  7,

CD 2 = +73K;  CD 1 + CD 7 = -65K, so we're close there.

Then CD 5 moves further in CD 3, and CD 3 and CD 4 move into CD 6

CD 6 = +91K; CD 3 + CD 5 + CD 4 = -89K

So you've got balance there as well.

Here's a map I drew mostly just keeping the current map. I'm assuming this'll be either court-drawn or based on an agreement between Dayton and the Republicans to mostly keep the status quo, an incumbent protection map would never be agreed to by the Democrats for reasons that'll be covered later.

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MN-01: Mostly the same, except I put the town of Faribault into it and shedded some rural territory in Wabasha County to make up for it. Faribault fits better in this area and is usually associated with south central Minnesota, not the south metro, but it's a bit larger than the population MN-01 needs to gain. Marginally more Democratic as a result, but it'll probably remain R+1.
MN-02: Loses Faribault, games some rural counties, and loses Inver Grove Heights and much of Cottage Grove. This should make it more Republican, might go from R+4 to R+5.
MN-03: Takes in the pieces of Hennepin in MN-06 and the rest of Coon Rapids and part of Blaine. Not much of a change in partisan composition.
MN-04: Now includes all of Inver Grove Heights and part of Cottage Grove, two Democratic-leaning cities. I had to shift some territory in Washington County, I felt bad handing over some areas to Michele Bachmann even if they are only marginally Democratic. The seat is currently D+13, the areas it picks up are Dem-leaning but not by that much so it may drop to D+12. Still very safe.
MN-05: Picks up a few Dem precincts in the inner suburbs, no real change. Obviously still super-safe D.
MN-06: Loses all the areas I mentioned above, plus most of Stearns County. Still has St. Cloud though. MN-04 expanded into MN-02, but MN-03 did expand into some of the more moderate parts of here, but this might be cancelled out by the lost of the territory in Stearns, of course it also extends a bit into Chisago County. In the end not much of a change, Bachmann will win but never by much. :(
MN-07: What I did here is kind of interesting, I put Bemidji and all the Reservations in MN-08, just because the current split around Beltrami is kind of weird, just having all that territory in one seat is more logical. The gains are in Stearns County. On paper this makes the seat more Republican, but Peterson should have no problem, western Stearns County is fine voting for a Democrat as conservative as him (they send one to the State House, even after 2010), and he used to represent this area before 2002. The seat is currently R+5, might shift to R+6, but this won't be any problem for Peterson. Once he retires is a whole other story.
MN-08: This becomes more Dem, not deliberately but because that's the only way to draw it. You can't draw an incumbent protection map for Cravaack without removing St. Louis County and the bits to the east of it, and the only seat you can put that in is MN-07, which Peterson would not want since he has an easier time in the map I drew than he would in the primary in that seat. So Cravaack is obviously in trouble, but he was always going to be barring a GOP gerrymander. There isn't a huge change for the most part though, just the Bemidji area is shifted for part of Chisago County, at most this'll bump the seat to D+4, but unless the race is razor-thin if Cravaack loses he wasn't going to win the current seat anyway.

Thoughts?

I don't think your plan is far off from what will end up happening.

It's hard to decide which northern MN district that Bemidji should go into.  We were never a mining area and we were never a farming area... but I suppose we have more in common with the non-mining areas of district 8 than district 7 which is generally more conservative.

Generally, Bemidji would go about 55-45 for a generic DFLer over a generic GOPer for congress if part of district 8.

Yeah I just think the split about Bemidji is weird. It makes more sense to have all of that area in one district.

I just realized I drew Cravaack out of MN-08. Not that that is a big deal in Minnesota (See Mark Kennedy running in MN-06 from Carver County, and Bill Luther running in MN-02 when he lived in MN-06), but it means the GOP will never draw the map. This'll probably be court-drawn like our last four maps. If I were Dayton I'd start talking to the Republicans about setting up an independent commission.

Yeah.  Your MN-03 is a thing of beauty.

In the 2000s court decision, there was a lot of specific consideration of where the individual reservations ended up.  That Red Lake and White Earth are in the same CD probably is not an accident.

St. Cloud is large enough that it now has suburbs.  There really isn't a reason to to cut the district boundary so close to the city.  You can pick up the extra population for CD 7 going south to Iowa, and come north another tier of counties with CD 1.

Does Bradlee's application use county estimates or the town estimates - which are available for Minnesota.  This will make a big difference in the metro area.  The inner Minneapolis suburbs are losing population faster than Minneapolis.  The growth in Anoka is along the northern boundary, and away from the Mississippi.

Quite. Democrats will still think MN-8 as part of their country, just currently under R occupation. They can't force a redrawing in their favor, though, and would probably get it only in exchange for abandoning Peterson, so expect no major partisan changes.

Jim's right about having an eye on reservations.

Western Stearns is NOT St. Cloud suburbia. As noted before, they currently elect a conservative Democrat to the State House despite voting for Emmer with over 50%. That is not how Republican suburbia works. All the St. Cloud suburbs are on the north or south side of the city or immediately adjacent, and most are in the same district. If you've ever driven here you can see why, St. Cloud sits on the interstate but not in a way that's easily accessible from the west, and no one wants to do a daily commute since even only 12 miles will take at least a half hour. The only place in western Stearns that'd be an easy commute is St. Joseph, which is not a suburb but a college town (and surprisingly Democratic considering the college is an all-female Catholic one, I'd suspect any college conservative enough to be one gender would be Republican.)

I'm not sure about the Reservation situation but I'll admit that could've been a factor. Still the split around Bemidji is weird, though I'll admit that a compromise plan or a court may not care about it.

Lewis is right about how Democrats see MN-08. But the main issue is that you can't draw a safe seat that includes Duluth and those northern mining towns anyway. The GOP's best chance is just to not change the map much and hope Cravaack can develop a special appeal to union folk. Considering that previous Reps elected under similar circumstances to him don't have much of a track record in surviving, see Rob Simmons or Melissa Bean, granted Simmons managed to hang on longer than one would expect but that was with a far more moderate record than Cravaack campaigned on, Bean benefited from two wave years right after she was elected. Watch Cravaack act as a solid vote for Boehner and then run on a ticket headed by Sarah Palin and see how strong he does.

Also making MN-01 more Democratic can't really be done, since it already contains all the Democratic parts of southern Minnesota. The only way to boost it is by adding Rice county which contains Faribault as I put in it and hyper-Dem college town Northfield. You could shed some of the very Republican counties in the west, but they aren't very populated anyway and to make up you may have to draw up to the southern edge of the suburbs, not exactly a Democratic area either. Walz is just fine with his current map anyway, he'd doubtlessly be against any major changes.

Avon and Albany could probably be considered exurbs of St cloud, at least that's how they look to me when im on 94. But any further out than that the percentage commuting is probably fairly low.

There's also St. John's, which is very close.  They're essentially a coed college spread out over two campuses.

Well to me, what a judge would draw in MN was sort of almost autopilot, but maybe I am missing something. It seems obvious to me. Finish up joining municipalities and counties, and make less erose. MN-06 gets somewhat more Dem, and MN-08 gets somewhat more GOP has it takes in from MN-06 more heavily GOP exurbs, but this time to the NW of the metro Twin Cities, rather than the NE. I wonder if that makes BRTD happy or unhappy?  :P

Am I missing something?

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Extending MN-08 into the exurbs isn't likely to happen, those areas have never been associated with each other. The reason MN-08 has the current exurban counties is because before the exurbanization they were associated with the northeastern Minnesota area and still have some traces of it (how else could that area have a Dem State Senator from 2007-2011 or have a place like Rush City (http://www.city-data.com/city/Rush-City-Minnesota.html) vote for Obama?) Also you appear to have put some actual suburban areas of St. Cloud into MN-08, which really makes no sense at all.

And while putting those eastern townships in Sibley County in MN-02 would make the map look slightly nicer, I doubt any court would care enough to split Sibley County for what are basically pure aesthetic reasons. Besides I like the fact that currently the drive from Mankato to Duluth passes through every district in the state. :)

No, I did not touch St. Cloud, and even gave kept in MN-06 the two townships to the east of it across the river in Benton County, so that it had some elbow room, even though it created an extra county split down into Sherburne. The court might try to give more of Benton to MN-08, getting rid of St. Cloud's elbow room, or all of it, but MN-08 will still have to impinge on Sherburne. (these alternatives are depicted below). I don't know a  more logical place for MN-08 to go, then where I made it went. St Cloud won't shift, unless the population changes were enough to shift it all, and they are not. MN-02 needs a few people on its west side, and filling in that gap in Shelby seems like what the court would do. The court does fill in gaps like that even if it creates a county split, just like they did for the southern spike of Anoka County last time.

By the way, when the intra county splits come in, MN-05 is probably going to have to start chewing at Brooklyn Center. That is its next stop. If MN-04 needs to expand (if it does, it will be by but a precinct or two or three), it will start chewing into Cottage Grove. If MN-02 needs to shrink a tad (the intra Dakota County splits), it may or may not end up entirely withdrawing from Washington County, but that is where it will be withdrawing from.

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Western Stearns is already in CD-8.

Eastern Stearns is clearly in the economic orbit of St.Cloud.  If you are going to put St.Cloud in the metro area, then leave the boundary where it is.

Albany (city and township) +32% (2000-2009)
St Augusta (township) +28%
St Joseph (city and township) 19%
Farming (township) +25%, south of Albany.

There is a new very suburban looking subdivision on the SE edge of Albany.  There is a new section which is just being developed, with the streets in, and a few houses.

There is a subdivision just west of the Spunk Lakes at Avon (with a street named 180th street).  There are bunches of house lining the Spunk Lank.  There might even be a Sandia Lab in Avon.

There are curvy streets a couple of miles north of St.Joseph.  And some development to the west of I-94 south of St. Joseph.  St. Joseph itself is clearly developing toward St.Cloud.  There is an industrial park on the west edge of St.Cloud, a couple of miles off of I-94.

St.Johns University is 3-1/2 miles from St.Joseph, and College of St.Benedict only has 2000 students.  St.Joseph had a 50% increase in households between 2000 and 2006.

I think it is in the masters report from the 2000 redistricting.

For goodness sake, why do people keep looking at the two colleges separately?

Here's the thing: MN-08 doesn't need to shift much. It's only about 3000 below population ideal per estimate, so just give it some rural territory in MN-07 and shift that one south or further into Stearns County like in my map. You actually put part of St. Cloud proper in MN-08 (the western tip of Sherburne County is in the city.) Putting MN-08 into Benton County which is clearly the St. Cloud area just doesn't make sense.


There's a reason the southern handle of Anoka was put in MN-05 and it's because it fits there better than anywhere else. Look at it on a street map and you'll see these are clearly just as connected to Minneapolis as places like Richfield. It really should be part of Hennepin County and there was probably a reason it wasn't put there, but that reason is most likely obsolete now. If you drive north on Central Avenue, you can't tell where Minneapolis ends and Columbia Heights/Anoka County begins unless you're paying attention for the sign which is very easy to miss. No one associates this area with Anoka County including especially the people who live there (Anoka is rather mocked by urbanites and even inner suburbanites who consider it a boring county of bland housing and farms. Wright and Sherburne don't get mocked as much because they are further out and more associated with St. Cloud, and Scott is saved by the casinos and amusement parks which mean it's still a fun place to visit.)

There isn't really a better place to put that panhandle. It doesn't belong in the district that elects Michele Bachmann for the reasons I mentioned, if you put it in MN-03 you'd have to extend MN-05 elsewhere into MN-03 which would be some middle suburb like Plymouth or Minnetonka which doesn't fit it as well, and though you could non-awkwardly attach it to MN-04 it clearly fits better in MN-05 with a main road line running through it coming from Minneapolis.


Of course. Really Brooklyn Center should be in MN-05 already (it's a run down white minority economically stagnant ghetto with a large gang presence that is certainly more urban than New Hope or Hopkins. I know people who live in Minneapolis proper who are scared to go there.) but can't really be neatly fit into MN-05. BTW no part of Brooklyn Park is in MN-05, that's an error in how DRA calculates district borders.


It'll expand more than that and will probably hit Inver Grove Heights first. Cottage Grove would be kind of a weird appendage. I bet all of Inver Grove Heights ends up in MN-04 and most likely at least a chunk of Cottage Grove.


Remember that MN-01 also needs to grow into it. If MN-07 greatly expands southward it'll probably end up losing all of Rice County, which is great news for both any Republicans looking to succeed Kline and Walz.

Where do you want MN-07 to expand again BRTD?  Remember this a court plan drawing, not what  Democrats might want at the edges. I agree that St. Cloud and its burbs should all be in MN-06, and if I didn't get it all, that needs to be revised. When MN drops to seven seats in 10 years, then all will change. But it didn't, and so it won't.  Benton  County is not all that GOP anyway. Sherburne is, and I could sense you distaste for MN-08 impinging on it - right away. :P  But cheer up, the numbers we are talking about here are small.

St.Cloud extends quite a long way east of the river, abput 1/2 way into second tier of townships.  Sartell also is on both sides of the river, with a 33% increase since 2009.  Rice city has a 105% increase since 2009.

According to 2009 census estimates, St Cloud has 52.3K in Stearns, 8.5K in Benton, and 6.4K in Sherburne.  To get all of St. Cloud, you have to go two Jeffersonian townships into Benton, which is half the county, so you might as well take keep the whole of both.

The Census Bureau has 2009 estimates for county subdivisions in Minnesota, which includes both cities and townships.  The inner tier suburbs of Minneapolis are losing population.  If they were settled in the 1960s or 70s, the original settlers are dieing off so household sizes are declining, and young families might not be able to afford to live there, and there might not be any land available for multi-family housing.

I'd think it more likely that MN-5 needs Edina and Brooklyn Center, and part of Brooklyn Park.

MN-05 isn't that population starved. Under the DRA estimates it wouldn't even fit all of Brooklyn Center. My State Senate district will have to shrink significantly in area under the estimates too.


There are still areas in Stearns not closely connected to St. Cloud. It can go in there, remember that my map with it going far in had it it lose population around Bemidji. But MN-08 is very unlikely to take in Sherburne which would mean both of St. Cloud an an area that has very little to do with its population center. If MN-07 has to go down to the Iowa border instead of into Stearns, that's possible, and it won't affect the partisan makeup much, would make things a bit safer for Walz.

Oh I forgot above my main point, basically MN-05 took the chunk of Anoka because it was logical for it to go there, but that doesn't apply to Sibley County. The eastern border is there for a reason: There's a river there. This means that it's not as connected to MN-02 as most of it is (yes there's bridges, but it's not like you can take any random county road around it like you can within Sibley County or within Le Seuer County.) And there is little connection to that area, even the township north of Belle Plaine that extends the furthest east has little exurban growth or connection to the metro as there's no easy road access. There's really no reason to split Sibley, it's not very populated and the current border makes sense geographically even if not aesthetically. And if it stays that way you still get the very cool fact that if you drive from Mankato to Duluth you pass through every district!

I was characterizing the population of the city of St.Joseph.

Would it be better to say that 1/2 of the population of St Joseph, if we include 2000 persons who don't actually live in the city of St.Joseph, nor for that matter in St.Joseph township, are students at either College of Saint Benedict (in St.Joseph) or St. Johns University (not in St.Joseph, nor St.Joseph township), but the non-campus portion of St.Joseph is rapidly growing, including an annexed area formerly in St.Wendel township with several 100 building sites?

Again, BRTD, you have to think what a court would do, particularly since they drew the existing map. MN-07 expanding further east into rural Stearns (basically about three rows of rather empty townships, won't give it enough population, and it makes the CD more erose, so where do you go next?  And the court is certainly not going to exchange counties between CD's, unless there is a very good reason to do so.

It makes no sense to me. The western half, the empty rural half, of Stearns was put in MN-07 ten years ago, simply to make the CD look less erose. What does make sense is for MN-07 to take in the third of Birjumdi (sp) that it does not currently have, and to make a nice clean north south line, and that takes care of MN-07, and MN-08 takes in some more exurbs, but not much really, to make it less erose.

I would be very surprised if a court does not redraw very closely to my map.

The Anoka panhandle was originally a separate county (Manomin), apparently because Ramsey County couldn't go west of a dotted line, or perhaps because the river got in the way of having neat 6 mile square townships.  They decided that it was never going to work as a separate county, so it got added to Anoka County, which sort of made sense because the only town (Anoka) was along the river, and it made sense to have county boundaries along the river (eg Anoka was the rural county on the east bank north of the twin cities).

Columbia Heights is one of the earliest suburbs, developing in the 1920s when it became the most populous city in Anoka County, so it is probably older than many areas of Minneapolis and St.Paul let alone the areas that developed post WWII.

MN-7 can come south all the way to Iowa.  The last 4 westernmost counties mostly drain toward the Missouri River rather than the Des Moines River.  They probably look at Sioux Falls as the big city, just like those who live in Moorhead and East Grand Forks look to Fargo and Grand Forks.   When the decision was made to go with 3 outer districts, it was noted that one or two districts would have go the length of the border.  The Canadian border was out due to lack of transportation other than canoe or sea plane; so they chose the Iowa border because of I-90.  But I-29 lies along the entire western border.  MN-1 and MN-8 have medium sized cities (Rochester and Duluth), so MN-7 will have to be bigger.  And MN-1 can come north so the counties around its two cities of Rochester and Mankato are within the same district.   MN-7 is really a SE district with a long western tail. 

When the court drew the 2000s map, the main issue was whether to retain the existing 4:4 plan (Greater Minnesota : Metro) or switch to a 5:3 plan.  The court decided to go with a 5:3 plan, since the metropolitan share was close to 62.5% than 50%, and it was slowly increasing.  To actually get to 62.5% they had to include St.Cloud, which they decided was the area closest related to the Twin Cities (more so than Rochester, Mankato, or Duluth).

During the 1990s at least, St. Cloud was in MN-07, perhaps because it needed the population, since there was at the time a SW Minnesota district.  I don't think that the decision to split Stearns was entirely to make the boundary smoother.  I think it was to recognize that the western part of the county was pretty remote from the Twin Cities, and even St. Cloud.

While the court gave the existence of I-90 as the reason for choosing MN-1 as the district that extends the full length of the border, this was partially a rationalization made for population balance reasons.  MN-8 needed Isanti and Chisago, or it would have to go west towards Fargo, which they had made a decision not to do, or SW towards St. Cloud, but would have meant splitting St.Cloud.

But losing Isanti and Chisago meant that the 5 metro districts would need some more population, which they got from the three counties south of the metro area (Le Sueur, Rice, and Goodhue).  It looks vaguely like an extended metro area to be acceptable, but it then meant MN-01 which had been a SE district would have to extend westward.

A court will assert that the 5:3 plan should be continued, that St.Cloud is still needed for the metro population, but that extreme southern fringe is no longer need.  It need not mention Chisago and Isanti have anything to do with this (especially since shifting them would mess up everything and MN-8 is really close to the ideal population).

The court then adjusts the southern boundary of the Metro 5 area assigns it to MN-1 and starts population balancing.

It explains that MN-7 is short X people, and gives the 5 options and explains why the first 4 won't work.

1) Go east from Bemidji.  Won't work because low population and MN-8 would be forced to go into Anoka or Washington County.

2) Go east near St. Cloud, but this would split the city of St. Cloud.

3) Go east into Wright County, but this is into the metro area.

4) Go SE Mankato but would(?) require taking of North Mankato and St. Peter and New Ulm.

5) Go south to the Iowa border, which also takes the excess from MN-1 from its going north.

You add in some language about the close ties between these areas and the Dakotas.  If they grow wheat and raise cattle, rather than corn and hogs, you mention that.  And then give a rationale for MN-1 becoming a SE district, and emphasize the importance of Rochester and Mankato so that the district isn't dominantly agriculture, and toss in the importance of the Mississippi River.

This will mean that MN-2 shifts north in Dakota County, and MN-4 more into Washington, which is OK since MN-6 extends NW to St Cloud which.

OK here's a minimal change map based on shifting MN-07 down to Iowa.

