FL: Rereredistricting

[Nyvin]

Is FLOTUS still packed with result oriented Dems?

I was thinking just that. (Well, not exactly in those terms.) But there hasn't been a Democratic governor in 17 years!

Or a Democratic Legislature since the mid-90's....

[Nyvin]

is it possible to get the Corrine seat compliant by just going Jacksonville to Tallahassee? or could they have to go into Gainesville to scoop some extra people?

The Court specifically references the LWV proposed district, which does not include any of Gainesville, as an appropriate alternative solution for the district.

Can you really get a majority African American district with just Tallahassee and Jacksonville though?   I tried on DRA and I couldn't get past 46%,  I know the numbers have probably changed since then but it seems really hard to get 50% African American without Gainesville.   I know Corrinne Brown will go nuts if it isn't. 

[Nyvin]

is it possible to get the Corrine seat compliant by just going Jacksonville to Tallahassee? or could they have to go into Gainesville to scoop some extra people?

The Court specifically references the LWV proposed district, which does not include any of Gainesville, as an appropriate alternative solution for the district.

Can you really get a majority African American district with just Tallahassee and Jacksonville though?   I tried on DRA and I couldn't get past 46%,  I know the numbers have probably changed since then but it seems really hard to get 50% African American without Gainesville.   I know Corrinne Brown will go nuts if it isn't.  

The court opinion specifically said that the district does not need 50% BVAP if it can otherwise elect the candidate of choice of the black minority. The was testimony that 60+% BVAP of the primary and 60+% D in the general would be sufficient.

Ahh,  okay.    So FL-9 doesn't have to stay a hispanic minority-majority district either then?   It can be split between black and hispanic?

[Nyvin]

Does the district that takes up Osceola county have to be hispanic majority per the VRA or can it be an African American and Hispanic mix?

[Nyvin]

I made a map that tries to split as few counties as possible, although it's obviously impossible to avoid this altogether.   I actually tried to limit any partisan flips since I know the FL GOP will do just that as well.    Here's Northern Florida


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FL-1: Unchanged, R+21
FL-2: R+19
FL-3: R+10
FL-4: R+17
FL-5: D+10
FL-6: R+3

FL-5 is 44.1% African American.

Central Florida


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FL-7: R+6
FL-8: R+7
FL-9: D+7
FL-10: D+4
FL-11: R+11
FL-12: R+6
FL-13: D+3
FL-14: D+8
FL-15: Mostly Unchanged, R+7
FL-16: R+5

FL-16 is in the usual spot just south of FL-13.   FL-9 is 43.9% hispanic.    FL-10 is 26.7% African American.

[Nyvin]

Here is my little attempt for Northern Florida from a Pub point of view that attempts to keep the result oriented Dem friendly FLOTUS from having an excuse the draw the map themselves. It's predicated on the theory that it attempts to keep the Orlando area black and Hispanic communities together as communities of interest without creating additional chops. Whether that will fly, as opposed to FLOTUS coming up with some theory that the black and Hispanic communities need to be in separate CD's, is an open question. FLOTUS is very creative in coming up with theories to do what they want to do.

FL-07 is about a 2% Pub PVI.





Here is a version with a slightly different chop of FL-09 into Osceola, that gets the Hispanic percentage up a tad, and makes FL-09 look less erose. FLOTUS does seem to share my hypersensitivity to erosity.  

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It looks like this map would make really UGLY FL-11's and FL-12's without having any of Lake or Marion county in FL-11, and also FL-13 needing to be entirely within Pinellas and FL-14 being entirely within Hillsborough.

Also I can't imagine this would fly since they made a court order about splitting Hendry county with it's hispanic populaiton, and Hendry County only has a population of 37,000 or so.    Osceola has about 276,000 and is a much bigger population of minorities to be split.

[Nyvin]

FL-10 would barely be majority-minority, but the figures are kinda crazy.

49.3% White
26.7% Black
17.8% Hispanic
4.6% Asian

I suppose you could move a few voting blocks around to make a heavier minority population though.

[Nyvin]

I think FL-7 was my least favorite part of the map I made,  it almost definitely wouldn't fly, but the reasoning was to keep either FL-6 or FL-7 from flipping.  Volusia County can be split to fix it (like everyone else is doing).   FL-8 might be able to keep it's original shape that way too.

