Okay, I'm insane and have redistricted Washington to have a 10th district. This is sort of a reply to muon2's thread, but considering how much time I wasted on this and how much crap I wrote, I thought it deserved its own thread.
I mostly used 2007 OFM (
http://www.ofm.wa.gov/pop/default.asp) numbers. An ideal district is about 648,800 people.
I started with the fifth district (brown). Every county you see that is entirely within the fifth district has been that way since at least the 1980s. In the 1980s, part of western Walla Walla County was put into the fourth district. Currently, small parts of western Adams County near Othello are in the fourth district. I needed about 22,200 people from Walla Walla and/or Adams Counties in the fourth, and used these previous districts as precedent. I took about 13,000 from Othello/Adams Panhandle and the rest from rural Walla Walla County and Waitsburg. I left the city of Walla Walla and College Place and what not in the fifth district.
I then moved onto the fourth (blue). Okanogan County was only put in the fifth district in 2002, and I moved it back to the fourth. The rest of the 4th district is the same as it always has been barring Yakima and Klickitat counties. The Tri-Cities and Yakima (the city) have always been in the fourth, so I decided to leave that it that way. Klickitat County and a portion of Yakima, however, have to be in a bicascadial district. I decided to cross at the southern part of the state based on precedent---districts almost always cross here when they have to. In the 80s, a portion of Clark and all of Skamania Counties were in the fourth, in the 90s a portion of Klickitat was in the 3rd, and now a portion of Skamania is in the 4th. So, I needed about 128,200 people from Yakima County out of the fourth district. I left all of Yakima City in the fourth, however I had to put Union Gap as well as some unincorporated suburban areas to the east and west of Yakima into the third district. All of south Yakima County is in the third.
Now, onto the third district (dark green). With part of Yakima and all of Klickitat counties, we now have more than 100,000 Easterners in the third district. Add in Skamania, Clark, and Cowlitz County and we’re at about 649,400 for the third district—about 600 too many. So a small area of NW Cowlitz County with about 600 people is now in the yellow district.
The yellow district is the “new” district—WA-10. With a portion of Cowlitz and all of Wahkiakum, Lewis, Pacific, Grays Harbor, Thurston, Mason, Jefferson, and Clallam counties, we have an Olympia-Lewis County-Coastal-Peninsula district. However, these counties fell about 88,000 people short of 648,800, so I put about 88,000 people from east Pierce County into the tenth district. You might be wondering why I put east Pierce into the tenth instead of west Pierce or part of Kitsap County, and I will explain why in the next paragraph.
I then created the 6th district (light green). It looks very similar to the 80s version of the 6th—west Pierce/Tacoma and south Kitsap/Bremerton. It contains the military bases, most of Tacoma, and Kitsap up to and including Bremerton. This is Dicks’ district, and would probably make him happy with its military bases and Tacoma + Bremerton. He lives in Mason County, but he only moved there in the 90s. If Dicks wants this district, he’ll have to move back to Pierce/Kitsap. Otherwise he could have the tenth. Although the 6th currently has the peninsula, its included parts of if not all of Tacoma/Bremerton for decades, and based on this I decided to name this the 6th district and the yellow district the 10th, as the peninsula/coast have been thrown around quite a bit and have not been in the same district for very long.
The next district I made was the pink one—the 9th. I’d just like to say that the borders in this part of Pierce are very approximate, so don’t get too picky with them! We have city estimates for 2007, but you kind of have to blindly guess for unincorporated areas. Anyway, the pink takes about 219,135 from Pierce and the rest from King. It has a small part of Tacoma and kind of the Puyallup Sumner areas (well, it’s supposed to!). With its core in south King and north Pierce, it isn’t too different from today. But today it’s kind of a stretched out fugly district all the way to Olympia, and I didn’t let that happen this time. It goes up to Burien and Seatac, and includes some unincorporated areas south and east of Renton. It has Auburn to Maple Valley and Black Diamond down to Enumclaw, and also includes Vashon Island.
The cyan district is the 8th. Auburn is now in the 9th, so assuming Reichert is still around he is going to have to move to Renton or Bellevue or something, unless he wants to lose to Adam Smith. The 8th district no longer includes east Pierce or parts the parts of south King County previously mentioned. It now includes Kirkland and Redmond and is more of an eastside/east King district.
The 7th district is red. Seattle alone has over 586,000 people. I got it up to 648,800 by putting the White Center, Riverton, and Skyway CDPs into it. I also put most of Tukwila into it, but the southern tip is in the 9th district (only about 1,500 people IIRC). Not much else to say about this district—it’s basically the same as it has been for decades.
The orange district is the first. It takes about 79,365 people from north Kitsap County (including Bainbridge Island, where Inslee lives) and about 134,835 people from north King County, where it has Shoreline to Woodinville and most of the Finn Hill CDP. With Redmond and Kirkland in the 8th now, a larger chunk of Snohomish County has to be in this district (about 434,600 people or two thirds of the district). It keeps the southwestern-most part of Snohomish County that it already has (Lynnwood, Edmonds, Bothell, etc.). It now, however, has Everett, which is currently in the first district. Population-wise, most of Snohomish is now in the first district. The huge majority of its land area, however, is still in the second.
The second district (purple) loses Everett, but keeps the rest of Snohomish it already has. Without Everett, it isn’t really a Seattle area district anymore, but for the most part its borders have barely changed just like the 7th’s (rapidly growing suburban Snohomish County probably had something to do with this).
So, to summarize, I tried to make this as realistic as possible and not change the districts from the way they have been over the past few decades too much (and used precedent when making difficult decisions like what I should do with the bicascadial district or the Olympic Peninsula). Dicks would have to move a few miles if he wants to keep the military/Tacoma/Bremerton district, but could also run as the incumbent in the 10th district if he so desired. Reichert would have to move a bit north or east to keep the 8th district. Creating this has confirmed by belief that the most border changes (if we get a 10th district) are going to have to occur in the South Sound. Okay, that was a big post and may be full of spelling and grammatical errors, but I'm too lazy to check.
Comments welcome.