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Works pretty well. MN-08 only had to take in a few rural basically 100% white townships in Beltrami County. MN-01 lost some remote rural counties and regained most of Rice. MN-02 lost a few precincts in Inver Grove and was hardly changed otherwise. MN-04 expanded into MN-06, and MN-03 into Blaine. Nothing seriously changes.

Also I think Torie and jim need to drive on I-94 sometime. I'll concede that the influence of St. Cloud spreads a bit further west in Stearns County than I initially implied, but you could shave off all the township columns to the one immediately west of St. Cloud, and that's about 50k population. That may be high for rural Minnesota, but it also gives that area a comparable population density to Otter Tail County. And that area was settled and populated long before St. Cloud's growth.

Whatever the case this map shows that there is no reason to push MN-08 further into the exurbs. As I noted before, the only reason Chisago and Isanti were included before is because they were historically considered part of northeastern Minnesota and the whole I-90 corridor. Even today Lindstrom is considered a Swedish cultural center for example. That's not true about Benton County or northern Anoka or anywhere like that.

If you stop at St.Joseph you split St.Johns University in Collegeville from College of St.Benedict.  And there is definite suburban type development in Albany and Avon.  Not solid, but certainly areas that you can commute from.

Chisago and Isanti aren't that populous.  Are they 20% of the district?  And they have made the district population stable.  I suspect that the reason that they are metropolitan is that the farmland isn't as good as south of the Metro area (in Rice County) so you have less population actually making a living in the area, and Faribault is a modest town of long standing.  Since metropolitan definitions are based on commuting patterns, you have a larger work-in-the county population in Rice than in Chisago or Rice.

Better farmland means less land to carve up into multi-acre exurban lots, and there is still land in Dakota for intense subdividing.  Because Faribault is in the southern part of Rice, it is just too far to commute from for those who might buy a house in an existing town,

Help me understand this. If the objection is that you can't trace the actual border route on foot, I don't understand the relevance of that to the links between communities within the district (which are all connected by roads, east-west; very few people live literally in the middle of a swamp straddling the border), and then I don't understand the comparison to I-29, which requires you to not trace the western border on foot but to cross over into other states, indicating you don't need to travel as the crow flies to justify a district. With a regular automobile, you can reach nearly all of the communities within a unified northern district as easily as you could reach them from within MN-8 or MN-7 now.

It's academic because they are unlikely to create a unified northern district with more than 7 districts statewide, but I still don't understand the logic of the ground rules you are referring to.

Someone in a thread here from 2007 talked about commuting from Faribault to Bloomington.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/minnesota/85765-faribault.html

OK, below is a map of the Twin Cities CD's and adjacent ones, drawn based on population density. As one can see, MN-01 ends up with way too many people, and MN-02 needs to go south into what is not really the Twin Cities urban mass, to equalize. MN-06 needs to pick up a few people from MN-07, and MN-08 is desperate for people, and needs to invade the exurbs - somewhere.  Before it too the NE, and now it needs a bit more territory. I think my map gets pretty close in defining what that territory is (the bottom map), which includes some that is not even in the urban mass in Benton County.

So it seems to me that you just fill in counties, and then play at the edges, to make it work. And I think that is what the court was focused on last time.

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I think you missed the overall point I was making, which is why Chisago and Isanti are both part of the metropolitan area, while Rice is not.

Metropolitan areas are defined by the Census Bureau on the basis of commuter patterns.  It doesn't not define areas that are city-like.  In the past, parts of Utah have been included in the Flagstaff metropolitan area.  These weren't based on people jumping the Grand Canyon to go to work, but crossing the border into Coconino county.  There is part of Nevada in the Sacramento metropolitan area, based on one of the Sierra counties that go from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe.  The commuters aren't traveling to work at the capital, but to Tahoe.  Armstrong County in Texas has less than 1000 persons, but is defined as being part of the Amarillo metropolitan area.

The criteria that is used is the percentage of the labor force in the non-core county that commutes to the core county and/or the part of the employment in the non-core county that commute from the core county.  The percentage is pretty low (15%?).  Even if a county is a "bedroom" county, it needs builders to build the new bedrooms, teachers for the school, clerks for the grocery stores, and attendants at the filling stations.  So even if there are quite a few commuters, there are a lot of stay-at-home workers to provide services for the commuters.  Because of these service workers, the percentage of commuters to trigger metropolitan status is set low.

If a county has a substantial economy of its own, it is harder to flip to becoming part of a metropolitan county, since the people who live there, live there because there are jobs there.
If you go back to 1960, Rice had about 3 times the population of either Isanti or Chisago, and had about twice the population of Scott and Carver, and more than Wright.  The latter 3 have reached a point of massive suburban growth, doubling in population in the last 20 years.

Since 1960, Rice and Isanti have both added about 25,000 people.  But that is a 178% increase for Isanti, and only 58% for Rice.  Chisago has had greater numeric growth, and relative growth 292%.  But Rice still has more population than either one.  So clearly all have seen growth from the Twin Cities, but a smaller percentage share of Rice labor force commutes into the core counties.

So Rice remains outside the metropolitan area, while Isanti and Chisago are in it.  But none are citified in the same sense that Wright, Scott, and Carver are.

If someone want to live in these areas, they need a job, so they have to commute.  They also need housing, with utilities.  They can buy some acreage, drill a well, put in a septic tank, and propane, etc.  This adds a lot to the cost.   Or they can wait for someone to subdivide the area and put in utilities.  Or they can find a small town, that probably has some housing, or maybe someone has subdivided 10 or 20 acres and hooked into the town utilities.  These will be small houses by current standards, but relatively inexpensive.  And it isn't in unlimited supply.  If Faribault were closer, it would be better.  It may limit job choices.  Bloomington is OK since it is straight shot up I-35.  But what if that job ends, or moves to a different location.  The commute gets longer.  And eventually there will be jobs in the southern part of Dakota.  There might be a hospital or at least a medical center.  A dental hygienist who lives in Faribault can work there.  So maybe it isn't "too far", but "quite far", and some of it is mental image.  One can become accustomed to long commutes, especially if it means the difference between working or not.  But one doesn't start out that way.  If they are new to a city, they find a job, or were already hired.  They find temporary housing near work.  If they get married and have kids, they move to the suburbs, because they want to own a house, and have good schools.  Later, if their job situation changes, they may decide to keep the house, and commute a longer distance to a different job.

Summary: When splitting districts between metropolitan and outer districts, counties like Chisago, Isanti, and Rice can go either way, depending on where counties are needed to be for population balance.  In 2000, it worked to have Chisago and Isanti in MN-8, and Rice, Goodhue, and Le Sueur in a metro district.  With an increase in population share for the metro area, some of the latter need to be shifted out for population balancing.

See thing is while you could do it and I'm sure many do, there's really no reason to unless you have reasons grounding you to Faribault (own a house there, spouse works there, young living at home). Faribault doesn't even have lots of cheap or newly built housing, it's just another working class town in southern Minnesota that just happens to be located closeish to the metro. It also works only if you're commuting to the southern suburbs, it's about an hour to Minneapolis. Lakeville (the southern edge of the metro) is as close to Faribault as it is to Minneapolis though.

Admittedly though it's no more non-viable than commuting from Wyoming or Cambridge to the metro is and those areas are more than a bit more rootless but I'm not going to speak for the people who decide to live there. The lack of good farmland is a valid explanation for why all the land is sold to developers which don't do so crazily on the southern edge.


Mine above shifts around less areas. I really doubt anyone cares massively about whether MN-01 reaches the South Dakota border or not, especially as jim noted above (he said MN-7 but I'm assuming he meant MN-1) that MN-01 is really a southeastern Minnesota seat that just happens to have a western tail of mostly empty territory. Having lived in that district for over five years I can assure you that there is more closeness felt to the metro than to anywhere west of New Ulm (and I lived in Mankato, I doubt people in Rochester or even Owatonna care about New Ulm), which is basically considered eastern South Dakota. That region even has a name, it's called the Buffalo Ridge which is quite distinct form southeast Minnesota. There's really no reason to do shifts to prevent MN-07 from reaching the Iowa border.

Here is the map which draws the MN-02 and  MN-06 to  totally fill in the density zone. They are short about 27,000 people (all in MN-06, with MN-08 having the excess. So the population balancing is done with the whited out precincts. MN-07 moves north a bit, taking 18,000 people from MN-08, MN-06 grabs a few precincts from MM-07 to get its first 9,000 third of the 27,000 votes that it needs (as does MN-01, and MN-02 grabs one more), takes another (9,000 from MN-02 (which MN-02 gets back from MN-01, with MN-01 then getting them back from MN0-07), and MN-06 completes the job by taking the last 9,000 voters from MN-08 directly.

So MN-08 gets quite a bit more Dem, with the Dems taking the seat, MN-07 perhaps gets a tad more GOP, and certainly less erratic, and will probably go GOP when Peterson goes, MN-01 may be slightly more GOP, but not enough to threaten the Dem in it,   MN-02 may be a tad more Dem, but not enough to threaten Klein, and MN-06 gets even more GOP. Not a bad map for the Dems.

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That is far more shifting than necessary. Also I think you drew Peterson out of his seat.

And MN-01 doesn't get more Republican, it lost a bunch of heavily Republican counties in exchange for a Dem-leaning one, a GOP-leaning one, and a swing one leaning just barely to the GOP. Obama no doubt won the new territory added to the seat.

Yes, I changed my text, because you are right about MN-01. But if the court is really serious about a map that has the Twin Cities CD's match where the Twin Cities actually are, based on population density, this is the map. The rest to mind mind is just rhetoric. What this map does is avoid the outer three CD's taking in any high density population zone appending the Twin Cities area (like MN-08 does now), and just has the two suburban CD's in the end grab 27,000 people outside Twin Cities density template. In other words, the Twin Cities density zone is 27,000 people short of being 5 CD's in size, about 3,250,000 people.

This has nothing to do by the way with partisan considerations or where any incumbent lives. Why should the court worry where incumbents live by the way?

 Final Court Order 2000 Redistricting  (http://www.mncourts.gov/documents/0/Public/Court_Information_Office/redistrictingpanel/Final_Congressional_Order.PDF)

See page 5 or so.  It describe I-90 as making CD-1 "convenient contiguous territory", which is a requirement of the Minnesota constitution, and apparently interpreted similarly in previous litigation.  While I-29 would be less convenient, I don't think it would be inconvenient.

Would a state court overrule a Duluth-Fargo district drawn by the legislature, because it was "not" convenient?  Perhaps.  It might depend on how grotesque the other districts were.  A Minnesota court might rule Massachusetts-, New York-, or Maryland-like districts as not being convenient.  But if it had never been taken to court in the past, they might not.  If "convenient" had been interpreted in the past to mean "non-equipopulous in order to maintain communities of interest", they could decide that "convenient" was superfluous language since it violated the US Constitution.

Would a state court draw a Duluth-Fargo district.  Probably not, unless Minnesota were down to 6 districts.  And of course, they would not characterize the area as only being traversible by float plane or canoe, since snowmobile is also possible in the 8 or 9 winter months.

Would a state court overrule a district the length of the Dakotas' border?  I don't think they would.  And I think they might draw such a district, especially if the alternative is greater infringement on the Twin Cities metro area.

 Zachman v. Kiffmeyer, 2000s redistricting  (http://www.senate.mn/departments/scr/redist/redsum2000/zachman/c0-01-160_index.htm)

This has links to the briefs, etc. for the 2000s redistricting litigation, that also included legislative redistricting.  Zachman was the first to file suit, and there were other intervening plaintiffs.  Kiffmeyer was the Secretary of State.

 Minnesota redistricting 1860-  (http://www.gis.leg.mn/html/redist-hist.pdf)

This has links to previous redistricting laws (verbal not maps) from throughout Minnesota's history.

 2000s redistricting maps  (http://www.gis.leg.mn/html/courtplans/courtplans.html)

Maps of the redistricting plans:

The parties to the litigation were;

Zachman, et al   Republicans who were pushing for a Minneapolis-St Paul district and radical changes elsewhere, but generally a 5-3 plan.  Since these included a Duluth-Fargo district, some of the arguments against such a northern district may have been motivated because the plan would also have combined the twin cities.

Moe, et al.  He was the DFL gubernatorial candidate in 2002 vs.Pawlenty.  This party also included Reps. McCollum, Sabo, Luther, Peterson, and Oberstar.  They were promoting retention of a 4:4 plan, with 4 Greater Minnesota districts in the corners.  Because the SE, NW, and NE districts each had a city (Rochester, St. Cloud, and Duluth, respectively), and the SW district did not, it had to encroach on the metro area.

Cotlow, et al.  DFL party, were in favor of 5:3 plan which was close to the final plan.  Would have brought MN-8 further down into northern Anoka county, and fairly substantially different suburban districts.

Ventura, who was governor at the time.  This was also a 5:3 plan,  but would have drawn a district a length of the Dakotas' border.  The SE district would have been more compact, and the western district was more a SW district with a Red River panhandle.  The NW district would have been the eliminated district, split between the Red River being added to the SW district, St.Cloud being shifted to the metro area, and central northern Minnesota being shifted to the NE.  The districts are numbered differently, because there was agreement that districts being numbered from south to north.

The Ventura, Cotlow, and court plans were all 5:3 plans.  In 2000, the metro area was closer to 5/8 of the state population than 4/8.  But it needed St.Cloud plus a bit more to get to 5/8.  The three plans took their bit more from different areas.  The Ventura plan went north to include Mille Lacs, Kanabec, and part of Pine.   The Cotlow plan came south, and took in Goodhue, Rice, and Le Sueur, while giving up Isanti and Chisago.  It also went west to include Meeker, McLeod, and Sibley, while giving up part of northern Anoka county.  The final court plan eliminated this western extension and kept all of Anoka in the district.

The Ventura plan was closer to the Census Bureau definition of the metro area, while the Cotlow plan was the worst, since it stripped part of the 3rd most populous county out of a metro area district.  The court plan might have been the closest did not extend to counties that were clearly outside the metro area.

The manner that the 5:3 split was made then guided the way the suburban and outstate districts were drawn, though in the case of the Cotlow plan, it was likely the inverse was done.   The Ventura map rotated the outstate districts counterclockwise relative to the court plan, and was perhaps slightly more definitive in creating the northern and southern suburban districts, with a more visually appealing link between St.Cloud and the rest of the northern suburban district.  An argument for the Ventura plan is it put St.Cloud and the non-metropolitan counties in the same district.

The Cotlow configuration exhibited a political bias.  It would have paired two Republican incumbents in a Hennepin-St. Cloud district, and configured a district drawn tightly around Ramsey County, including Washington, southern Anoka, and northeastern Hennepin counties, where Bill Luther might be elected.  The reason for moving northern Anoka to MN-8 was to pull out Republicans, since Oberstar was seen as being invulnerable.

Under the court plan, Mark Kennedy and Bill Luther were paired in MN-6, though just barely.  Kennedy had been elected from the SW district and lived on the extreme eastern end.  He was barely inside the western boundary of MN-6 which wrapped around to the Wisconsin line.  Kennedy was elected and served for 2 more terms until he ran for the US senate, and was replaced by Michele Bachman.  Bill Luther switched to MN-2 and was beaten.

If redistricting goes to courts again, then there will be two basic approaches.  No one will challenge the 5:3 split, since the metro area is now closer to 5/8 of the state population than it was in 2000.

One approach would argue that since the existing map is based on the 5:3 split, then all that is needed is to make the minimal inter-district shifts to make the population equal again.  Currently,

MN-2 and MN-6 are quite a bit over (75K)
MN-3 and MN-8 are quite close.
MN-1 is somewhat under (25K)
MN-7, 5, and 4 are under (45K)

MN-5 and MN-4 can get their additional population from MN-2 and MN-6, via MN-3 in the case of MN-5.  And MN-1 can get its topping off from MN-2.

But there is nowhere for MN-7 to get its additional population from the Metro 5, other than splitting apart St.Cloud, or encroaching on the western suburbs in Wright or Carver.  But then you have to violated the basis premise behind the 5:3 split.  So the court will reject this.

The second approach is to go back to the basic principle behind the 5:3 split and draw a new boundary to account for the slight increase in the metro share.  This means that Le Sueur, Rice, or Goodhue, or some combination are removed from the Metro 5.

The court verifies that this will work out for the outstate 3.  It does.  The detatched territory can be shifted to MN-1, with the western end of MN-1 moved to MN-7.  The court can write at  length as to whether MN-7 is "convenient", but will conclude that is given all the other constraints.  Peterson has an office in Marshall (and in Redwood Falls one day per week).  Walz only has offices in Rochester and Mankato.

Since the metro to outstate shift was from MN-2, then MN-3, 5, and 4 need to expand westward, northward, and/or eastward.   Because MN-6 ends up in St Cloud, a case can be made for having MN-4 to go east, for MN-2 to extend further northward to include all of Dakota, and perhaps some more or Washington.  Then extend MN-3 into Carver county, rather than northward.

This would make it:

5) Minneapolis and inner suburbs.
3) Western suburbs
4) Eastern suburbs plus St.Paul
2) Southern suburbs
6) Northern suburbs and St.Cloud

They may not care, but there is a principal about the least change as possible. That's what my map above is. As I've noted many times, extending MN-08 further into the exurbs is completely unnecessary as you can easily acheive ideal population just within rural Beltrami county (without even touching the Reservation.)

BTW Cravaack just opened his constituent services office. Singular. Now I know it's not uncommon to have only one office, but that's typically in small districts (area-wise), which this is not. Oberstar had four, in Duluth, Brainerd, the northern mining territory and exurbs. But the bigger deal isn't that but the location of this one, which is North Branch in Chisago County. 2 hours from Duluth and a good 5 hours from much of the district. And he accused Oberstar of being out of touch? This'll make a great campaign ad.

In this thread, I see three different breakdowns of the congressional district deviation from average.  So, which one of these can we go by?

For MN, I've used the 2009 census estimates at the level of minor civil divisions to get the metro area pop for 2010. This is much more accurate than the direct estimates from the App, which I used only to draw the maps. Using that data, I've tried to minimize changes to existing districts while respecting counties and municipalities to the extent possible.

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Man, the intra county shifts in Hennepin County were larger than I expected, Muon2. That is a big shift there, with MN-05 now not only taking in Brooklyn Center (which I expected the bulk of which would be absorbed), but also a slug of Brooklyn Park, making MN-03 quite comfortably Pubbie now. The map that will be drawn will look very close to the one that you drew; I would think the only issue being how MN-08, MN-07 and MN-01 move around really, to equalize population. There are two or three reasonable choices there. I picked one, and you picked another, I think.

To give you an idea of the difference consider that all my districts are within a couple hundred of the ideal based on a 2010 projection of the 2009 estimates by town/city. Here's what Dave's App has for the metro districts.

CD 2: -15.0 K
CD 3: -36.3 K
CD 4: +23.5 K
CD 5: +51.9 K
CD 6: -42.2 K

That deviation in CD 5 is about 8%! That's why it's best to have town estimates in any urban county split.

Interesting. By the way Muon2, do you think the court would really continue to live with the split in Bejumdi (sp)?  Would not they at least unify that county in MN-07? 

I also like the straight north south line myself (which means also MN-07 also taking Hubbard County), but that is just my sense of aesthetics I guess. And then that avoids a shift of those southwestern corner counties from MN-01 to MN-07. All thing being pretty equal means avoiding the musical chairs game, no? But then MN-08 needs some more territory (rural (and yes it is rural based on a population density metric) Benton County outside the St. Cloud elbow room zone!), and around and around we go.  :)

I have rearranged the three.

The first is based on the 2009 ACS which reports population estimates directly for each congressional district,  The ACS replaces the census long form.  Instead of the long form going to about 1 in 6 households April every 10th year, it is conducted to a small sample each  month.  The 1:6 sampling for the long form was intended to provide statistically reliable data for small areas such as block groups and census tracts, which have populations of about 1000 and 5000 respectively.  Monthly ACS samples over a 5 year period may be aggregated to produce the equivalent data for small areas, albeit time-smeared.  But since the ACS is being conducted on a continuous basis, a new 5-year period can be produced annually.  Recently, the census bureau released its 1st 5-year ACS data for 2005-2009, which should be roughly equivalent to that generated from the long form, if it had been conducted in 2007 in the middle of the period.  If one wanted intracounty population distribution, I would start with this data.