[Nyvin]

It's quite obvious there is partisan intent if you split up the hispanic majority-minority currently in FL-9 and make it a African American and Hispanic mixed district like both of yours are.    I don't see how the FLSC could possibly look past that.   

There isn't much reason to change FL-9 beyond just creating a different vote sink for the Democrats,  FL-10 can easily take up the absence of FL-5 in Orange.

[Nyvin]

The minority packing is of a contiguous area, makes for a compact CD, and it is the only way to elect a minority, although that would not be guaranteed, but if Hispanics are willing to vote for a black to some extent in a Dem primary, or blacks an Hispanic to some extent, it will happen. Having two Dem CD's means electing two white liberals, and shutting out a minority congressperson.  

Do we have historical evidence of racial block voting in Democratic primaries in this area, so that there is a candidate of the "white community"'s choice who will defeat a candidate reflecting the choice of the black or Hispanic communities? The race of the candidate himself is somewhat related to that, but it varies a lot. I'm not trying to be difficult here, but Central Florida is really unlike places like L.A. County or Brooklyn where this equation is usually considered.

The Puerto Rican population in the Orlando area is relatively new (compared to other majority minority areas at least...).     I don't know if FL-9 was drawn intentionally as a majority minority district, but it follows along the same guidelines of separating the African American population in FL-24 from the Hispanic (Cuban) populations in FL-25 or FL-27.   

If they're just going to cram them together they're no reason to think that FL-24 to the south shouldn't be called out as a vote sink and joined with the surrounding districts as well.

[Nyvin]

The minority packing is of a contiguous area, makes for a compact CD, and it is the only way to elect a minority, although that would not be guaranteed, but if Hispanics are willing to vote for a black to some extent in a Dem primary, or blacks an Hispanic to some extent, it will happen. Having two Dem CD's means electing two white liberals, and shutting out a minority congressperson.  

Do we have historical evidence of racial block voting in Democratic primaries in this area, so that there is a candidate of the "white community"'s choice who will defeat a candidate reflecting the choice of the black or Hispanic communities? The race of the candidate himself is somewhat related to that, but it varies a lot. I'm not trying to be difficult here, but Central Florida is really unlike places like L.A. County or Brooklyn where this equation is usually considered.

The Puerto Rican population in the Orlando area is relatively new (compared to other majority minority areas at least...).     I don't know if FL-9 was drawn intentionally as a majority minority district, but it follows along the same guidelines of separating the African American population in FL-24 from the Hispanic (Cuban) populations in FL-25 or FL-27.   

If they're just going to cram them together they're no reason to think that FL-24 to the south shouldn't be called out as a vote sink and joined with the surrounding districts as well.

I believe FL-24 is a Section 2 VRA seat and can't be carved up under federal law regardless of what the Florida law says.

Yes, obviously FL-24 won't be broken up.   The issue is it's a group of minorities under pretty much the same situation as the African Americans in FL-24 that are in Orange and Osceola Counties.

[Nyvin]

In that map it kinda looks like FL-7 and FL-11 would be Dem leaning swing seats currently with all the Puerto Ricans moving to the area.   Also I'm pretty sure John Mica lives in Deltona so not sure he'd be able to run in that FL-7.   Obviously whoever is currently in FL-11 wouldn't be located in that version of the district either.

FL-5 kinda looks low on the African American population, but I'm sure some tweeking can fix that without much impact.    

The Miami area looks good.

[Nyvin]

Wow!   It looks like they split the African Americans and Puerto Ricans between FL-10 and FL-9!!!

Awesome!   Looks like I was at least partially correct.

[Nyvin]

I don't really get why they'd give FL-4 parts of St Johns while giving parts of Leon to FL-2.    All that does is make FL-6 less Pub and FL-2 more Pub.

What would the PVI of FL-6 be now?

[Nyvin]

So it might be possible that FL-7 is competitive once Mica retires?

[Nyvin]

It looks like the FL Republicans in the state legislature are pushing for a mixed minority district in Orange County, similar to Torie's earlier map.    It doesn't seem to be favored by the FL Supreme Court though.