The ACS also releases data for larger areas.  It recently released data for 2007-2009 which is statistically significant for areas with population greater than 20,000.  It also released one year data for areas of population greater than 60,000, including congressional districts.

So let's say that the one year sample is about 3%, which is split into 12 monthly samples, then in 2009 about 3% of the households in Coon Rapids were surveyed, with that population information included in the estimate for MN-3, while that for Blaine was included in MN-6.

The first set of data is directly from the 2009 ACS.  I took the Minnesota estimate, divided by 8 and calculated the deviations.  Since all districts had the same population in 2000, the deviation is also the same as the change in deviation since 2009.  One could get a little better estimate by projecting it forward for another 9 months. So at the time of the April 2000, MN-6 would be about 100,000 over.

The second set of numbers was just my recollection of the first set without actually going back to that data, and IMO accurately classifies the districts into 4 groups:

4, 5, and 7: slow growth relative to the Minnesota average.  Since Minnesota CD's had around 615,000 persons in 2000, these three districts actually are virtually unchanged in absolute terms from 2000.  Not losing population, but not gaining either.

1: moderately slow growth relative to the slate, tepid growth in absolute terms (this won't be constant across the district, which will show faster growth in Rochester and Mankato, and the metro fringe such as Rice, and perhaps losses in rural counties, particularly those not on I-90.

3 and 8: growing slightly slower than the state.  Perhaps 6% vs 7% for the state.

2 and 6: growing significantly faster than the state, and even a bit faster than the USA as whole.

Incidentally, Le Sueur had its largest population increase since the 1880s (sic).  I don't know whether this is a Mankato effect or the extreme edge of the metro area (Meeker and McLeod are also showing a small amount of growth, atypical for rural areas).

I don't know what Torie's numbers are.  The state population is a bit lower (35K) than from the ACS, but this is probably just a difference in estimate sources.  But the districts don't match current districts.

I reunited Bemidji in my map. I left the reservation in northern Beltrami county in CD 7 but put most all the pop of the southern part in CD 8. I thought that it was unlikely that a plan would be approved that split the reservation, so I couldn't justify moving all of Beltrami to CD 8. In exchange I moved Wadena to CD 7 to equalize population, moving Hubbard as well was too much.

Moving Hubbard or all of Beltrami to CD 7 would require a split of another county. Whether that would be Benton or another, I didn't see that split as being superior to a split of Beltrami. Since Beltrami was already split, I continued that in this map.

(Red Lake misspelled in original) Note that while this is specifically for legislative redistricting that the two western reservations would be in the same senate district, it would presumably be the same interest for a congressional district.

Bemidji is the county seat of Beltrami county.

Well Bemidji is now in MN-08, which I doubt would bother too many. Some of the metro splits are weird though, I would say MN-04 is far more likely to expand to the Cottage Grove area via Inver Grove Heights than Woodbury, and I don't see why MN-03 would extend north into Andover instead of into Blaine instead. Also giving MN-01 all of the counties in the lower tier of MN-02 EXCEPT for Rice is basically the sort of thing that a GOP gerrymander would do instead of a non-partisan plan.

Adding the rest of Coon Rapids, Anoka and Andover was the right amount of population. Blaine was not (it's too big). Personally, I would rather have CD-3 go into Wright and not into Anoka at all. It would avoid the river crossing and far western Hennepin is indistinguishable from Wright. But I wanted to build as closely to the existing districts as possible, so I continued with Anoka.


Again this was a question of population. Adding LeSueur and Goodhue while losing the SW counties was just the right shift. Rice was less so. I could also argue that northern Rice is much more connected to the metro than either LeSueur or Goodhue, so if I'm trying to work with whole counties, that's the right split.

To your earlier question about CD-4, the answer is in CD-1. LeSueur and Goodhue take pop from CD-2 and keeping Cottage Grove in CD-2 is too much, so I used Mendota Heights in CD-2 instead. That leaves no room for CD-4 in Dakota except for W and S St Paul. CD-4 needed a lot of pop and Woodbury and Cottage Grove fit best, while losing Mahtomedi and the other WBL area towns in Washington.

I probably have more sense of this area than most posters (BRTD being one of the excluded), since I lived in Ramsey and Rice when I was younger, and some of my immediate family continued to live in Ramsey County until last year. I have other more distant relatives that I see less frequently elsewhere in the Twins. Though I moved out of the eastern TC Metro long ago I've visited at least once a year.

I don't think splitting Blaine like Coon Rapids is now would be a big deal. But I suppose that makes sense.


That's certainly not true in Le Sueur's case, for example my mom's hometown straddles the Le Sueur/Scott border and has changed since then into an exurb. No one really associates Northfield with the metro, it's just a college town close-ish to it. Faribault is definitely much closer to southern Minnesota than the metro as I mentioned earlier.


Ugh, I'd hate to work in MN-02. :p


I agree that the latter part is likely to happen anyway, but Woodbury just doesn't fit in MN-04. Then again it doesn't fit in MN-06 either, and there's really no way to properly attach it to MN-02.

I'd go west with CD-3, probably into Carver taking Chanhasen and Chaska.  Including Coon Rapids may have been OK in 2000 when just needed to go outside Heneppin a bit, but now CD-3 has to become more of a west Metro, rather than just Hennepin.  You could also go into Wright, but a lot of the growth in Wright is towards the NW, so you would be somewhat cutting off MN-6 from St.Cloud.

And with MN-5 extending northward toward Brooklyn River, it is cutting off Anoka from Hennepin, and MN-3 is threatening to split Anoka.

If MN-3 went into Carver, then MN-2 could take all of Dakota and the southern part of Washington, which would force MN-4 further north in Washington, and make MN-6 more of Anoka and St Cloud district.

I can't believe I never thought of this earlier: Using the app's figures to find out the exact racial demographics of my precinct. Hmmm:

48% White
19% Black
1% Native
6% Asian
20% Hispanic
6% Other

So how much of the white vote did Obama get? I've often wondered how Democratic Minneapolis whites are. Well he got 89% precinct-wide. Let's just assume he got close to 100% of the black vote. He probably got around 80% of the Hispanic vote, but their turnout is always a lot lower, so let's also assume they turned out at only about half the rate of the other groups. The Asians are actually more Vietnamese than Hmong, and Vietnamese are Republican similar to Cubans, but I don't think the Vietnamese here would vote much (they are largely illegal and don't speak English.) I did see something really weird a couple months ago in some apartment building's window or somewhere, it looked like a sort of tribute to Ngo Dinh Diem, definitely was a photo of him. But anyway probably about a third of the Asians here are Americanized hipster types just like the whites. The "Other" are probably mostly Somalis who don't vote.

So let's assume turnout is like:

58% White
23% Black
1% Native
4% Asian
12% Hispanic
2% Other

Obama got 89%, so assuming that 23 points was from blacks, 1 from Natives, 2 from Asians, 10 from Hispanics and 2 from Other, 51 points of that was from whites. That would put Obama at about 88% of the white vote. Even I didn't expect it would be THAT high. Actually even giving Obama 100% of the non-white vote gives him about 81% of the white vote. Of course whites city-wide are no doubt less Democratic than here, anything below 70% for Obama isn't likely anywhere though.

The most problematical part of Muon2's map to me is where MN-04 will expand. He is moving around a lot of territory in order to rather perfervidly avoid splits of anything. I tend to think the court will hew more to the existing lines between MN-02 and MN-04, and just work from there. So MN-04 expands more into Dakota where it was before, and out of Washington. Just my wild guess.

Carver would be about 15 K too small to replace the Anoka parts of CD3 on my map. It would be better to add all of Wright except for Monticello (city and twp). That also keeps the swap just between CD3 and CD6.


There's a very natural cultural division between the W and S St Paul parts of Dakota and everything else. St Paul crosses the river and those two old suburbs have long been associated with the capital city. The Eagan/Burnsville/Apple Valley area make up the core of CD 2 and I don't see CD 4 splitting into that area, which would be needed to push CD 2 more into Washington.

Let's go back to jimrtex's Carver move into CD 3 and see where it would lead. It would move Cottage Grove and Woodbury from Washington into CD 2, making 94/494 the dividing line between CD 2 and CD 4. Virtually all the rest of Washington would need to go into CD 4, so that only Forest Lake would remain in CD 6. You could argue that those are more compact districts, but they represent a far more substantial change in the CDs from the current plan, as the districts make a major shift counterclockwise around the Cities.

muon is definitely right about northern Dakota county. I work in that area (though as noted he put where I work in MN-02, where it doesn't fit either.)

What's weird is you have what is basically a rural area located there just across the river from the airport and a five minute drive from Minneapolis. It's mostly forests complete with deer running across the streets and even has some farming. If you drive through the town of Mendota (not Mendota Heights), you'd think it was some small town in outstate Minnesota if it wasn't for the visible Minneapolis skyline. It's even not all that accessible from the inner cities unless you have a car, no bus routes go there. Quite an oddity.

here is my plan to pack the republicans into two districts

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This is a zoomed out view of the state

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This is a zoomed in twin cities area

Check it out, it's Minnesota's old maps:

http://www.gis.leg.mn/html/maps/leg_districts.html

Republicans proposed a map that appears to make MN-7 safe for Chip Cravaack and shore up MN-3 a little while keeping Bachmann in a reduced MN-6. They drew a Duluth-Moorhead district.

http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/9131/gop-unveils-another-bad-congressional-map

No surprise there. Won't be signed.

Wow split Blue Earth and Nicollet. That really pisses me off.

why do the republicans bother proposing such preposterous maps? They know it will get vetoed.

Wonder if they can send this through as a constitutional amendment.

But its probably for the same reason that Nevada Democrats did what they did. To spend their time doing something.

It is amazing how a poster can feign such a high level of ignorance over a very simple issue. Legislatures pass maps because it is their job.

The proposed map is an excellent map on two accounts. First, it is beneficial to Republicans. It isn't a dummymander. Second, it isn't a gerrymander, either. Going to court, the legislature will have passed a map that is entirely reasonable. There is a Minneapolis district, a St Paul District. An inner suburban district, and two outer suburban districts. The southern district is a natural result of the metro area barrier. The remaining two upstate districts stretch East to West, which is as valid of a choice as North to South.


I would note that the last time redistricting went to court, the courts restructured the districts in Minnesota creating outer suburban districts to the South, and North and West of the metro area, decimating seats in South Minnesota. The proposed map follows the previous restructuring.


The critics of the map are reduced to claiming it is "preposterous" because the inner suburban district expands into the outer suburban areas at a place favorable to Republicans. Well, due to lower population growths, the inner districts had to expand into the outer areas somewhere. What would be "preposterous" would be for a Republican legislature doing it at a place favorable to Democrats. Do you think they are that stupid?

Claims about an impending veto also ring hollow. I don't see the same standard applied to Nevada, and other states where a Republican governor will veto a Democratic leaning map.

Unless a court is going to draw a map like the Pubbies did, if the parties cannot cut a deal, then yes, the map is DOA. As a Dem I would just toss it in the wastebasket and laugh at how the Pubbies can dream the impossible dream.

That's the point! Entering litigation, the Republicans will have passed a map that is suitable inasmuch as it compact, respects county lines, etc.

It's a gerrymander. It combines MN-03 with Carver County and McLeod County which it has no reason to be combined with and splits Walz's base by removing Nicollet. Nicollet and McLeod are not metro counties and have no place in a metro district. And Nicollet has no place being separated from Blue Earth.

Calling it a "gerrymander" doesn't make it a gerrymander.

Words have meaning, and the meaning of "gerrymander" is simply not "taking line choices that I don't like."


Here is a little reality for you: the metro population is not exactly five districts, so some of those districts must include areas outside the metro. That simply isn't "gerrymandering."

It is when it's obviously done just to shore up the closest Republican held seat (MN-03) or carve out the base of of a Dem incumbent (which is blatantly what the separation of Nicollet and Blue Earth is.)

Have you ever been to the Mankato area? I lived there for five years. Mankato (Blue Earth) and North Mankato (Nicollet) are so closely linked that they don't even have separate "now entering" signs, the city limits for both just says both Mankato and North Mankato. There is no reason to separate it besides splitting a Democratic incumbent's home.

It's gerrymandering because:

It seeks to make Chip Cravaack's district safe by taking out Duluth and the Iron Range.

It seeks to make Colin Peterson, who is a very conservative Democrat, the representative from the liberal northeastern part of the state.

It weaken's Tim Walz's standing by adding more Republican areas to his district while removing Democratic ones.

It makes Paulsen's district safer for him by include very conservative areas, thus turning it from a swing district into a safe R district, and keeps both 2 and 6 nice and Republican.

It doesn't have to look like a gerrymander to be a gerrymander, Bigskybob... and drop the attitude.  kthx

Not only that, but you can bet your bottom dollar that Peterson would be primaried by a liberal Duluth-area Democrat. The Republicans are obviously banking on a divisive primary so they can pull off another Cravaack-style upset.


Not only that, but as BRTD said, it removes much of Walz's home base by splitting North Mankato from Mankato. I'll take his word for what that area is like, since he actually lived there.


Not only that, but it does this by expanding into rural McLeod County, which has no community of interest with the Minneapolis suburbs. Why not expand into Wright or Anoka instead?

Furthermore, I'd bet my right nut that the western part of this plan's 7th district has more in common with Detroit Lakes and Bemidji than with Cambridge and Lindstrom. Granted, Cambridge and Lindstrom have little in common with Duluth either, except for the fact that they've shared a congressional district since the 1960's. History clearly favors a map where the upstate districts stretch north to south.

Again, there were population shifts within the state that called for adjustments. Inner city, inner suburban and rural areas did not grow as fast as the outer suburban areas. One, or more, of the three inner districts had to expand outward. Whomever's district that expanded outward was likely to add Republicans to their district.

Where do you get off claiming the right to declare it "gerrymandering" if it was the suburban Republican whom expanded into the exurbs, rather than one, or both of the innercity Democrats? 


In the last redistricting, the Demcrats bitched and moaned that it was unfair for there to be four out-state anchored  districts, and four metro-based districts when the metro was 58% of the state. The courts agreed, and restructured the state's districts. Republican Representatives in Southern Minnesota were harmed. That was a result that I did not personally like, but, I don't abuse the English language to declare it a "judicial gerrymander."

P.S. Peterson may very well be a "very conservative Democrat," whatever that means, but, Dan Boren is, probably, the only Demcrat in the House of Representatives whom is properly considered " conservative." Even then, I don't think Boren qualifies as "very conservative."

This is one of the lamest claims to gerrymandering I have ever read. Cities are divided all the time in redistricting. That isn't "gerrymandering." To claim that splitting neighboring cities from each other constitutes "gerrymandering" take that absurdity one step further. Wait! Counties are split! That must be "gerrymandering." Hell! Neighboring counties are split from each other as well. That too must be "gerrymandering."


Every line choice you don't like isn't "gerrymandering."

Dude, no one is complaining about the map being shifted to reflect population adjustments. It's about how those adjustments are done. There is no reason to push MN-03 out to McLeod County. It can be easily kept within the metro to meet ideal population. I have a feeling that if McLeod was a Democratic county like Rice it probably wouldn't have been included.

Splitting Nicollet is a gerrymander because there is simply no other reason to do so. No one can seriously argue it has more in common with the southern exurbs, or that Mankato and southeast Minnesota have more in common with those remote western counties that it's pushed up to. It's pretty obvious why this is done, Nicollet isn't that Democratic of a county but is part of Walz's solid base. He won it by almost 20 points in 2010 despite winning by only 5 points district-wide. And the numbers Walz racked up in some of those precincts in it in 2006 and 2008 look like they belong in the inner Twin Cities. Do you seriously believe the Republicans didn't take this into account at all in removing it? It's certainly not impossible to keep in the district when drawing a map, actually it's more difficult to get a logical district with it removed (not that that district is logical.)

This btw is blatantly untrue:


No Republicans were harmed by the 2000 redistricting. Kennedy got an almost completely new district that he won in and would've continued to hold had he not been a complete idiot who thought he could win a Senate seat. Gutknecht's district got about two points more Republican. He lost in 2006 because it was still a swing district, it was a horrible year for Republicans and he got detached and unpopular in the district, not because it was drawn anymore significantly Democratic. Just look at a map, it lost Democratic Rice County and some marginal swing counties for some heavily Republican counties out west. Gore lost the most Democratic county added to the district by almost 6 points.

Yet again, the metro area include 58%, not 62.5% in the previous census. To create a fifth metro seat the courts expanded the 2nd district to the South, and the 6th district to the Northwest. While the metro share has increased, it hasn't increased to 62.5% of the state. One, or more, metro districts had to expand outstate. That is a mathematical fact. You cannot justly claim a metro/out-state cross to be sinister because it is inevitable.

The Republican map, basically, improved on the metro/rural split by making the sixth district a purely metro seat, and concentrating all the rural areas paired with the metro into the second. There is nothing inherently unfair, unjust or sinister about such a choice.


To answer your question, to expand the third into either Anoka, or Wright counties would require that the sixth expand into rural areas, or wrap around into Dakota county. This is contrary to their goal of making the sixth a metro seat.


Again, you can't just dismiss redistricting choices you don't like as being "gerrymandering."

Exactly. If anyone was harmed by the 2000 redistricting, it was Democrat Bill Luther, whose eastern suburban district was basically split in half and had heavily Republican exurbs added to each half. Those two districts are represented today by Michele Bachmann and John Kline.

The trade-off for making the Sixth a "purely metro" seat was to expand the Third into rural McLeod County. As you said, either way, one of the districts has to expand out of the metro. So why should it be the Third (which is currently an inner-ring suburban district) rather than the Sixth (which already includes rural areas)?

Regardless, the Third won't be won by a Democrat except under special circumstances anyway, and that is hardly the most egregiously gerrymandered part of the map. That dubious honor goes to the upstate area.

Only by pushing other districts out in McLeod or some other rural county. The Metro simply isn't 62.5% of the state. Choices to cross into rural areas had to be made. One the whole, this map concentrates those crossing into the second district much more than the previous lines.


But, there was at least two "reasons." First, it was entirely proper to concentrate all the rural areas attached to the metro into one district. It was on the border of the second, and the second expanded into rural areas. Some counties had to be added. The second reason is population equality.



I have no doubt that it would be obvious that folks would be happiest if exactly 62.5% of the state was in the metro.  Since it isn't, it is obvious that some rural folks are going to have to accept being placed into a metro-based district. Concentrating those rural folks in one district, instead of splitting them in half,  to me, gives them a greater voice.


That is a choice I like and you don't like. Where is the "gerrymandering?"


Choices had to be made. The folks in Minnesota elected Republican to make those choices, and their plan reflects their interests more than yours. That democracy in action. Live with it.





Having a nearly new district is disadvantageous. Your argument is akin to claiming, "While we did shoot at him, we missed, so it wasn't attempted murder."




There were three South Minnesota seats. Why are you only mentioning two?

Again, it is for reasons I have already stated. Rural folks attached to metro districts were concentrated into the Second. If McLeod really is rural, rather than exurban, then you are merely making the perfect the enemy of the good. Two districts with significant rural areas are  shifted to one district with significant rural areas, and another with slight rural areas.




First, if it doesn't matter, why did you claim it as proof of "gerrymandering?"

Second, the Northern split is completely fair. You don't like the fact that it is a restructuring of districts, but, then again, so was the last court map.

Yes, and it can be limited to two districts like the current map. Not three like here.


Uh, hardly. The second just expands out further into some odd areas.


But it doesn't do that. McLeod and southern Stearns aren't in the second. And Nicollet wouldn't work if Carver wasn't removed to shore up the third.


Nicollet isn't a rural county, it's a core part of metro Mankato. This split is for no reason beyond partisan ones.



Because Nicollet was obviously removed to weaken Walz.



And elected a Governor who can veto this crap. Live with it.


So the court specifically drew the map to target Gutknecht? Then why remove Rice? The western counties voted for him solidly. He wasn't harmed by the new district, it just wasn't enough help.


Another blatant lie. There were not three southern Minnesota seats in the 90s map.

LOL this is pretty amusing:

Tell the 30,000+ residents of rural McLeod County who would be stuck in a Hennepin County district that it "doesn't matter". There is no reason whatsoever to extend an inner-ring suburban district that far west. The Sixth can easily pick up the rural areas needed to balance the population between metro and rural districts, and doing so would be less controversial since the Sixth already contains rural areas anyway.


I don't like the fact that it splits the community of interest that is northwestern Minnesota, dividing it among districts dominated by areas it has nothing in common with, for purely partisan reasons. This map seeks to deny northwestern Minnesota any representation in Congress. The current configuration preserves the community of interest. Fergus Falls does not belong with Lindstrom, and Moorhead does not belong with Duluth.

Again, you spin a circular web of sophistry. Of course, all the rural counties combined with a metro district could be concentrated in the Sixth. It is equally true that they can be concentrated in the Second. And, it is equally true that they could be split. That is just a redistricting choice. Claiming one choice that doesn't favor you is "gerrymandering" while the choice that does favor you is not, is simply hypocritical nonsense.


It just so happens that the non-metro areas to the North of the Metro are more Republican than the non-metro areas to the South. The effect of expanding the sixth is the removal of Republicans from the non-metro districts. The effect of expanding south is removing fewer Republicans from the non-metro areas. To argue that because a redistricting in your favor can be done, it should be done is purely circular.

Of course, removing non-metro Republicans from the outstates districts will draw less of an ire from partisan Democrats. Sure, the Republicans could avoid "controversy" by taking a meek, submissive attitude towards partisan Democrats. The Republicans in the legislature could have gone to DKE website and voted for the "7-1 Democratic gerrymander." If they did, the Democrats wouldn't have bitched and moaned about the map. Of course, they would have screwed themselves. The Republicans in the legislature took the decision to take decisions that favored them, and not the Democrats. Certainly, Democrats aren't going to like the decisions taken, just as Republicans wouldn't have liked some of the decision Democrats would have taken. Claiming any choice taken by Republicans that disfavoring you constitutes "gerrymandering" is just injecting aggressive incivility into political discourse.

No matter how many time reassert it, the reality is that there are valid reasons for expanding into Carver county: it is on the boundary between the Sixth and Second. Adding McLeod brings the Third up to population.  Given the goal of concentrating out-state areas in the Second, the logical expansion for the Third is into the Second, and the logical county is the border county of Carver.


Sure, I have no doubt you don't like the map. What you don't have is any valid reason to label it "gerrymandering."


The reality remains that upstate can be divided either North and South or East and West. The first option favors the Republicans, so they took it. That doesn't make it "gerrymandering."



"One man, one vote" means every region, area, county, city, etc., etc., has exactly the representation to which  it is entitled.





In every conceivable maps there are pairs that don't make particular sense. In general, a county is apt to be more likely to be similar to a bordering county than a county farther away. But, lines must be drawn, even if it splits such pairs.


You have a bitch. You don't have a case for arguing "gerrymandering."

A sensible, fair map would preserve communities of interest. This map splits them for purely partisan reasons. You can't deny that, and you haven't even tried to. That is the very definition of gerrymandering, pure and simple.

Bigsky, you clearly don't understand the geography or the economy of Minnesota.  All we're pointing out is that while yes, any map will have various communities that aren't perfect together in the same district... this map goes out of its way to put communities that have nothing in common together for the purpose of aiding Republicans, however subtle that might be.  (Again, just cuz the districts aren't shaped like a spider web doesn't mean there isn't subtle gerrymandering going on).

If there are to be 3 wholly rural districts in Minnesota... one should focus on southern Minnesota, another on agricultural areas of western MN, and another on the mining/forestry regions of northeastern MN.

I don't mind district 8 spreading west and engulfing Bemidji because Bemidji is not a farm-town.  It was originally based in forestry and still is to some degree... but also tourism as well as a regional center for commerce, banking, and government services.  We have much more in common with communities like Brainerd, Grand Rapids, and places like Ely than with Hallock or Ada.

At the same time, District 7 could easily engulf some of the outlying areas of St. Cloud to make up the balance.  There is no reason to lump St. Cloud into the 6th district since St. Cloud is its own city with its own economic base.

Colin Peterson in the 7th district makes sense.  He is a strong representative of agricultural and outdoorsmen issues.  He is a good fit for both Hallock and Willmar despite the wide distance between the two.  He is a terrible terrible fit for Virginia or Duluth... which are simply much more liberal than he.

St. Cloud in the 6th now isn't horribly illogical (part of it is in Sherburne after all and there's no real clear line where the St. Cloud suburbs end and Twin Cities exurbs begin), but that's hardly true of McLeod in with the same seat as the middle Minneapolis suburbs like Eden Prairie. McLeod and Carver together kind of makes sense, but not in a Hennepin-dominated seat.

And there is really no logical reason to put Nicollet in with the exurbs, yet put Mankato and Rochester in with some remote farming counties in west central Minnesota they have virtually no connection to.

Based on information from this site, (http://www.demography.state.mn.us/resource.html?Id=31942) I have calculated the optimum re-distribution of Minnesota's population among its 8 districts.  (Numbers rounded to nearest multiple of 5.)

1st District gains 18205 from the 2nd.
2nd District loses 18205 to the 1st, 27140 to the 3rd, and 24180 to the 4th.
3rd District loses 46510 to the 5th, and gains 27140 from the 2nd, and 32180 from the 6th.
4th District gains 24180 from the 2nd, and 24180 from the 6th.
5th District gains 46510 from the 3rd.
6th District loses 32180 to the 3rd, 24180 to the 4th, 37480 to the 7th, and 2650 to the 8th.
7th District gains 37480 from the 6th.
8th District gains 2650 from the 6th.

Actually, it is the way that respects the most county lines. Otherwise, you are looking at three-way splits of counties.



Like, duh! If the decision is taken to concentrate the out-state areas attached into metro districts into the Second then, of course, the Second would have to expand out farther. The district expands South to a fairly straight line of counties. If you think that's "odd," then that speaks more about your judgment than the map.


I understand that is a decision you don't like. That doesn't make it gerrymandering.


Y



Again, the Republicans in the legislature took decisions that favored Republicans. Redistricting involves choices. Assuming the Republicans in the legislature weren't stupid, then, the map that they write, and "what works" will mesh.


The reality is that there are numerous possible reasonable configurations. The Republicans simply found a very reasonable configuration that is more favorable to them than other configurations. That simply isn't gerrymandering.



Apperently, you wish to quibble. Very well. By "rural" I meant "out-state" or "non-metro." I figured you would be able to distinguish what I meant by "rural." Silly me. Alas, I will spend the time to type "non-metro" rather than "rural."


That said. Again, some "non-metro" areas had to be linked with some suburban areas. That is a mathematical necessity of the map. That you object that one such pairing doesn't benefit the Democrats isn't evidence of "gerrymandering." Gerrymandering is a stronger accusation with a higher burden of proof.


Again, where is the gerrymandering?  Again, certainly, the Republicans made decisions that favored Republicans, but, that is not to say that they created a gerrymander.


I don't doubt the governor may very well veto the map. And, most assuredly his motivation for vetoing the bill will be that doing so is favorable to Democrats. What is ridicious are your attempts to equate writing maps you don't like with gerrymandering. I'm sure in one of the few states that Democrats control the process you will deny the decisions they took that favored themselves were necessarily gerrymandering.



Childish sarcasm doesn't alter the fact that you were refering to Kennedy, not Gutknecht.

From what I've read, the two northern districts have always been drawn side by side and not across the state, because of communities of interests. The Republican map is a gerrymander, because that sort of formation doesn't appear to be logical other than for hyper-partisan reasons.

No, that is a sophistry. A proper map will draw a reasonable balance between compactness, adherence to county/city lines/ and "communities of interest," whatever that means, racial composition and series of other factors. Judging these standards as a whole, the Republicans created an entirely reasonable map. You can't dispute that fact, so you are forced to dumb-down the standard of reasonable districts to "communities of interest." That is how intellectually weak your case is.



No, it is you whom has redefined "gerrymandering."  Redistricting is the process of splitting some areas from the rest of the state.


Since there is a sophistry in your formulation, I am forced to quibble. Yes, I don't deny that those taking the decisions took the decisions that favored them. I do most strongly "deny" that "purely partisan reasons" motivated any particular decision. The map shows an amazing respect for county lines, and compactness. Every decision taken was clearly congruent with compactness and respect for county lines. If "partisan poltics" were the sole motivation, the GOP could have whipped up a 5-3 map with little difficulty. They would have to gerrymander to do it, but, it could be done.

I don't have a map, but the calculations in my post above is the way to re-map with as few changes as possible.  There is simply no cause for a completely new configuration (particularly of districts 7 and 8 ) as proposed by the Republican map.

1) That isn't really true. For instance, today, there isn't two Northern districts. There is a Northeastern, Western, and Southern district. Before that, there was a Northeastern, Northwestern, Southwestern, and Southeastern districts. Before that, there was two Eastern districts to the North and South, a South Central district, a Southern Western/West-Central district, and a North Western/North Central district.


2) In the previous restructurings, the Southern districts were restructured to be East-West rather than North-South. I don't see how you can produce a compelling reason to claim what was good for the South is unacceptable for the North.

No, you have created a distribution that minimizes shifts from one district to another. Courts have rejected such arguments in favor of restructuring districts in the recent past.

The history of Minnesota redistricting has been a series of basic restructuring of the districts. Your opinion of whether, or not, there is "cause" for restructuring is just that: your opinion. The folks that were elected to take such decisions have a different opinion.

Of course there are other factors involved in making a proper map than maintaining communities of interest, but the Republican map violates the communities of interest standard when there is no need to do so. It is simple to create a district that maintains the community of interest in western Minnesota without a trade-off in the other factors, as has been done in every round of redistricting since the 1960's. The only reason to split the community of interest is a partisan one.


http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gerrymander (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gerrymander)
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gerrymander (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gerrymander)
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gerrymander (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gerrymander)
http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_us1250680#m_en_us1250680 (http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_us1250680#m_en_us1250680)
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/gerrymandering (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/gerrymandering)
http://www.yourdictionary.com/gerrymander (http://www.yourdictionary.com/gerrymander)

What exactly have I redefined?


This goes above and beyond a 5-3 map- it is a blatant attempt at 6-2, achieved by weakening Walz and Peterson while shoring up Paulsen and Cravaack. Granted, the Duluth-Moorhead district is a bit of a gamble but:
     1.) The GOP has nothing to lose.
     2.) Cravaack proved that a GOP victory in this type of district is possible, and
     3.) If Peterson gets primaried, it can only help the GOP.

Of course, there was an absolute need to violate "communities of interest." In Northern Minnesota, the Iron range is a "community of interest." Every other county in Northern Minnesota has more in common with each other than with the Iron Range. Someone has to be paired with the Iron Range. The previous map paired folks to the South, while the current map pairs people to the West. The first pairing benefits Democrats, so you support it. The second pairing benefits Republicans, so the Republicans in the legislature preferred it.


Clearly, the Republicans drew a map more favorable to Republicans than the Democrats would had draw had they drawn the map. What you haven't produced is any evidence that the map is a "gerrymander."


Well, the first definition for instance. M-W defines "gerrymandering" as, basically, packing your opponents, and cracking your supporters. Like every other definition in the dictionary, it is approximate. But, in any case, you have expanded that definition significantly with your prattle about "comunities of interest."




Now, you are simply in fantasyland. Cravaak will run in the lower of the two Northern districts. The far Northern district is heavily Democratic. Peterson might not win a primary there, but, the Democratic nominee will be heavily favored.

The plan is basically, 1-1-1-2 in the metro area, and 0-1-1-0-1 in the non-metro districts. The Republicans are favored in three districts, the Second, the Sixth and the near-North district. The Democrats are heavily favored in three districts. There are two swing districts, one currently held by a Republican and one by a Democrat.

You can go back and forth forever on the "communities of interest" nonsense. The maps creators note that the new 7th has the "community of interest" of being agricultural areas, while the new eight is a "community of interest" more along the lines of tourism, timber, and a shared Canadian border.

From a press account:

"Anderson said the new 7th District would be a predominantly agricultural region. "The people in Cambridge have more in common with people in Willmar than with people in Grand Marais," she said.

Besides the Canadian border, she said, residents of the new 8th District share interests in timber and tourism. Also, she quipped, snow melts more slowly up north than in the center of the state."

These are excerpts from the ruling in Zachmann vs. Kiffmeyer, which drew the current map.

This is exactly the point. With a northwestern and a northeastern district you get all three- respect for county lines, compactness, and preservation of communities of interest. With the Republican proposal you only get respect for county lines and compactness at the expense of preservation of communities of interest. The Republicans' willingness to throw communities of interest out the window when it is not necessary to do so, for no other reason than for partisan gain makes their map a gerrymander.

Bottom line, two districts cover the Northern part of the state regardless of containing other portion. It's a partisan gerrymander, pure and simple, what is the point in arguing that it is not?

Are you kidding me?  Again, don't comment on this if you don't understand Minnesota geography. 

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Grand Marais

Red River Valley
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These have more in common than Cambridge has with Grand Marais?  Sorry.  While Cambridge is pushing it... the current 8th could stretch a bit westward to include communities like Bemidji stretching down towards Park Rapids which are all forested lake regions.

The 7th, however, should include the farming belt of western MN from the Red River Valley down into the Minnesota Valley, just as it does now.

"They share in common the Canadian border"... who cares?

The vast majority of Minnesotans don't want 3 east-west mega districts... I'm sorry to say it... but Chippy is gonna have to go in 2012.

No, with Republican map you have all three as much as with a North-West split.

Excuse me? Whom should we believe, a person whom was elected to Minnesota's legislature, was appointed by her peers-- whom where elected by a majority of the voters in a majority of the seats-- to create the map, or some wannabe punk with internet access?

There the obnoxiousness, and ignorance, of your comment has just blown up in your face. If you failed to recognize whom Anderson was, that reflects very poorly on you, doesn't it? Perhaps, you shouldn't comment on Minnesota politics without a scorecard?

That said, no matter how uninformed you are, I would never question your right to post in this, or any forum. We have this thing called the First Amendment. It has a purpose. Namely, it enshires the principle that every viewpoint has the right to participate in public debate so that public policy can be decided in the context of the Truth.



Did you have actual poll numbers to back up this claim, or have you appointed yourself the royal "we" of Minnesota? Doesn't matter. Whether, or not, the Republican map is popular, and whether, or not, the Republican map is a gerrymander.  I have no opinion of the popularity of the map in Minnesota. I will note that it simply is not a "gerrymander."

That is true of the old map and new map. Why does that mean one is a "gerrymander," and the other is not?




I dispute the factual basis of this assertion on your part.


The point of my position is maintain a respect for the Truth. There is an attempt here to redefine "gerrymandering" from what Gerry himself did, to any map passed by the majority party that wasn't incompetent["dummymander"]. In some cases majorities pass maps that are reasonable, and are among the more favorable to the majority than other reasonable maps, and at other times majorities pass unreasonable maps to favor themselves. Gerrymandering is the latter, not the former.


I have no doubt that the proposed Minnesota map is more favorable to the GOP than the current map. I understand why Democrats would oppose it, and/or wish that the governor veto it.   But, that fact that they don't like the map doesn't grant them a moral entitlement to lie about the map. It simply isn't an example of gerrymandering.

Excuse me? Whom should we believe, a career politician who drew the map, who has a stake in the process, who lives in suburban Hennepin County, and would say whatever needs to be said to defend her work, or a normal person who actually lives in northern Minnesota and is intimately familiar with the geography and culture of that region? Oh wait, that career politician is a Republican, so obviously everything she says must be the gospel truth. ::)

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/203030/ (http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/203030/)

http://drawthelinemidwest.org/minnesota/bemidji-pioneer-lets-find-a-better-method-of-redistricting/ (http://drawthelinemidwest.org/minnesota/bemidji-pioneer-lets-find-a-better-method-of-redistricting/)

Would you explain why we shouldn't prefer an elected politician who has stood for office, been elected, appointed by her peers to run the process, lives in the suburbs of Minneapolis, and has some undetermined proclivity to mendacity, and familiarity with the geography and cultures in Minnesota, over a some wantabe politician who hasn't been elected, lives in some county North of Minneapolis and has some undetermined tendency towards mendacity, and familiarity of the geography and culture of Minnesota?


We can go back and forth loading, and unloading smuggled premises. What even you can't defend
would be for some audience member in a redistricting hearing standing up and stating to Sarah Anderson, " Are you kidding me?  Again, don't comment on this if you don't understand Minnesota geography." I sure the members of the committee would look at him and say, "Who does that punk think he is?"

Just keep on a' pushin' the bar higher and higher, Bob!  Now you're just appealing to authority in the worst of ways.

Oh please! I understand that certain folks believe that sarcasm is an acceptable alternative to rational debate, but, it isn't. The fact is that you embarrassed yourself by directing such a punkish comment in response to a quote from one of the writers of the map. Surely, you would consider it basic fairness for the person whose map you attacked to be granted  the opportunity to explain the rationale behind the map.


At this point, it would behoove you to apologize for directing such a condescending, flippant and sarcastic remark towards Sarah Anderson's words. It certainly would be the well mannered thing for you to do. But, would it be political idiocy?


P.S. Apperently it was the royal "we," wasn't it?

Haha.  I take it you've never met Sarah Anderson, Bob.  I trust many of the people commenting in this thread to be less ignorant than Rep. Anderson.

I see you have chosen to be as childish in your comments as others have been  condescending and obnoxious. It reflects more on you than Sarah Anderson.

I'm having trouble understanding how the new map equalizes the population.  District 2 appears to have gotten bigger rather than smaller, and 4, 5, and 6 appear largely unchanged.  Did 6 lose St. Cloud?

Someone didn't get the memo that the court is probably going to try to minimize changes from the existing map, which it itself drew. So that is the default option, which means neither party is going to give the other something that would appear likely to be more than the other party would get from the court. Any cross party deal is going to have to be pretty close to the anticipated default option when it comes to partisan balance. And there you have it.

Obviously never going to happen, but I drew a Democratic gerrymander:

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The blue, green, purple, and yellow districts are all 59-39 Obama. The light purple district is 53-45 Obama. The teal district is 52-46 Obama. The grey district is 49-48 McCain. The red district is 57-41 McCain.

Back in January on this thread I speculated on a plan with minimal changes (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=127906.msg2784973#msg2784973). This assumed that the plan would be drawn again by the court. Since the Gov vetoed the GOP plan, I've updated my earlier map to reflect the actual 2010 populations. Drawn at the VTD (precinct) level, this map has a range of 99 and a maximum deviation of 56.

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Hard to argue with those maps Mike. In short, they are as boring as hell!  :P

I doubt it will happen. In the last map the Courts argued about the relevent merits of having an outstate district span either all of Southern Minnesota, all of Western Minnesota, or all of Northern Minnesota. The court claimed the facts pointed to the Southern span being the preferable partition.

To swap the South Western corner of Minnesota would reverse that decision.

Population trends in MN-07 vis a vis the balance of the state, and where the county lines are, makes that a tougher sell now, I would think. The 1st to get to the SW corner of the state would have to be a thin as a pencil.

As thin as a pencil along a major interstate highway, though - which is why I suspect the court decided a shorter district along the I-90 corridor at the southern border is preferable to a longer district along the western border along no such interstate highway corridor unless you cross the river/border into the Dakotas.

I know for some reason roads have primacy in CD determination, but, fwiw, when we had to memorize stuff about the ecology of Minnesota in middle school it was always the case that we'd always lump the entire western fringe of the state in the "prairie" biome, contrasting with deciduous forest (the Twin Cities) and coniferous forest (Up North).  See here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minnesota_Terrestrial_Biomes.jpg), for instance.  A western district would be different, sure, but not as bad as, say, a "northern" district, or, worse, the monstrosity of the Republican "middle-northern" district, because the northwestern corner and the southwestern corner have something in common (they are both "East Dakota").

Here's the version if the court insists on keeping the I-90 corridor intact. The range is 74 and the deviation is 38 using 2010 VTDs from DRA.