[Nyvin]

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https://twitter.com/mcimaps

[Nyvin]

Any big changes between these versions and the initial version?

It looks like the Senate version added the rest of the heavy hispanic areas of Orange to FL-9, and then let FL-10 go a bit into Lake Co. to compensate.   FL-9 will be a point or two more Dem, FL-10 will be a point or two more GOP. 

Also Sarasota Co is completely in FL-16, which is a good change imo.

That's all i can see from the map.

[Nyvin]

Seems like the meeting between the Senate and House is getting intense.   

[Nyvin]

So is today it?   Will we know the official map the legislature puts out by the end of today?

[Nyvin]

So is today it?   Will we know the official map the legislature puts out by the end of today?

If they can pass a map, we will know, but if they can't get past the impass they are at, then the state court will be drawing the map.

I'd imagine the Supreme Court would choose either the House map or Senate map.     I'd be shocked if they draw an entirely new one.

[Nyvin]

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It's a Redistmas Miracle!

Any chance we could get a 13-13-1 map?

It'd be pretty easy to draw 14 seats that Obama won in 2012 - entrenched incumbents (Mica in FL-07, IRL in FL-27) would mean that wouldn't be the result, but it's fairly easy to do.

As it is Obama won 13 seats with the map either chamber made right now.

Mica will almost be 74 years old by the time he starts his next term in 2017,  so I'd think he only has so much time left before retirement probably.   It's feasible to unseat Curbelo in a good election year.    Lehtinen is unbeatable for the forseeable future though.

FL-18 might "possibly" be competitive too.

[Nyvin]

If I could choose one of the two,   I'd probably go with the Senate map.    I don't think either one would make much difference, but the Senate map does unite the Hispanics in FL-9 better.

[Nyvin]

Wait, why are Republicans "letting this happen"?

There was an interesting deposition by the person who had been doing redistricting for the past 25 years. In 2010, he entered into a retirement deal with the Florida Retirement System where he could work for exactly 5 more years, and draw retirement and pay or some such. If he worked at all past that he would have had forfeited much of it. So anyhow his retirement was absolutely final on July 1, 2015.

There were also strict rules on disclosure. If someone had proposed the map preferred by the LWV, they would have had to explain where they got it from. If the legislature adopted the map, then the SCOFLA would infer that it had been the legislative intent to impose its political motivations.

There are now two federal lawsuits. One by Corrine Brown based on the VRA, and the dismantling of the 5th district.  Another by two GOP county chairs that claim the Florida constitution as interpreted by the SCOFLA prevents them from exercising their 1st Amendment right to communicate with the legislature.

The 1st amendment argument is idiotic.....they can still say whatever they want, no one is preventing them from stating things, it just has to be in public view.   There is absolutely zero chance of that lawsuit going anywhere.

[Nyvin]

I don't agree, because just because you listen to folks, does not mean your work product is a function of partisan intent. Here, irrespective of the babblings of SCOFLA, that partisan intent can be inferred from the map itself (the skip over to St. Petersburg, and the Johns River CD were clearly drawn for partisan reasons). SCOFLA was just unnecessarily gilding the lily. There is no other reasonable explanation. I agree that chopping Leon County may well be Unconstitutional (ironically because there is no partisan basis to do so, just a race basis - the adjacent CD will be Pub in all events). The fix however is simply not to chop it, as in my map - not to draw the Johns River CD which is not required under the VRA or the Constitution under any stretch of the imagination.

The federal lawsuit is based on the interpretation of the Florida constitution by the SCOFLA.

A federal court is not going to consider the SCOFLA's opinion as babbling.

In a better world there would be a district entirely in Duval County.

Well maybe the Florida constitution requires a CD in north Florida that elects a black. And nixing the St. Johns River CD in lieu of one near the Georgia state line seems like a reasonable interpretation because it can be done with less chops, and less erosty. But the federal Constitution which trumps the one in Florida will not countenance the chop of Leon County. So Corrine wins that battle, but loses the war, because she won't get her CD back. What she will get is a Florida CD with some more Leon County whites in it.

"districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice"

Compactness is secondary tier, but the north-south district is more compact.

It splits more county lines too though.