It pushes CD 7 right up to the outskirts of St Cloud. CD 3 would have to come into Carver to reduce the pop in CD 2. At that point it makes more sense to me to add some of Wright as well to bring CD 3 up to population. That leaves Coon Rapids going to CD 6 with the rest of its neighboring 'burbs.

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That was more of a preference than an imperative, and they were trying to wipe out the SW district when they went from a 4:4 plan to a 5:3 plan.  The nearest city to the 4 counties is Sioux Falls, and the drainage run towards the Missouri rather than the Mississippi.

Population equality is an imperative, and the switch is preferable to having the western district encroaching on St.Cloud, or a metro district extending so deeply into SE Minnesota.

The only reason to not do it, would be in anticipation of 2020, when Minnesota loses its 8th district and St.Cloud gets moved to the NW district.  But a Minnesota court would not base a decision on a presumption of declining representation.

Would a court implement a minimal change plan?  After all the 2000 map was a radical change.

By going north with MN-3, you are cutting off MN-6 and the direct route to St.Cloud.  MN-6 is more of a leftovers district, than a Northern Suburbs + St. Cloud.

What if MN-3 goes west into Carver County?  Folks in Chaska must think of themselves living west of Minneapolis rather than south.

Then bring MN-2 northward.  Whole counties (Dakota) is just as a good a rationale as demographics (aging industrial river ports (S. and W. St Paul).

And then MN-4 goes eastward.

So removing part of Carver and replacing it with the industrial areas south of St. Paul? While that's not impossible, I don't think Kline would be too fond of it.

What do the courts care about incumbents?

They don't, but the northern tip of Dakota including West St Paul and South St Paul are very much part of the St Paul community of interest. The rest of Dakota is primarily newer suburbs and would be viewed as a different COI.

They would be considered part of the St.Paul COI only if Ramsey County didn't have enough population for a CD.  Chaska must be similar to the western parts of Hennepin, and the inner suburbs are in CD-5.  If you are going to have a western, southern, and northern suburban district, then it makes sense for St.Paul to go east because you can't go into Wisconsin.

If there were a court challenge that there was an unreasonable number of county splits, a court might defer to a legislative rationale of keeping the St.Paul's together.

But if the court itself is drawing the map, they might not decide to draw the Minneapolis and St.Paul districts, and then the Hennepin and outstate districts, and then just throw CD-2 and CD-6 from what is left over.  They could take a more holistic approach.

My dream map, possible if the DFL had held the legislature:

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MN-01: Becomes a bit more DFL, picks up some marginal to lean DFL areas and sheds some heavily Republican areas in the west. 51.8% Obama, so if Walz ever made a surprise retirement, the DFL could be in trouble, but Walz is clearly safe here for awhile.
MN-02: Turned into a GOP uber-pack seat. The swing rural areas south of the metro are dropped, as are the swing middle suburbs in Dakota and Washington counties, and it picks up the rest of the exurbs and a few hardcore GOP rural counties. 56.9% McCain.
MN-03: Minneapolis split to share the wealth! This is now the west side of Minneapolis plus the southern half of Hennepin County (the east-west split will be explained later.) Paulsen won't enjoy his new 61.6% Obama district.
MN-04: I traded the northern half of Ramsey County for some middle suburbs taken from MN-02. Doesn't change the partisan makeup much actually, 63.5% Obama so it only marginally drops.
MN-05: The west half of Minneapolis plus the northern half of Hennepin. The split in Minneapolis is east/west specifically because of Keith Ellison, while he is no longer very controversial and most people have forgotten the attacks on him in 2006, I specifically drew it to remove all the voters who might be most prone to being "scared" by such things if the attacks came up again. So he gets western Minneapolis, aka blacks and hipsters, as opposed to the ethnic blue collar whites and middle class families in east Minneapolis. St. Louis Park was specifically put in MN-03 to lessen the Nation of Islam/false smears of anti-Semitism. 63% Obama, so he'll probably get in the high 50s with the GOP candidate around the mid-30s.
MN-06: This new monstrosity stretches from St. Cloud to Red Wing. Has the northern half of Ramsey County and almost all of Washington, and has lost most of the hardcore GOP exurbs. The district is still only 49.8% Obama, but that's enough to ensure Bachmann's defeat assuming she does run for re-election. Granted a saner Republican could certainly take it.
MN-07: Not changed much, Democrats would be in trouble if Peterson retired, but not much can be done about that. 50.4% McCain, making it very marginally more Republican, but Peterson will never be in trouble, nor would it be completely lost without him.
MN-08: Despite adding all of Bemidji I didn't change it that much. 53.4% Obama marginally pushes it in the DFL direction, but not much that can be done to strengthen it otherwise, and Cravaack is an obvious fluke as literally the only Republican to win that seat in the last decade for any office. He goes down in the next year that isn't a GOP wave.

So it's 7-1, though if both Peterson and Walz make a surprise retirement, Bachmann continues on her quixotic quest instead of running for re-election and the DFL nominate someone awful against Cravaack it could end up 5-3 in a best case scenario for them. But the 7-1 is far far more likely.

Admit it BRTD, the main thing you care about in MN is just putting Rice County in MN-1 right?  You should have studied harder and gone to Carleton College.  :)

Edited by an alum :)

I took a crack again at drawing a least change map that I thought made some sense, without looking at Muon's map above. I wonder if my variations from Muon2's map are due to different population numbers. I used Bradlee's 2010 election district numbers that are on his utility.

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And another chop between MN-03 and MN-06, which might make more sense:

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Either of those chops makes sense.

MOTHER OF ALL BUMPS!

The court will hand down the map in late february, of course.

Meanwhile, here's the parties' proposals to it, made in late november.

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/GOP-Congress.jpg (http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/GOP-Congress.jpg)

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/DFL-Congress.jpg (http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/DFL-Congress.jpg)

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/gop-metro.jpg (http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/gop-metro.jpg)

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/dfl-metro.jpg (http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/dfl-metro.jpg)

Both of these include a double whammy that any unbiased court should laugh out of itself, obviously. In the GOP map, obvious attempt to bolster accidental congressman is obvious. And they are seriously suggesting splitting Saint Cloud (the city, not just the area) down the middle. Also, North Mankato from Mankato. That 7th is really something. In the metro, the third expands outward to boost its R hold.

In the Dem map, all of Saint Cloud (the city) is put in the 8th instead of exurbifying territory further east, otherwise it's sane minimal change outstate. Even that makes sense, or would if all of the St Cloud area could be transferred. The ugly bits are all around the 5th district. Moving way more of Washington into the St Paul district than is necessary in order to sink Bachmann (though she'd be replaced with another crazy in that 6th), putting the southern inner suburbs of St Paul into the 3rd in order to nick it, with outer Hennepin transferred to the 2nd as a result.

Some downstate impressions first,

From my view of the map the DFL splits the city of St Cloud, too. Only the inner precincts from the Stearns side are in the 8th (the city sits in parts of three counties). They also put Cravaack in the 6th, to open the 8th and put pressure on Bachmann. It looks very similar to the tactics used by the Dems in the IL map.

On the GOP side MN 1 seems to follow the county line, but it actually splits through North Mankato. If it didn't it would be 7815 persons short. In the north they went with the cross state MN-8, which I liked for a 7 CD plan, but doesn't work as well for 8 CDs because it requires the St Cloud split. However, by going that direction they swap Cravaack and Peterson but make both districts much more secure.

The Dems did a butt ugly tri-chop of Hennepin it appears. Surely that dog won't hunt would it with a court? I don't see the Mankato chop myself.

Both parties would have done themselves more good with something more realistic. A court simply is not going to do a great northern CD on its own recognizance, unless it is a Pub controlled court, with a partisan bias. The Dem map appears to be a joke.

Lol, completely overlooked that. Where does Cravaack live, exactly?

On the GOP side MN 1 seems to follow the county line, but it actually splits through North Mankato. If it didn't it would be 7815 persons short.
[/quote]Well the county line splits the urban core anyways. Though not the official city of Mankato.

Eh, the DFL map is certainly fairly radical, but I find their MN-03 quite intriguing; it manages to throw together a bunch of functionally-equivalent suburbs, except for the random southern St. Paul suburbs that don't belong.  Plymouth and, say, Eagan probably have more in common with each other than Plymouth and Independence.  The real horror in their map is MN-04, of course, and to a lesser extent MN-06 (which should not reach to Goodhue County).

I'm honestly quite terrified of MN-03 in the GOP map, which I can't believe anyone would ever think is at all a logical thing to do.  Brooklyn Park with Hutchinson?  What?!  And, of course, their outstate hijinx.

It'll be interesting to see what the courts do.

That seems to be a big problem with the national parties. They would rather go for a max plan rather than one that can win. In states where they have the legislative majority that works, especially if the other side won't attack with an alternative that can win in court. It also works if the court decides that it doesn't want to draw its own as was the case in 1991 in IL where the GOP plan was adopted after the legislature failed to act.

But, if the court feels like it want alternatives, the party plans don't look good. In MN there were plans submitted through the public mapping process, and the court could certainly take one of those. This was the entry judged (http://www.drawminnesota.org/2011/11/citizens-can-draw-a-better-map-than-legislators/) to be the best though the population would need to be adjusted to make it exact.
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Well the county line splits the urban core anyways. Though not the official city of Mankato.
[/quote]

Cravaack lives in Chisago county (at least that's where he was from in 2010 during the election).

Ah, I remember that GOP map being posted earlier and the argument from BigSkyBob it was a completely logical map and not a gerrymander. Not going down that path again....

But anyway the GOP split the part of North Mankato alongside the river which is as DFL as Mankato proper into MN-01 and put the outer part of it which is standard Republican suburbia in MN-02. Which strikes me as kind of just an insult to the area and Walz, they still have St. Peter in Nicollet County, if you're going to split it why not just put North Mankato and St. Peter in MN-01 and keep just the rural area? And those rural areas to the west are hardly part of the community of interest with southern Minnesota, nor is tacking on McLeod to Hennepin suburbs. But we've had this discussion already.

The DFL map is pretty clever and caught a few things even I didn't think of, they made MN-01 a bit more DFL in a district that actually fits a community of interest better than the current map even if it doesn't look as nice and replaced Cravaack's home and base with St. Cloud. They also turned MN-02 into an outer suburb pack district and MN-03 into an inner suburban swing seat, and while it's kind of odd from a CoI standpoint makes sense partisan-wise, Paulsen loses much of his base in northern and western Hennepin County and has to deal with new areas just south of St. Paul that have no reason to like him. What verin described as a "real horror" in MN-04 is clearly a swipe at Bachmann since her home is drawn into the same district as St. Paul. Bachmann would have to move to somewhere in MN-06 and face a potential primary battle with Cravaack, Cravaack would have to choose between moving to somewhere else in MN-08 and trying to win in a more DFL district or staying where he is and face Bachmann in the MN-06 in a primary battle. Either way someone the DFL hates goes down.

You're right, the GOP submission is the same map that Dayton vetoed.

Well, I'm glad that Minnesota is not like Colorado and the courts are perfectly free to draw their own map. Though I guess the submitted maps would have been slightly more reasonable otherwise.

Inspired by the renewed interest in this thread and Lewis' fine map in WV, I decided to revisit my MN work of a year ago, but now use actual data.

Here are my criteria:

No counties outside the Twin City area were divided, and no split county is split between more than two districts.

One district is entirely within Hennepin.

Split counties (Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin and Washington) do not split any municipalities or townships.

The deviations by district are:
CD 1: -314
CD 2: +513
CD 3: +264
CD 4: -171
CD 5: +572
CD 6: -132
CD 7: -510
CD 8: -225

Here are maps for the whole state and the TC Metro.

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That's a very nice map, muon.  To the extent possible, I'd switch out the inner Hennepin suburbs for the Anoka suburbs to make MN-05 the Hennepin-only district, not MN-03, but I like it :)  Giving Woodbury and Cottage Grove to MN-04 is a bit unfortunate, but adding the northern suburbs of St. Paul gives the district an "intermediate" region.

Looks like trading out the Anoka bits in MN-05 for precinct W3 Brooklyn Park, New Hope, Crystal, Robbinsdale, Brooklyn Center, Golden Valley, St. Louis Park, Richfield, the airport, and Bloomington does the trick.  If you give up the "one district only in Hennepin" policy, you could also give Columbia Heights, Fridley, and Spring Lake Park back to MN-05 in exchange for Hopkins, New Hope, Crystal, and bits of St. Louis Park.

How do your proposed districts stand up to your partisan bias metrics?

Myself, I would tolerate some cuts if that means a better tying together of communities of interest. Thus MN-05 going farther north into Anoka, seems undesirable to me, even if it avoid a municipal cut. Life is a balancing test. No one factor should reign supreme.

I won't make too much of the fact that this map was "judged" by some people, based on some standard, to be the "best." Different people judging the same maps by different standards will come up with different winners. What I will note, however, is the utter incongruity of a map that links the Iron Range with the North Dakota border being judged the "best" with the high-handed lectured I was bombarded with to the effect that such a pairing was a gross foul and only an ignoramus, or, partisan hack, could justify such a pairing with a straight face.

Seems that strawman has been shown to be well stuffed!

That third district actually makes sense if you look at it without the rest of the districts, it's basically a southern string of immediate suburbs combined with a spike that obviously proves it was drawn with Terri Bonoff in mind. And it's 55% Obama and 52.6% Dem average, so Bonoff would definitely be heavily favored over Paulsen.

Torie might be right the 3-way Hennepin chop is ugly, but it also isn't entirely without reason, there's three distinct communities of interest in Hennepin that are seperated. The real problem and with the DFL's drawing of the third is the ugliness required in the other districts, like connecting northern Hennepin to Goodhue County or adding rural parts of Washington County in with St. Paul. But definitely more logical than many of those inane GOP chops. A court of course will likely just ignore both maps and simply modify the current one.

Here's the PVI's for my districts:
CD 1: R+1
CD 2: R+3
CD 3: D+1
CD 4: D+12
CD 5: D+19
CD 6: R+8
CD 7: R+6
CD 8: D+3

That's 2 Strong D, 1 Lean D, 2 Even, 1 Lean R and 2 Strong R. Not that one can tell in MN since the GOP holds two D+ seats and the Dems hold two R+ seats. In any case the PBI is -2.2% and the PBF is 0.03, much less than 8. With 2 even and 2 lean districts the SSF is 9, which is right on target for 8 districts.

That's because you are a sane mapper. :)

My thesis is that even an independent commission needs some constraints to check any internal biases. Minimizing county splits is one such constraint, and spliting larger counties before smaller ones so that split pieces represent a small fraction of the whole county is part of that rubric. I'm willing to bend, but there has to be a compelling reason not to obey it. Relying too heavily on the subjective parts of communities of interest is where trouble begins.

For example, my first iteration was to keep Washington intact in CD 4 and use parts of Anoka and Ramsey to complete CD 5. Ramsey was a larger county, so my preference was to split it before Washington. Since I still wanted intact munis, that led to a finger that shot up through Champlin to Anoka city and a nasty line across northern Ramsey to White Bear Lake. I decided that going to the next largest county for the split was compelling as it made a much cleaner and compact CD-5 at the expense of a slightly less compact CD-6.

I think I'd take the GOP metro map and merge it with the DFL outstate map.

Outstate this keeps the current general configuration.  An Iowa-border district looks nice, but the population is concentrated in the Rochester and other areas in the southeast.  A Dakota-border districts seems to be elongated, but it gives you a a pure agricultural district, and ties to Dakota cities (Fargo, Grand Forks, Sioux Falls).   The fact that interstate is in the Dakotas is not reason to reject it.  And it keeps the mining/recreation/port areas separate in the northeast.

In the metro area, this gives you a clear northern and southern district and then the horizontal stack of three districts, including the Minneapolis and St. Paul seats.

It also would probably be a better transition to the 7-seat plan in 2010, which will have to be a 4:3 plan with St. Cloud definitely outstate.

I think what you suggest is basically what I posted above. Do you see any reason why a judge wouldn't like it?

Not quite. The GOP map quite needlessly shores up the third by running it out into some German rural/exurban counties. Other than that though, yeah.

Ironically muon's map above is basically a mild DFL gerrymander, it drives MN-05 into some swing middle suburban areas and thus allows MN-03 to take in some heavily DFL inner suburbs and greatly weaken Paulsen, it shores up Walz a bit more by dumping the heavily GOP rural areas in the western part of the district even if it replaces them with lean GOP counties, and MN-02 is also made more DFL by expanding into the inner suburbs of St. Paul. Kind of similar to what the DFL probably would've proposed if a court had to pick either their map or the GOP one like in Colorado.

Hmm interesting. Due to the loss of Cottage Grove MN-02's PVI is virtually unchanged.

MN-03 though moves to 54% Obama and 51.4% DFL average, guaranteeing Paulsen's defeat in a wave year and making it very likely in even a merely good Democratic year.

The fact that those counties might be considered "rural/exurban" might be relevent. The fact that many of the folks there may be ethnically German is not.

I would try to keep the central stack from leaking into Anoka County (beyond the panhandle) which is the core of a northern suburban district, but maybe that really isn't possible.

You could move MN-5 further west, and MN-3 into Carver, MN-2 further south, MN-1 west and northwest, but I don't see how you get into MN-6.

If you take the 5 Metro districts from the GOP map and plop them on to the Democratic map, which areas are:

(1) In a Demo-map outstate district, but a GOP-map metro district.  (this will cause underpopulation of the outstate districts).

(2) In a Demo-map metro district, but a GOP-map outstate district.  (these areas will be unassigned).

The two classes will have equal population.  To create a compromise plan you either have to assign the areas in (2) to outstate districts; or shift them into a metro district, and shift equivalent amounts of metro districts out.

If you look at the northern 1/3 of Minnesota, there are 3 distinct communities of interest.  You have the farming areas of far western Minnesota.. which constitutes a narrower and narrower band hugging the ND border as you go north... the recreational/logging/tourism areas of north-central Minnesota (also where the bulk of the state's Ojibwe Indians live), and the mining/logging/wilderness recreation areas of northeastern MN.

The former and latter interests are both well represented in the 7th and 8th districts, respectively... but the 2nd, Bemidji's main interest, is split between both and poorly represented.  Jim Oberstar did represent those interests well with recreational trail funding... but outside of fishing and hunting, Colin Peterson couldn't care less about the hospitality industry or timber/forestry.

While a northern super district makes little sense... putting Bemidji in with St. Cloud makes even less sense.

I wouldn't mind extending the 8th district further west to about Fosston and keeping only the border counties with ND in the 7th down to Becker County.  Make up for this by putting more of Stearns County into the 7th (try to get as much of St. Cloud into it as you can, like how it was in the 90s).

This would lump most of the touristy lakes areas from Lake of the Woods to Bemidji to Walker and Brainerd into the 8th which would give whoever represents it two communities of interest (mining/logging and recreation/tourism) while keeping the 7th mostly agricultural (with the exception of Detroit Lakes and Alexandria... but both are so far west and south that it would impossible not to lump them into an ag district).

It also might let us take the southern portions out of the 8th district.. it's almost getting down into exurbs territory now.  The 1st, 7th, and 8th should remain completely outstate MN seats.

I think it's only a mild DFL gerrymander in the sense that they have strong candidates in Peterson and Walz that can hold districts that should trend GOP. Peterson in particular holds a district that should reliably be GOP.

I think if the DFL were really proposing something based on my map for the court, they would instead put all of Washington in MN-04 and put the northern part of Ramsey in MN-06. It's more compact with the same number of splits, though it is a more substantial change to the existing districts.

If it were the GOP basing their submission on my map, they wold do away with my requirement that one district be wholly in Hennepin, and just keep to a maximum of one split per county. Then  it turns out that Coon Rapids, Blaine, Lexington, and Spring Lake Park are almost the same population as Wright county, so they could be swapped in MN-06. Then MN-03 would transfer Brooklyn Park, New Hope, Golden Valley and St Louis Park which have the same population from as the aforementioned Anoka communities from MN-03 to MN-05. That bumps up MN-03 to about an R+2 from my D+1.

One thing that I really objected to in both submitted party maps was the split of St Cloud. There's no reason it shouldn't get the same deference to remain intact that the other major cities do. So keeping it together means keeping the Stearns/Benton/Sherburne tri-county region together. If you move all of that into MN-7, and respect the cores of the MN-4 and 5, then either MN 06 heads north and forces a cross state MN-8 or it wraps around the eastern edge with all of Washington, and MN-02 goes to Rochester.

The court will be releasing their maps tomorrow.

Technically the ruling was that until tomorrow, no deadlines of any kind had been missed, the legislature and governor could still theoretically pass a map of their own design even though they'd clearly stated they wouldn't, and the court thus could not act at all until tomorrow at the earliest.

But yeah, that does mean they'll release their map tomorrow.

More info is here (http://www.stillwatergazette.com/articles/2012/02/20/headlines/412sv_022212_redistrictingplans.txt); maps will be here (http://www.mncourts.gov/?page=4469).

Surely, the maps have been finalized. How could nothing have leaked?

That wouldn't be Minnesota Nice. :)

;D Outsiders just don't understand!

Lol, website crashes at 1pm CT on the dot.

Here we go.

http://www.mncourts.gov/Documents/0/Public/Court_Information_Office/Redistricting2011Final/Minnesota_Congressional_Districts_Statewide.pdf

Cravaack remains in the 8th. Saint Cloud remains in the sixth. None of Southern Washington County does. They found a compromise between extending the 7th to the southwest corner or not doing so - extending it almost to the southwest corner!

With changes. (http://www.mncourts.gov/Documents/0/Public/Court_Information_Office/Redistricting2011Final/Minnesota_Congressional_Districts_2012_and_2002_Comparison.pdf)
Metro (http://www.mncourts.gov/Documents/0/Public/Court_Information_Office/Redistricting2011Final/Minnesota_Congressional_Districts_2012_and_2002_Comparison_M.pdf)

Fun fact: 2002 map had 8 split counties and 7 split townships. The Republican map (apparently it exists in two marginally different versions) has 7 and 7. The DFL map, 7 and 10.
The new court map, 9 and 8.

So does Bachmann move, or just run for a district she doesn't live in, or lose to McCollum, or retire? Inquiring minds want to know.

I would say in general that this map is a positive for Democrats.
- Michelle Bachman was drawn out of the 6th and into the 4th . She'll have to move in order represent the majority of her previous district. I really hope she bullheadedly tries to run against Betty McCollum in the 4th and ends up losing by 15%.
- John Kline has a competitive district in the 2nd.
- Nothing else radically changes.

It is very possible that Democrats could come out of here with 6-2 advantage, with John Kline and Chip Cravaack losing.

Kline losing? Keep dreaming. There's a reason they put those South St Paul suburbs they removed from the fourth (a fact they glossed over in their order, btw) here and not in the 3rd, as the Dem proposal did. Because they would have made a difference there.
It's a 4-4 map, but with Peterson having proven he can hold a (marginally) false-party district seemingly forever, and Cravaack not having proven anything of the kind yet. And thus arguably a 5-3 map.
And one R incumbent has a problem, but that just opens opportunities for other Republicans.

So the followed my recommendation and extended 3 westward into Carver County, and moved the northern tip of Dakota into 2, clearly establishing 2 and 6 as northern and southern metro districts.

I think I would have put more of Rice in 2, and Wabasha and Goodhue in 2, but that is a minor quibble.  A quite excellent plan.

It also prepares for 2020 when 3, 5, 4 get merged into two districts, 2 and 6 take up the leftovers beginning with Washington, Anoka, and Carver, and parts of Ramsey and Hennepin as needed (eg St.Paul and Minneapolis in one district, and Hennepin in the other).

It will be a bit of a challenge for 8 to pick up enough population, but perhaps that Benton and Sherburne with continued growth in Chisago and Isanti will be enough.  If not, start peeling townships off on northern Anoka.

The remainder of Stearns and possibly Wright go to 7.

Agree.
No, I don't really think it'll go like that...

It is 50.5% Obama district now. You're probably right that Kline won't lose, but if he retires this district could be interesting. 

After 2012 if the Dems regain the state legislature could they pass their own plan?

I'd love to see some polling in the new 8th. Republican representation of the Iron Range viscerally upsets me way more than it should considering I have little personal connection to the area. It's like Republican representation of Youngstown or something. It's just symbolically upsetting.

I think it depends on the state. I know that in Wisconsin the constitution explicitly states that redistricting is only allowed to happen every 10 years. 

Agreed

Bachmann will still run in the 6th.  (Damn!)

http://www.startribune.com/politics/blogs/139836973.html (http://www.startribune.com/politics/blogs/139836973.html)

Unsurprising.  And she'll win the district handily.  I'd expect Cravaack to lose fairly easily though.  Erik Paulsen will have an easier time being re-elected and John Kline will still be safe.

It'll be interesting to see how the legislative districts work out.  My old district was 4a, now I'm in 5a, which is more DFL friendly... while 5b is much more DFL friendly than 4b was... dropping the Brainerd Lakes area (GOP friendly) and picking up the Grand Rapids area.

So chances are I'll go back to having both a DFL house rep and state senator this fall.

There are 5 metro districts which have slightly less than 5 districts worth of population. Eliminating a Republican metro district makes the most sense.

Unless of course the GOP has a trifecta; in which case putting both Twin Cities into 1 district and carefully cracking the interior suburbs works.

They have slightly less than 5/8 which is why they have to include St.Cloud.

But they have nowhere close to 5/7.  It is much closer to a bit more than 4/7.  So Chisago and Isanti will continue to be trimmed,  and perhaps Wright and Sherbourne.  Maybe the fringes of Carver, Scott, and Dakota get trimmed.

With 4 metro districts you can't have 3,5,4 in a stack and one wraparound district.  And shopping Hennepin 3 ways (between Minneapolis and a northern and southern suburban district doesn't make sense.  Because Minneapolis is larger than St. Paul, and you run out of room to the east, the center of the metro area keeps moving west.

First impressions:

-Bachmann running in the 4th against McCollum was never anything but wishful thinking, but if she did she would lose by a lot more than 15 points. Closer to double that. But even Bachmann isn't crazy enough to do that when she can just move a few miles north to be back in the district, which is unfortunately even more Republican now. Now the only non-staunchly Republican areas it has are the liberal part of St. Cloud and some swingy suburbs in lower Anoka like Blaine.

-So my workplace is in MN-2, ugh. I don't really like the idea of having to travel to a district represented by a Republican every day, though who knows I might have a new job before the vote is actually held...though really my workplace doesn't belong there, nor do towns with "St. Paul" in the name. It's almost like even the court couldn't resist an opportunity to spite Bachmann.

-Kline and Paulsen's districts are about equal in PVI now. Neither is likely to lose, but then again Kline has never had a serious challenger since he took office and doesn't really have a huge personal vote especially in the new areas, DFL should at least try to recruit here. At least moreso than against Paulsen, the main thing to consider is that Kline's new territory is far less Republican than Paulsen's.

-The split of Rice is kind of ugly, but it makes sense. Faribault always belonged in MN-1, it's a classic midwestern working class town that MN-1 is full of. Northfield (where ColinWixted is going to college now, unless he transferred), is basically just a college town tucked away on the fringe of the metro and would be just another exurb without the colleges. The two share a county but not much in common and aren't even in the same State Senate seat. Both are now in the right district. This helps Walz of course.

-The 8th doesn't change much which isn't surprising since no major changes were needed. Cravaack will lose unless the DFL messes things up badly since he hasn't done much anything to build goodwill or a personal vote, he notoriously started out opening only one constituent services office near his home and completely neglected Duluth which is basically the "capital" of the district, Oberstar whom he accused of being out of touch always had four offices (one in the exurbs, Duluth, Iron Range and rural western counties). He eventually opened one in Duluth after the backlash, and has been a lockstep GOP voter. BTW isn't Snowguy's home in the 8th now?

-Putting Brooklyn Center in with us may help Paulsen but it makes sense, and the only reason it wasn't done in 2002 was it would make the rest of the district kind of awkward. The split of Edina is kind of weird, but the area that was included in the 5th isn't "cake eater" territory anymore. My favorite mall is now in the 5th district. Under the old map I have been to four districts in the state this year (2, 3, 4 and 5), under the new one it's just 2, 4 and 5.

I've just eyeballed the legislative seats but it appears the changes so far are mostly just numerical, I noticed the Edina based House seat has shed some of its more Republican precincts which is bad news for the teabagger incumbent. Definitely no endangering of us retaking either house.

Splitting Hennepin 3 ways gives you a northern suburb district, a southern suburb district, a Hennepin/Minneapolis district, and a Ramsey/Washington district.

Population trends will determine whether the 75% Dem twin cities pack is even viable. No chance it happens unless both cities fit into 1 district, and they might not as they seem to have grown a bit over the past few years.
It also prepares for 2020 when 3, 5, 4 get merged into two districts, 2 and 6 take up the leftovers beginning with Washington, Anoka, and Carver, and parts of Ramsey and Hennepin as needed (eg St.Paul and Minneapolis in one district, and Hennepin in the other).

BRTD, the part of Rice that Waltz got went 51% McCain. Klein kept Northfield, which is where the Dems really live in Rice, hanging out in that academic college town. The county seat isn't that Dem.  It looks to me like MN-02 went about a point or two Dem, and MN-01 went the opposite way by somewhat less (the exchange of territory there is all about 51% McCain, so the move to the GOP would be limited to whatever increase in population it got). MN-08 and MN-07 get a tiny bit more Pub.

The 8th actually moves .2 more Democratic...it goes from 53.1/44.5 Obama to 53.2/44.4.

The 7th gets about tad more red; its 50.5/47.0 McCain from 50.1/47.4.

Yes, these changes are quite profound!

Yeah and the area that Walz lost to the west is more Republican than anything he gained. But I tried drawing this in DRA, and the partisan change to the first is basically statistically negligible. So Walz is fine, but we all already knew that anyway (it's not like major changes to the district were ever geographically possible anyway)

McCain carried that western salient by about 600 votes. But yes, the change is negligible.

And then you put St Cloud wholly into the 7th and the far northwest into the 8th, and trim the second's not-really-suburban edges into the 1st. Amend the southwest corner of the state as necessary.
This is, of course, assuming a court to draw the map in 2022.

Hmm, the maps look nice.  The Metro is well done.  At first I puzzled at some of the west metro splits, but then I saw that, say, yeah, the parts of Plymouth in SD 46 are indeed like St. Louis Park and Hopkins.  I'd put Wayzata in with 33B for sure, but I'd assume there was some population weirdness going on.

I suspect a Democratic map would not split Minneapolis in any case and there would still be a 2-2 metro.

That said, even if the GOP attempts the twin cities pack, you result in 3 ~49-52% districts. Bachmann of course would have to take the bulk of Ramsey County.

Maybe not.  My  map a couple of years ago was Minneapolis+St Paul plus the first tier north of St.Paul.  By 2020 it could be Minneapolis+Ramsey.

Here are the stats.  Everything gets more Pub except MN-02.

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It really illustrates the relative growth of the GOP suburbs compared to the rest of the state.

OK here's something I noticed about the legislative map: They actually put all of downtown in the same district and attached it to the residential area most connected to it. This seems like common sense, but the current map for some inexplicable reason carves up downtown and attaches pieces of it to locations with no direct connection like uptown, the north Minneapolis slums and even the University area. Sure not many people live in the actual downtown, but it doesn't make any sense to carve it up like that.

More commentary on legislative districts later once I get the time to check them out more...

I'm going to try to handicap all legislative seats to see what our odds are of taking back both chambers. I was kind of scared at first but realize it's not that difficult or time consuming after seeing how many seats "exurbs, Safe R" or "Twin Cities, safe DFL".

Will do the Senate first.

Maps:

http://www.mncourts.gov/Documents/0/Public/Court_Information_Office/Redistricting2011Final/Minnesota_State_Legislative_Districts_Statewide.pdf
http://www.mncourts.gov/Documents/0/Public/Court_Information_Office/Redistricting2011Final/Minnesota_State_Legislative_Districts_Metropolitan_Area.pdf

Senate:

1: LeRoy Stumpf should have no problem getting re-elected here, he won easily even in 2010 and the district doesn't change much, was barely Obama, still barely Obama. Safe DFL.
2: Kind of a weird seat, I don't know why there's an insistence Bemidji always needs to be separate from the Reservation. DFLer Rod Skoe lives here and goes from barely Obama to barely McCain, but he'd still be favored outside of a 2010 situation. Lean DFL.
3: Safe DFL seat, now includes Koochiching county, no big change. Tom Bakk should be fine here. Safe DFL.
4: The district based around Moorhead, which is basically Fargo's spillover into Minnesota. Pretty solidly DFL seat, now the non-Clay portion includes Norman County instead of the Republican counties to the south, so Keith Langseth should be fine. Safe DFL.
5: Snowguy's home seat, and the first one with a Republican incumbent. John Carlson won in 2010, but the seat is 51.5% Obama and 54% DFL average so it's tough territory for him outside a wave, especially since turnout in the DFL areas of this region sucked in 2010. Lean DFL.
6: The new seat for mining towns in northern St. Louis County, due to population loss goes into Aitkin now, no big deal. David Tomassoni should win this seat easily (by the way check his Wikipedia article if you want to see why Phil might be tempted to vote for him if he lived here.) Safe DFL.
7: Duluth. Roger Reinert runs and wins. Safe DFL.
8: This is a safe GOP seat, but includes two Republican incumbents, Gretchen Hoffman from Otter Tail County and Bill Ingebrigtsen from Alexandria. The latter might just run in the new 12 instead. Safe GOP regardless.
9: Even safer GOP seat, but incumbent. Maybe Ingebrigtsen would rather run here, it contains a few portions of his old seat but is far from Alexandria. Safe GOP no matter what.
10: Interesting district, used to have an outed gay Republican incumbent, was primaried in 2010 by the supposedly not interested in social issues Tea Party, now held by a far right winger with the old incumbent endorsing his DFL opponent. It's a conservative but not extremist district, about 52% McCain but some of the Republicans around Brainerd are kind of moderate, so we'll call it Lean GOP.
11: This seat gets a bit more Republican due to population loss forcing it into Kanabec, but 55% Obama is safe for this part of the world. Tony Lourey will hold it for another 10 years unless he retires. Safe DFL.
12: As far as I can tell, this seat is open. It's mostly DFL rural areas combined with parts of Stearns County, now making it a 52.7% McCain district. A DFL incumbent in the area passed away recently and a special election for the old district is going to be held, will probably be won by the DFL, the new incumbent might run here, but it'd have to be considered Lean GOP in any case.
13: Suburbs of St. Cloud and some old German towns, Safe GOP. Incumbent Michelle Fischbach, a known anti-abortion zealot should win here easily.
14: Thew new St. Cloud district. As usual, a swing one. 51.5% Obama and DFL percentage, GOP incumbent John Pederson. Tarryl Clark would probably be favored here but she's running for CD8 instead, but this one will be heavily fought. Toss Up.
15: Kind of succeeds the old 16th, held by Republican Dave Becker, he should win fine here again, even though this was actually a pickup in 2010 due to bizarre special election circumstances resulting in a huge upset for the DFL. Safe GOP.
16: Remnants of the old and vacant 20, so the winner of that special might run here, but incumbent Gary Dahms would be favored. Lean GOP.
17: Also includes remnants of the above mentioned and essentially dissolved seat. It's the most DFL of the seats, McCain won by half a point. Also the general area used to be represented by Dean Johnson even if he screwed himself to lose in 2006 of all years with that gaffe. Still not unwinnable, Lean GOP.
18: Safe GOP seat, safe for incumbent Scott Newman, Safe GOP.
19: My old home! The old district was considered kind of swingy due to Republican townships in Sibley County, the new one has lost those and is 56.3% Obama. So safe for Kathy Sheran though she didn't really need it. Safe DFL.
20: This is kind of an interesting seat, it combines ultra-liberal Northfield and some very conservative rural areas, its predecessor in the 25th was held by a longtime GOP incumbent who resigned in late 2007 to take a judicial position, a DFLer won the special and then lost in 2010. The new seat is very narrowly for Obama, won by about half a point, has a one point generic DFL advantage, VERY polarized. And to top it off the incumbent Al DeKruif doesn't even live here, though he no doubt will soon. Toss Up.
21: This is a very close district won by McCain by 0.2%, however the GOP incumbent John Howe is the former mayor of Red Wing and probably has quite a personal vote, so it'll take a wave to dislodge him most likely. Lean GOP.
22: The old Jim Vickerman seat which even had the same number, now takes in some more DFL areas. Vickerman retired in 2010 and his son ran for the seat but obviously no Democrat could've held that in 2010. The new seat isn't as extreme at 51.2% McCain, but would require a really strong candidate or a wave to beat Doug Magnus. Lean GOP.
23: Not a radically conservative seat (51.9% McCain), but the Republicans have a very strong incumbent in Julie Rosen. So safe until she retires. Safe GOP.
24: Extremist incumbent Mike Parry is retiring for a quixiotic campaign against Walz, despite that he was only first elected to the seat in early 2010 in a special election. I wonder if he was forced out by power brokers who wanted someone more electable running. Seat is 50.4% McCain but DFL incumbents hold both House seats even after 2010. Call it Lean GOP.
25: For all the recent gains the DFL have made in Rochester, we kind of get screwed by the way the courts insist of keeping it split between State Senate seats since all the surrounding areas are quite Republican. David Senjem should be re-elected here though I think it slightly moves to the left from his old seat, which used to contain all of Dodge county, the new seat is barely Obama but would require an open seat or a wave. Senjem is the current Majority Leader replacing the disgraced Koch. So Safe GOP.
26: Carla Nelson holds this seat, which is marginally more DFL, the closest seat to it pre-redistricting was DFL from 2006 until 2010, worth noting this district contains the blackest seat in outstate Minnesota and probably the only minority white non-Reservation precinct in outstate Minnesota (which is about evenly split between whites and Hispanics with about 15% of blacks). Toss up.
27: This seat is slightly more Republican than its successor, but Dan Sparks should have no trouble, it's still over 58% Obama and Sparks won over 60% even in 2010 even if he only won by like 12 votes in 2002 defeating a fluke GOP incumbent. Safe DFL.
28: This didn't change much if at all in redistricting, but incumbent Jeremy Miller is in big trouble. He won in 2010 with awful college student turnout across the state, including Winona. Gay marriage and Obama mean that probably won't happen this time, Miller voted for the gay marriage amendment too. And it's a 56.7% Obama seat. This is going to be the DFL's top target. Lean DFL.
29: The seat of disgraced former Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch who led the campaign against gay marriage only to be found to be having an affair with a staffer leading to her resignation from her position. She is standing down and not running again, but it's a safe seat regardless. Safe GOP.
30: This is a basically new seat out in the exurbs, open and safe. Safe GOP.
31: Another exurban seat home to incumbent Mike Jungbauer. Safe GOP.
32: The new seat for the home of Cravaack exurbs. Believe it or not this seat fell just in 2010, but is probably unwinnable back now. Sean Nienow should be fine. Safe GOP.
33: This seat keeps the same number, very Republican territory about Lake Minnetonka basically. Gen Olson has held this for three decades, even if she retires it's safe. Safe GOP.

To be continued....

34: New district for powerful Republican figure Warren Limmer, now more safe. BTW it looks kind of ugly on a map but makes sense to anyone who's driven on I-94. Safe GOP.
35: I think this seat is actually open. It's a pretty safe Republican district. Safe GOP.
36: This is a swing seat based off the old 47 that fell in 2010. Few changes, Benjamin Kruse will have a fight on his hands. Wonder if he'll flee to the 35th? Toss Up.
37: Pretty much the same. Pam Wolf is the incumbent, should be a competitive seat. Toss Up.
38: Incumbent Roger Chamberlain lives here, and he should be thankful that it is far more Republican than his old seat. Safe GOP.
39: This is actually the closest thing to Michele Bachmann's old seat. It's actually a bit more DFL than the old seat in fact due to the pulling out of Anoka County, but not enough to be truly competitive (won by McCain but he didn't break 50%), if it weren't for that the current incumbent Ray Vandeveer is as crazy as she is. Lean GOP.
40: Chris Eaton won the special election for this this year when the old incumbent died, and it's still a very safe seat. Safe DFL.
41: Barb Goodwin, the Democrat who ousted the old corrupt incumbent in this area should have no problem winning again. Safe DFL.
42: Normally this would be a reasonably safe DFL seat. However the incumbent John Marty is one of the most liberal members of the State Senate, he ran for Governor as the most liberal candidate with a platform based on gay marriage and single-payer health care. The seat has shifted a tad to the right. He probably still wins though. He could also run in the 66th but that would open a primary battle. Lean DFL.
43: Basically the old 55, incumbnet Chuck Wiger should win easily. Safe DFL.
44: The new seat of Terri Bonoff, who survived 2010 by the skin of her teeth. But if she hung on then, she should have no problem from now on. Safe DFL.
45: Democrat Ann Rest should keep winning here fine. Safe DFL.
46: This is basically the "Jew seat", so the lean is obvious. Ron Latz is safe. Safe DFL.
47: Julianne Ortman won this seat held by Pawlenty's Lt. Gov., safe GOP seat in heavily Republican Carver County. Safe GOP.
48: This is a 52% Obama seat, but the numbers in megachurch crowd-heavy Eden Prairie are pretty misleading, where lots of rich more secular Republicans freaked out over the stock market crash and Sarah Palin. Incumbent David Hann did a joke campaign for Governor in 2010 that went nowhere and he didn't put any real effort into (think Fred Thompson) which no doubt annoyed some people, and he won by a fairly unimpressive for 2010 margin, but the district is polarized. We'll call it Lean GOP for now, might be a true Toss Up by the end of the decade.
49: This is great news for the Democrats, the district is basically the old 41 held by Republican Geoff Michel forever. It's 54.7% Obama and has got more Dem each cycle, even though the Republicans currently hold both House seats, one is an almost certain goner (more on that later.) Michel should've held it easily regardless, but he just announced his retirement. Lean DFL.
50: No incumbent here, it most resembles the old 63 represented by Ken Kelash but he lives outside the boundaries. He might want to run here regardless. Otherwise the incumbent narrowly defeated in 2010 Jon Doll might want to do a return since his old Bloomington to Burnsville seat is now far more Republican. Safe DFL no matter what.
51: Resembles the old 38, a classic swing suburban seat that narrowly fell in 2010. Ted Daley will run again but he could lose a rematch. Toss Up.
52: This is a safe seat and is home to the DFL PPT James Metzen. He'll win easily. Safe DFL.
53: This is based around Woodbury, a very affluent suburb and swing area, Republican Ted Lillie represents the closest district in resemblance but he doesn't live in it. The seat is a bit more DFL anyway since it now goes to Maplewood instead of exurbs, so he'll have a tough time no matter what. Toss Up.
54: Basically the old 57, DFLer Katie Sieben barely survived 2010 but it's a Democratic seat, not every election will be 2010. Lean DFL.
55: Safe Republican district, Claire Robling holds it, will still do so. Safe Republican.
56: This is a former swing district, now barely competitive, Obama won it but by only 0.4% in an area he greatly overran. The incumbent is pretty conservative and unpleasant though (he's known for claiming that school integration destroyed Minneapolis back in April), so it's not quite safe, call it Lean R.
57: This district is a tad more swingy than you'd expect one this distance from the city centers to be, Apple Valley for whatever reason does have quite but the incumbent Chris Gerlach has never had much trouble, with him it's Safe R.
58: Exurban seat, no trouble for incumbent Dave Thompson, Safe R.

The rest are all Twin Cities seats, except 66 which is basically evenly split between part of St. Paul and some inner suburbs, and is a safe DFL seat regardless. So 56-67 are all Safe DFL. I'll just point out that at 87.9% Obama, mine remains the strongest DFL seat in the state. :)

More to come.

Wikipedia says Bonoff lives in Hopkins; the Minnesota Legislature says Minnetonka.  Are we sure what district she lives in?

I'd trust the legislative site before Wikipedia. Mind you she's not running the 46th anyway.

The MN Sec of State site does somewhere have a list of every candidate that filed for office in various years's filing report including their address, so this stuff can be confirmed.

Edit: Oh wait, the legislative site gives her actual address. Well then yeah that's definitely more reliable. I should go fix Wikipedia.

OK I see where the confusion comes from, her zip code is mostly Hopkins and Google Maps confuses her address for a Hopkins one. But her precinct is definitely Minnetonka. Yes I looked it up.

Never knew she was Jewish either. Probably not that surprising though considering she's not too far off from St. Louis Park.

I'll do more tomorrow after church when I got free time, but here's something of note, I got a fundraising email from the anti-gay marriage ban amendment group that was written by Rep. John Kriesel, one of four Republicans opposed, whose speech against the amendment went viral. He notes in it that he's also not seeking re-election to "spend more time with his family".

This is notable for a few reasons:

1-He probably didn't want to risk losing and ruining all his goodwill with liberal activists (I mean he was selected as man of the year by the magazine of Minneapolis' gay community.)
2-He only served one term, and is very young. So he might just be sick of the far right in his party.
3-His seat will be near impossible to hold without him, especially as the GOP will likely nominate some teabagger nut to replace him.

The third being the most relevant here.

OK I think I'll revive this soon, especially with my recent thoughts about assigning parliamentary seat style names (most likely Canadian-style) to all of them, which I find much easier in tracking them. For that though I think I'll create a new thread inviting others to do so for all states. This will actually help a ton since most seats have obvious predecessors but often the numbers are way different making tracking changes under the numbers a little difficult.

I will note that the DFL seems to have done a decent job with candidate recruitment in western Minnesota, and we might pick up some surprising seats, though I'll wait for the weekend to do a bit more in depth look into that.

Here is a map for 7 CD's in Minnesota using 2010 population figures this time, rather than projected 2020 figures, just to make it easy. If you really focus on erosity, trying to limit chops, but only doing so if it does not materially degrade erosity, or chop metro areas, my suspicion is that typically there will be but one or two maps really in the hunt in many states. Certainly, Minnesota seems to be one of them.
This map has 3 county chops (Anoka, Wright, and Hennepin), and no locality chops. The trick is to come up with the set of rules, that forces these kind of maps to be spit out of the black box.

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That seems like a less-than-insane map.  Though I wonder whether the courts, etc., might like the districts a bit more connected than that.  The Walz southern district has I-90, but the north and middle ones are a bit more random.

We seem to be generally in agreement on the map here. On my first look I got something quite similar. It would alter three of the districts to remove one chop. I'm not wild about two separate incursions into Anoka, but it seems to be better than the alternatives.

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(Chops 2; Range 5901, 0.78%)

On further inspection I wanted to see if I could reduce erosity and got the following map. I think it's less erose by any measure, but it adds a larger chop into the TC metro. Technically CD 1 already chopped into it in Sibley county, which many would not consider metro at all. However, an algorithm can't tell you where the Census doesn't mesh with ground observers.

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(Chops 2; Range 6866, 0.91%)

Torie, muon, can I have PVI's for the 7 district maps please?  (If you did and I didn't spot it, I apologize)

I've put in the 2012 results so I can use the updated PVIs. The changed values in my second map are in parentheses. Torie's CDs 1, 2, 4 and 5 are the same as my first map, and his CD 7 should be about a point stronger D making his CD 6 more R.

CD 1: R+2.6 (R+6.1)
CD 2: R+3.6 (R+0.3)
CD 3: R+2.8
CD 4: D+9.4
CD 5: D+18.1
CD 6: R+8.4
CD 7: D+1.3

One chop into the twin cities metro area (say to take Dakota), in exchange for "freeing" 3 more rural counties from metro domination, and less erosity, is a fair bargain, but having two CD's chop into the metro area is not in my view, and you have Scott and Carver bit off by a separate CD.

I think my "clean" chop into Wright, taking that portion that really is part of the metro area, in exchange for considerably less erosity in the north portion of the map, is a more than fair bargain myself.

I had a couple of more map potential iterations to consider (one where MN-04 nipped off Chisago, and Washington County was bifurcated (that chop is a negative; nasty county chops need to be scored as a negative in some way, so the black box seeks other alternatives if they are reasonably out there),  with MN-02 losing its three southern rural counties), but the program crashed. They may surface later if the stars are aligned right.

Again the point is to have a total point score, so all of these sometimes inconsistent considerations can be reasonably balanced off against one another by the black box. No one factor can be the dominatrix.

The point I'm trying to discern is how the black box should deal with metro areas. The only neutral definition I can count on is the one provided by the Census. The two southern CDs make exactly the same number of chops into the official metro area. But as I noted and we both did with our initial maps, some metro counties are more metro than others. A neutral procedure needs a clear set of facts to start with, and when our guts (which agree) are a mismatch to the initial facts we have a dilemma.

My solution would be to have the neutral engine produce more than one qualified map. That lets the commission select a proper map based on local sensibilities, like how truly part of a metro is any particular county. I think this was our understanding when we analyzed CA, and I think it is still a worthy goal. None of this prevents an overall score that can be used to judge plans from the qualified set, but I think that there is a useful, narrow role for local input that should not be eliminated.

On the subject of my CD 3 I would note that Isanti is also officially in the metro area, though we would agree it is there as a rural exurb like Le Sueur or Sibley. I would also contend that the relatively small increase in erosity for CD 3 is offset by a substantial decrease in erosity for CD 6 by most any measure. That plus the chop reduction make it worth consideration.

Maybe the way to parse this is that using the Census definition as a safe harbor, but if its chopped, no negative points, if the carve out is a low density area, and the metro area just sucks up low density areas of counties that are rural, or whole counties with low density, like Sibley, if the Census counts that. The computer should be able to have density data loaded into its data bank.

I consider our respective MN-06's to be close in erosity measures - but then I like rectangles rather than irregular shapes, and your MN-07 is more erose. Both maps should get high scores, and I agree that where they are out there for the black box to generate, it is good to have more than one map to consider, provided the vetting process is not gameable, because the pros have some say in the process. I don't like these so called non partisan commissions. They have tended to be relative flops so far.

Anyway, here are a couple of other three choppers that might be in the hunt, although the Pubs might nix the first one. The first map has the Sherburne conundrum, the county that takes a bite out of both the St. Cloud and Twin Cities metro areas, so one metro area or the other will be chopped. Most prefer that it be in the St. Cloud zone, because St. Cloud crosses the river into it with about 3 precincts, I understand. But that alone should not be a deal killer.

Muon2 and I seem to both be viewing county trichops as a negative, even if the total chop count is unchanged it appears. That is another factor to consider whether or not it should have separate weight.

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Most compactness measures would rate my CD 7 almost as compact as yours, and my erosity is based on a diagonal line rather than an east-west axis. I'll grant that my CD 7 is slightly more erose, but I can't see a methodology that glues itself to NSEW lines, there are too many irregular counties, even in MN. OTOH by any measure my CD 6 is much more compact than yours, that's true if it's based on circles (like MI), squares (like IA), perimeter, or counting counties that touch across the boundary.

If your preferred shape is rectangular and not square, then what prevents a long thin line of single counties from counting as an ideal district? It may not be erose, but it would not pass my sense of a compact shape. I don't find fajita strips attractive as a redistricting plan. Furthermore without a consideration of both dimensions of a shape, constructing an algorithm is challenging. I sense that you want to maximize the occurrence of straight lines on the perimeter and that the actual perimeter conforms to those ideal straight lines. That is a non-trivial test, and it only gets worse when boundaries have to conform to shapes like rivers. The Minnesota River is a good example here that's as worthy to use as a boundary as would be a metro area, with the exception at Mankato due to its metro area.

As for density, it is not commonly part of redistricting software, though it could be constructed in a general GIS framework. I want a tool that I can program on existing platforms, preferably one that could be used to get public input, too. How else are we to test whether or not a set of value-based criteria achieves the desired goal?

Oh, if county lines are irregular, than you can't draw perfect rectangles (and I haven't drawn perfect rectangles, just some reasonable facsimile thereof), and a long thin rectangle is not good either (and I don't do that either - well MN-01 sort of is, but that CD tends to be bit of a pain in the butt due to population and geography issues (e.g., both of us would rather lose our package then have a non metro chop in MN, and to avoid that for MN-01, the options narrow down, simply because the little counties don't have quite the right population numbers to get something less erose not using a metro county, but without a chop; we both drew maps that make MN-01 more compact, but at the cost of nipping off a metro county )).

Anyway,  the computer program if well done will "fairly" score out the balance. Back, and back again, and yet again,  we come to that irksome balancing test. You're the brain, and I'm the trouble maker - figure out a magic formula to get the balancing test right, so it meets the I know it when I see it (excessive erosity vis a vis the alternatives) test.

The density issue can be put into the software, and the software will tell you where the zone is, that can either be part of metro CD's or no, without penalty. There are not enough folks in the grey zone, to make that much of a partisan difference, and if it does, and skews the partisan profile, then one party or the other will nix that map. But most times, neither party will care that much about that particular issue, nor will the residents. So if having a grey zone, helps with compactness, while not allowing making metro areas a free fire zone, then life is beautiful.

Anyway, below is a three chop map that is just gloriously relatively compact, and keeps the metro area as tight a drum almost, but has that trichop of Hennepin (2 chops for Hennepin, and one for Anoka).  This issue needs to be resolved.

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Your latest offering convinces me that density as a scored factor is the wrong way to go. Sibley, Le Sueur, Isanti, and Chisago are all low density counties in the TC metro. Wright is a medium density county along with Sherburne, Scott and Carver. But my classification is somewhat subjective based on relative populations.

Our various offerings tend to be loosest with the low density, and willing to give on mid-density like Wright since the TC metro has the population for about 4 1/4 of 7 districts (it may be 4 1/2 by 2020). In principle there should be no preference as to whether Wright or any of the other mid-densities split out. That leads me to more firmly believe that the metro split factor is one the final selection commission (or whomever) should consider among competing finalist plans.

On a related note, it will be helpful if you quote the population range between largest and smallest in your plans. Scoring that will be a component since the courts will want to know that population range is minimized given other scored factors. I'm working on a simple score that will allow the degree of equality to be directly compared to the chop count.

Edit: I've added chop and range measures to my two plans.

The chop of Wright out of the metro CD's is negative in my map. I don't pretend otherwise. However, if a metro chop generates enough positive points otherwise, it may be worth it. Such a chop is needed to get the erosity of MN-06 or MN-01, or both, down. But to ignore the factor entirely I think is a mistake. It might exclude otherwise worthy maps, or include unworthy ones, for consideration. Wright is one county by the way, where part of it per density factors, is in the metro area, and part is not. So chopping it in the right place (as my first map did), would remove it from counting as a metro chop. Severing off Isanti and Chisago should not count as metro chops at all, nor should their inclusion in metro CD's be viewed as a negative either. Those two counties swing both ways as it were. They and western Wright are in the grey zone. Ditto south Sherburne.

I don't consider something closer to exact equality superior to something less exact, provided the 1/2% rule is hewed to. Using the pad, helps to reduce erosity, keep municipalities together, have straighter lines in county chops and so forth. Having free rein to move around 6,000 folks or so between CD's is the reason why that I suspect none of our maps has any locality chops. And it will generate more reasonable maps from which to choose, without having much if any partisan effect. The computer should have that flexibility. I don't consider having something closer to exact population equality as much of a public policy goal at all. Each and every other consideration out there is more important than that to me.

And we still have the trichop issue that you did not address in your above post, which was the primary reason I put up the latest map!  :)

The Wright issue doesn't bother me since at least 1/4 of a district in the metro area must link to areas outside the metro. It could be Wright or any of the other mid-density counties, but at least one must shift outside the metro.

I didn't address the trichop since it is three chops like your first map. On chops I would treat them equally.

I also passed on the request since the range does matter. The court in Tennant made it clear that the equality relaxation only applied when other rules were tightly applied. We have chops (county and metro) and erosity as measures we must address. If I can make a map that maintains those measures compared to a given plan and has a smaller range, then it must supersede that given plan. That's why a solid erosity measure becomes vital, and eyes alone are not sufficient.

To illiustrate let me put forward the following map. It has two chops (Hennepin and Anoka), no town splits in the chops and the range is only 888 (0.12%). It keeps the metro area together except for Wright and Sherburne which is not unlike your first offering. It is consistent with what the IA compactness rules would require given the order of magnitude improvement in population equality. My road connection erosity method is designed to weigh against it, but you seem to have soured on that method.

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Yes, your map above is a fail on the erosity measure. It's close to hideous actually (for example you took the weakest part of one of my maps (the elongated MN-02), and just stretched it out some more, and out of the metro area entirely into Pine County (not sure how you did that, since all you lost was a small chop into Ramsey, but whatever, and if that is what it takes to avoid a chop, it's just not worth it - that balancing thing again). Sure if two maps get an equal score, the one with less of a deviation in populations is better no doubt. But such equal scoring is a hypothetical that probably will not occur. If a variation will smooth out a line, or reduce erosity, I'm for it. You seem more interested in chop counts, and road connections, than erosity per se, or smooth lines for that matter. On that one, we are just not on the same page at all. You are just not into visual tests;  I am, that is what folks actually see. Sure you need an algorithm to score erosity, that is compatible with the eye test, and so far, we are not making much progress in generating one - at least one that pleases me. That just does not seem to be your focus.

In any event, a black box generating population deviations following factors that have a reasonable basis, will be just fine with the courts. On that much, I am confident.

Anyway, for what map, or maps, do you want my deviations for?  I guess you have a right to do your own thing, of course, even if I think it is largely a red herring. You don't, so that is that.

Let me try to sway you again why I think my method suits your needs. Note that the IA system would not, nor does MI for it's measure of chops. Both allow for the kind of erosity you do not favor.

To illustrate, I'll simplify my method by taking a larger set that's easier to visualize. We'll just count counties segments that form borders between two counties and are on the perimeter of a district. Each separate chop into a county is treated as a county. My stricter rule using roads does not change the relative results.

Let's look at your map with the Washington-Dakota district:

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It has three chops and here's my simplified erosity count:
CD 1 (SE) 17 (two touches with Hennepin from chops and a bit from Watonwan-Jackson, which is why my refinement is in place)
CD 2 (Dakota-Washington) 15 (the chop in Ramsey has two touches to the other part of Ramsey and to Anoka)
CD 3 (West metro) 15
CD 4 (St Paul) 12
CD 5 (Mpls) 7
CD 6 (SW) 28
CD 7 (N) 14 (point contiguity at 4 corners does not count)

The total divided by two (since each border segment counted twice above) is 54.
BTW it looks like there are some red spots in Mille Lacs and Wadena that would throw off your populations.

Now lets look at my evil, erose, but I assume more equal map:

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CD 1: 16
CD 2: 15
CD 3: 17 (including Hennepin-Ramsey along the river)
CD 4: 11 (Columbia Heights and Coon Rapids make up the Anoka chop and touch Ramsey)
CD 5: 7 (including Sherburne-Hennepin)
CD 6: 37
CD 7: 19
total/2 = 61
The ugly shape of CD 6 was especially costly here, as I think you would agree it should be. The simple erosity test allows your map to pass to the reviewers along with this more equal, fewer chop map. The reviewers can then reject the ugly map for all the reasons you cite. Isn't that what you want?


That might be true if the black box generated only one map. I think we concluded in CA that a single solution would often offend local sensibilities, and we needed a way out of the box. Thus my attempt to generate a set of qualifying maps. Once that happens population deviation cannot be ignored as I read the decision from WV. The plaintiffs had a set of examples that were whole county (0 chop) and within 1% range and the court agreed that population range would then select the best. WV prevailed because they had two parameters (whole county and minimum population shifts) that produced only one solution. If erosity is a simple whole number formula that can be compared to the chop count then ties in the result are going to happen. Thus one must be prepared to have the population figure as well.

I personally would go further and allow the reviewers to consider more chopped or erose plans that provided better population equality and let them decide. That's why the criteria need scoring values so that the trade off can be judged. But perhaps we disagree on that point.

Well we agree on a point system. If population inequalities don't generate more points, it would be hard to defend. But if it does, it's OK by me. Then the deciders based on some strike system can pick one of the high scoring maps. I would be amazed if a court rejected a high scoring map with a slightly higher population deviation than another map with less population deviation given such a process. And obviously this fact pattern has not been before the courts. The point is, is that given one approach to a map, if the population inequality is a point generator and thus has a legitimate reason, for the court to reject that in favor of a another approach picked by the deciders from an array of black box generated maps, would be court intermeddling at its worst, and I just don't see that happening. So on that aspect, we just disagree absolutely.

Surely you don't think the court would pick a plan  with less population inequality but with a higher score, than a map with lower population inequality do you? That would be insane. I guess what I really disagree with most, is giving points to a map with less population inequality, so that map gets pushed ahead even though otherwise inferior. That really offends me.

So we agree that geographic measures for chops and erosity should be based on a point system. And I think we agree that if a map scores equal in on erosity but worse on chops or equal on erosity but worse on chops it should discarded.

I think you may also willing to see a point system for population inequality. One role it can play is to show when the population inequality in two different plans is functionally the same even if the exact values are not the same. Another role it can play is to differentiate between two plans that have the same geographic measures. I hope you would agree that in this case the plan with greater inequality should be discarded. This is the case that I think the court would be sensitive to.

Where I believe we disagree is in a case where two plans have dissimilar geographic scores. I'm willing to consider a trade off of geographic quality for population equality. I read your text as saying that you would not be willing to make that trade. I don't think that the court would force the hand in this case, since through a point scale I can show why geographic quality might trump population inequality.

On your panel I sense that population inequality would serve only as a threshold and tie breaker, where my panel sees it as something to trade, not unlike a trade of chops for reduced erosity. Is there a reason I shouldn't want to look at the population trade, or is this just a matter of taste?

Your most recent maps make angels cry, muon.

And that's of course my point. :) You can't establish what you want to be good without identifying what is bad. Just looking at a metro area can result in links like the Dakota-St Croix combo, and if the focus is just on the metro, look what happens to adjacent non-metro areas. Local sensibilities are going to come in eventually so one challenge is determining the point when rules stop and local control starts.

You may recall I grew up in the Twin Cities, so I can push to see what neutral rules could do that offend local sensibility.

Any thoughts what the DFL would draw if they have total control in 2020?

That probably depends on whether they want to violate the usual sensibilities by linking Mpls to outer suburbs. The public has not looked highly on those type of games in MN. Minnesota nice and all.

No one except partisans cares enough about gerrymandering to take it out on the offending party, ever.

Oh nothing is absolute I suppose Muon2. But any system that allows a "discernible" amount of additional erosity for slightly more population equality, or forces a significant amount of additional erosity to avoid a chop, I think is flawed. We don't want to get a map from Dakota to Pine as being on the top of the heap absent highly unusual circumstances. I want erosity to have the most weight, chops next, with population at the bottom of the list.  How do you count population inequality? The sum of the amount of population of all the CD's that is above or below the perfect number?

I keep trying to focus on the practical, while I think you are trying to focus on the perfect, and what comes out leaves the madding crowd unhappy.

In your analysis of my map, were using that road chop thing again, that I can't understand very well, and I don't think you have sold anybody on? If we are going to generate more erosity to avoid road cuts, we are in trouble. (I did say I might be willing to count as a chop appending a county that has no state highway link to the balance of a CD.)

Yes, but members of political parties are residents of their state, too.  Given Minnesotans' very limited experience with single-party control of government, anything could happen, including a coalition of Republicans and "Good Government" Democrats trying to force through a decent map.

My analysis of your map used a much simpler measure that usually gets the same ranking of two maps. Roads aren't considered at all for this measure.

Each county in the district counted the number of counties it bordered in other districts. Chopped counties count as separate counties for this measure. Add that up for all the counties in the district and you have the total I listed. Add up all the the districts and divide by two to get the total.

For example CD 1 in your map I counted 17 as follows:
Faribault (1): Martin
Blue Earth (3): Martin, Brown, Nicollet
Watonwan (4): Martin, Jackson, Cottonwood, Brown
Le Sueur (2): Nicollet, Sibley
Scott (5): Sibley, Carver, Hennepin W, Hennepin E, Dakota
Rice (1): Dakota
Goodhue (1): Dakota

The method is functionally like measuring the perimeter which is a good test for erosity. The use of roads is introduced to remove contiguous stretches like Watonwan-Jackson that have no convenient means for travel between. Its advantage over a perimeter measure is that it is immune to wiggly borders due to rivers and it gives a simple count that anyone readily compare when considering how chops affect erosity.

Ah, Mike, below are two map options for the state of Atlasia. Each color represents a county. It has two CD's. Roads connect everything. Which map is more erose - the top one or the bottom one?

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Top obviously, not that bottom is great.

Your point being that it is technically possible to construct fantasy examples where the number of such county/district border matches is not just slightly but very much off?

Yes, probably for Midwest grid county arrangements, of roughly the same size, and lined up, Mike's little system is a pretty good proxy. But it can go seriously wrong, with odder shaped counties (the specific problem being you get screwed if a big county borders a bunch of little ones in another CD, as opposed to another big county, even though it may have no impact on erosity whatsoever, except in Mike's world :) ). I would rather avoid proxies, and go for the real deal, which relates to perimeter lengths, and how much of a CD fits into a perfect square. Fitting into circles isn't great, because God made most counties into rectangles, not circles.

The results should probably hold up anywhere east of the Great American Desert. ;)

What you ask for already exists. It is the statutory system for IA and is designed to make districts as square as possible within the constraint of population equality and maintaining political subdivisions. I've seen no effective suggestions of a way to improve it without going to the circle-based methods or even more complex algorithms that combine circles and blockwise density values. That's not to say it doesn't have detractors.

This is the relevant statute:

Note that there are two tests involved and both are relevant with neither given explicit priority though I would note that IA plans seem to favor point 4a when the two are in confict. That would be consistent with the goal of getting square districts. It also would be the priority if a state had more counties with irregular boundaries as we see comparing MN to IA. By the way hexagonal in this context is the shape that results from three rows of staggered squares.

Let's apply the IA regimen to your examples. I will assume that the brown L-shaped county and pale strip county have the same population so that swapping them does not change any population inequality measures. I will also set your grid to 1 mile, so that the smallest county is 1 mile by 1 mile. I'll call the district that includes the NE-most county CD1 and the other CD2.


First plan:
test 4a: CD1 NS=4 mi, EW=7 mi, diff=3 mi; CD2 NS=6 mi, EW=10 mi, diff=4 mi; total=7 mi.
test 4b: CD1 perimeter = 24 mi; CD2 perimeter = 40 mi; total = 64 mi.

Second plan:
test 4a: CD1 NS=6 mi, EW=10 mi, diff=4 mi; CD2 NS=3 mi, EW=8 mi, diff=5 mi; total=9 mi.
test 4b: CD1 perimeter = 32 mi; CD2 perimeter = 22 mi; total = 54 mi.

Using the gold standard of square box redistricting from IA I could as easily choose the first plan as the second, and often would. I suspect that is not the answer you want from a system. This is a problem with synthetic examples - they tend to bollix up multiple systems. Any of the systems we discuss for redistricting is a proxy designed to use pure geography to get at communities of interest, with the idea that convenience of distance relative to all points in a district will reflect that goal. County integrity and erosity both fall into that category.

I will try to parse through you post Mike, but in the meantime, it is true is it not, that your system counts the more erose plan vis a vis anyone's common sense, as in fact considerably less erose?  We need to peel back the layers on the onion one at a time.

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I wrote a really long explanation which was lost.

Anyhow, the colored areas are the central counties of the larger metropolitan areas (more than 10% of a congressional district), exluding the Minnesota portions of the Fargo, Grand Forks, and La Crosse metro areas.  Central counties are defined based on the presence of urban areas, densely, continuously populated areas.

Summary: Central counties are a better measure of metropolitan areas for redistricting purposes, and provide a measure for preferred shedding counties, the percentage of the county population within the core urbanized area:

Ramsey 100%
Hennepin 98%
Dakota 89%
Anoka 85%
Washington 78%
Scott 68%
Carver 61%
Wright 27%
Sherburne 22%

Clearly the latter two are peripheral with the Urbanized Area reaching the two along I-94 and US 52 up the Mississippi rather than more general spillover.

The outlying counties of Le Sueur, Sibley, Mille Lacs, Isanti, Chisago, St Croix (Wisc.), and Pierce (Wisc.) are included on the basis of commuting patterns, which may simply reflect the relatively dearth of non-agricultural jobs in rural counties.  And while Sibley and Mille Lacs are included, Rice is not, because Faribault does provide a source of jobs.

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This map confirms that a 4-3 map should be drawn.

Possible configurations:

A) 4-1-2

1) St. Cloud-Outer Metro North, Chisago, Isanti, Benton, Stearns, Benton, Sherburne, and Wright, plus areas to the north and west.  The metro area is shifted south to include Goodhue, Rice, and Le Sueur.
2) Duluth-Grand Forks- Fargo, and coming way south past the the Minnesota River.
3) Southern Minnesota, La Crosse to Sioux Falls, anchored in Rochester and Mankato.

B) 4-3

1) Duluth-Northern Exurbs-St.Cloud
2) Western Minnesota - Manitoba to Iowa, with a somewhat irregular border.
3) Southeastern Minnesota.

C) 4-3

1) Duluth-Northern Exutbs and points west.
2) St. Cloud to southwest corner.
3) Southeastern Minnesota.

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ps Can anyone get the minor civil division estimates for 2011 or 2012 for Lake of the Woods, Hennepin, and Koochiching counties.  I noticed Lake of the Woods first, and thought maybe there was something odd about the county, but then I found the other two as well.  Either the Census Bureau doesn't have the data, or their is some weird interaction  with my browser.

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It happens that it may be possible to make districts largely out of whole counties in the Metro area.   Ramsey+Washington, Hennepin+Anoka (2), with northern and western Hennepin with Anoka.   Dakota+Scott+Carver+Wright.

If a Minneapolis-St.Paul district is created, then a chop of Ramsey would be needed: Anoka+Washington+Northern Ramsey.  The district wholly in Hennepin then would be the suburbs.

My post is to point out that what your eye sees as more erose is not necessarily so when measured by known algorithms designed to promote square districts. That my novel technique (from an idea by jimrtex) also classifies them in a similar way does not indicate a weakness in my system. It points out what is well known - it is hard to bias against C-shaped districts in favor of L-shaped ones without creating all sorts of other problems.

The thought behind my method is anything but pursuing the perfect. It is in recognition of the weaknesses of more detailed algorithms that I went for a KISS approach. I'm willing to preserve that same weakness in the name of a simpler method. It's one that anyone with Google maps can check. Your examples illustrate how simple the method is. The only part that I need to tune in my method is how to measure erosity in chopped counties. That's a task I'm actively pursuing.

I guess I will accept that deflection of my question as an admission. Thank you. In any event, it is not just my eye, it's almost everyone's eye (you, you math/physicist person happiest when caressing the supercollider like a pedigree dog,  just see the beauty of the algorithm as overshadowing the bestial veneer, when maps are all about two dimensional veneers. Can you detail in a clear way, just why any cure to get the box to match the eye, is a fool's errand, with the cure worse than the disease?

The simple example is C vs L. Consider a 3 by 3 grid of square counties and denote them A,B,C in row 1, D,E,F in row 2, and G,H,I in row three. To the average eye, a district that contains all but counties E and F looks suspicious. It's a C-shape and one wonders why the peninsula is sticks in in such a way, could it be gerrymandering? IA even has a special rule to deal with that type of shape and bans it since C and I are entirely separated by F which would be in another district, but that doesn't help in your given example. Note that this hypothetical district has 7/9 of the smallest square that contains the district.

Now picture a district that has A,B,C,D, and G. It forms an L shape that seems less erose than my first example, but it only covers 5/9 of the smallest enclosing square. That means it won't score as less erose using a covering square as the system. On a N-S/E-W measure it is only equal to the C-shape I first described, so that won't help.

So why not look at the perimeter alone. The C-shape has a perimeter of 16 and the L-shape only 12. That can work for those two districts, but consider a chop of one county into a C-shape. The dimensions are reduced by a factor of 3 so its perimeter looks good compared to the L-shape. Perimeter measurements alone tend to favor good looking large districts at the expenses of potentially strange-looking small districts.

There are more complex measurements involving the ratio of the square of the perimeter to the area, and they work well when everything is square blocks like IA. Once you go to irregular counties like those along the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers in MN, or most of the counties in a state like TN then this method starts to penalize districts that follow the natural lines that form the counties. I was able to game that rule in the 2009 OH competition by avoiding districts that followed those natural lines. If natural boundaries should have meaning then this is not a good solution either.

My conclusion was that by simplifying the measurement of erosity it actually becomes harder to game the system. It helps prevent gaming simply by providing fewer knobs to play with.

I agree on the general idea, but my plan seems a bit of a hybrid. Ignoring Isanti as a tool to equalize population, it looks like I have something like A, but a bit of C where I attach some of the exurban north metro to the Duluth district. That keeps the Duluth district in the north and St Cloud away from the SE. Here would be my revised A:

D) 4-1-2

1) St. Cloud-Outer Metro North West: Stearns, Benton, Sherburne, and Wright, plus areas to the west including Fargo.  The metro area is shifted south to include Goodhue, Rice, and Le Sueur.
2) Northern Minnesota: Duluth to Grand Forks including the northern exurbs.
3) Southern Minnesota: La Crosse to Sioux Falls, anchored in Rochester and Mankato.

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I rather like this.   The 4 metro districts total 4.007.  If you want to equalize a bit more, trim a tiny bit off Anoka (say, Linwood).

You have the cut of Hennepin, and then have to take about 25,000 from the south. 

Some possibilities include

a) Chanhassen, though I don't like splitting it from Chaska.

b) South St. Paul or West St. Paul, with a shift through Ramsey or Washington.

c) Hasting, with a shift through Ramsey or Washington.  I think I prefer Hastings since it is somewhat isolated from most of Dakota, and does cross the Mississippi.

I think that the split of the Red River will be a hard sale.

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This preserves the northern Red River/Iron Range-Great Lakes split.  I think a swap of St.Cloud for Brainerd and Bemidji might be better.

McLeod and LeSueur were swapped to give the Metro districts 4.001.  Reversing the swap, the Metro districts need about 7000 persons.   An alternative would be to take a little bit from Sherburne, Isanti, or Chisago.

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This version exchanges St.Cloud for Brainerd and Bemidji.  Like the previous version this will require about 27,000 persons shifted from Sherburne to the metro area.

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The previous version, Plan B2, shows that a St.Cloud-South West district stretches North to the Canadian border.  To have a northern district, it has to be pushed out of the Metro exurbs.  This map shifts Sherburne to the St.Cloud-Southwest, but the northern district divides Fargo and Grand Forks.

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This version takes the St.Cloud-Southwest district across the northern exurbs, and creates a northern district north of Duluth-Brainerd-Fargo.   It is the same as in Plan A.  About 27,000 persons will be shifted from Sherburne, Isanti, or Chisago to the metro districts.

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This shifts Wright to the St.Cloud-Southwest district.  I think this is the best configuration for such a district, avoiding going north to Fargo, or east to Wisconsin.  To compensate for the the loss of Wright, the south metro district will need about 135,000 from either Hennepin or Washington, which forces the other districts to take in the northern exurbs.

If Ramsey-Washington is maintained, then Hennepin will need to be double chopped.

The alternative which is implied by this map is to create the Minneapolis-St.Paul district.   That will require a Ramsey split, and likely Washington and Anoka splitts.

If we are looking at these with an eye towards 2020, the growth will be predominantly in the TC metro. My projections are that Hennepin+Anoka will be about 43K larger than two CDs and Ramsey+Washington will be about 20K larger than a CD. The four counties that wrap from Wright to Dakota will be about 16K larger than a CD. Those metro counties will have to shed population to the rest of the state - most likely by moving Wright to St Cloud's district and running the south suburbs to Rice+.

This one seems very nice!

I used the 2002 estimates.  The scenario was that the US had continuous reapportionment like is used in Australia, and that this reapportionment had been triggered by the shift of one representative from Minnesota to North Carolina. 

Of course, if this were Australia, they would base the new districts on projected growth.

There are 3 triggers used in Australia:

1) Change in apportionment for a State.
2) 1/3 of divisions with more than 10% deviation from ideal.
3) 7 years from previous distribution.

Districts must have a deviation of less than 10% at commencement, and a projected deviation of less than 3.5% in 3.5 years (midway through the ordinary cycle).

The Twin Cities are of course far smaller than a congressional district in 2020.

Agreed.  If you don't want a Duluth-Grand Forks or Duluth-Fargo district, then the western district has to go from Manitoba to Iowa, and the districts will also need to include St.Cloud and the northern exurbs (Sherburne, Isanti, and Chisago).

If you put St.Cloud and the exurbs into the same district with Duluth, then they represent half of the district, and could dominate the district.  By splitting them apart, you have more balance.

True.  But if you are giving respect to county boundaries, it happens that Ramsey-Washington and Hennepin-Anoka are very close to an integer number of districts.

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This is based on populations projected to 2015.5 (3.5 years after the redistribution caused by the loss of a representative),

The 4 metro districts have an estimated 2015.5 population of 4.001 representatives.  Le Sueur and Wabasha were shifted to the south district, McLeod to the St.Cloud-Northern Exurbs, and Big Stone and Stevens to the northern district.

2012 and 2015.5 populations:

Northern: 1.017 and 0.998
St Cloud-Northern Exurbs: 1.023 and 1.006
Southern: 1.016 and 0.995
Ramsey-Washington: 0.995 and 1.008
Hennepin-Anoka 1.979 and 2.013
South Metro: 0.970 and 0.980

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This map is optimized for projections for 2015.5 (3.5 years from 2012).

Because the southern and western ring of Dakota-Scott-Carver-Wright is so close to ideal the adjustment is made in the north.   In the 2012 map, this area shared about 25,000 persons from Sherburne.  In the 2015.5 map it will need to borrow about 15,000 from Anoka.

Other changes from 2012 map:

West to South: Cottonwood
Northeast to West: Wadena and Clearwater

Population for 2012 and 2015.5

Southern: 1.011 and 0.995
West: 1.019 and 0.997
Northeast: 1.005 and 0.984
Hennepin-Anoka: 1.979 and 2.013
Ramsey-Washington: 0.995 and 1.008
South+West Metro: 0.991 and 1.004

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Because Wright is necessary for a St.Cloud-Southwest district that does not extend to Wisconsin border, the 4 metro districts must extend somewhat northward. 

In 2015.5 the 4 metro districts will included 4.010 an increase from 3.956 for 2012.  If a Minneapolis-St. Paul district is created, with the remnant of Ramsey added to the norhern district, then one or two districts will need to take a portion of Anoka or Washington.

Changes from 2012 map: St.Cloud-Southwest to Southeast: Cottonwood; St Cloud-Southwest to North Big Stone and Stevens; North Metro to St..Cloud-Southwest: Mille Lacs and Kanabec.

Population 2012 and 2015.5

North 1.017 and 0.998
St.Cloud-Southwest 1.015 and 0.997
South 1.011 and 0.005
North Metro 0.913 and 0.915
Hennepin-Ramsey 2.218 and 2.259
South Metro 0.825 and 0.836

Possible configurations:

D) 3-4 corners.

53% of Southeast is in Dakota
31% of Southwest is in Scott+Carver
36% of Northwest is in Wright+Stearns
28% of Northeast is in Sherburne+Isanti+Chisago

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Hennepin East includes Minneapolis, St.Anthony, Richfield, Bloomington, Edina, St.Louis Park, Golden Valley, Robbinsdale, Crystal, New Hope, and Eden Prairie.

That looks like a very reasonable map. The biggest downside is how it divides the MSP suburbs outside of districts 3-5 (assuming current district numbering configuration). Renumbering MN-08 as MN-06:

MN-01: McCain 51-47
MN-02: Obama 52-46
MN-03: Obama 50-48
MN-04: Obama 61-37
MN-05: Obama 70-28
MN-06: Obama 52-45
MN-07: McCain 52-46

Depending on the year, I think that kind of map could result in anything from 7-0 Democratic to 5-2 Republican.