U.S. House Redistricting: Illinois

[BigSkyBob]

Swing State Project had a post yesterday that included two Hispanic districts as well as three black-majority districts.

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I know that one can do better than a Hispanic-plurality for the second district, but I wanted to see what one could do at the precinct level in Dave's App. I also wanted to avoid running all the way out to Kane county to link Elgin or Aurora with Chicago. All districts are within 50 persons of the ideal population. Here's an image of my five majority-minority districts:



CD 1 (Rush) 51.3% Black VAP
CD 2 (Jackson) 50.7% Black VAP
CD 3 (open) 59.4% Hispanic VAP
CD 4 (Gutierrez) 50.1% Hispanic VAP
CD 7 (Davis) 50.8% Black VAP

All the districts could go up about 1% with block-level mapping. The open CD 4 should be quite viable for a Hispanic candidate, and Gutierrez' incumbency could overcome the reduced VAP in CD 4.

Here is a map posted here with a second 50.1 VAP Hispanic district.

[BigSkyBob]

All it takes is an extension of the northern half of the "earmuff" to the west to take in some Hispanic suburbs. South here is 59.2% Hispanic VAP while the north is 50.2%- it's easy to make it up to 53% VAP or so but I shifted things around to be as tidy as possible while still Hispanic-majority.

Also possible: rather than extending out to Elgin the northern district could remain a pseudo-earmuff and take in part of my map's southern district. Doing so, you could have two districts that were 53-56% Hispanic VAP. (edit: and this would make a bit of since anyway, since Gutierrez is from the northern half of the existing district and it'd allow him to keep his existing district mostly intact).

So, while a second Hispanic district wouldn't exactly be tidy or compact, it isn't very difficult to create.

Here is a second two majority-Hispanic-VAP-district-map that was posted here.

[Brittain33]

Well, those are an inelegant solution to get you to barely scrape by above 50.0%, which historically hasn't been sufficient for Latino districts.

I understand your partisan motivations here, but that is an ugly and ineffective answer to hold up as ideal.

[BigSkyBob]

Well, those are an inelegant solution to get you to barely scrape by above 50.0%, which historically hasn't been sufficient for Latino districts.

I understand your partisan motivations here, but that is an ugly and ineffective answer to hold up as ideal.

1) My response wasn't about "ideals," it was in response to a specific claim that drawing two Hispanic districts wasn't possible. Clearly, the answer to that claim is, simply, "Yes, it is possible."


2) It is facetious to note that creating a district for VRA result is "ugly" to when in Illinois the districts are extremely "ugly" in order to achieve a Democratic partisan result. Nor, can the "earmuff" district be considered any prettier than the two districts in the maps above.

[minionofmidas]

People like you have railed against more VRA districts in Southern states that would take a seat away from Republicans, but yet advocate for them in other states where it benefits Republicans.

potkettle?

No, actually, you're right about the threshold for what is a Hispanic-opportunity seat being quite understandably higher than for a Black-opportunity seat and Krazen's thus being an apples & oranges comparison. Though again, that threshold may be lower in Illinois than it must be in Texas.

Though, I'll also say this: Should a legal challenge result in a second Hispanic-opportunity district being drawn, and Lipinski being drawn out as a result (it seems dubious you can make anybody else the victim. Though the new and long overdue Dem-leaning seat based on Aurora/Joliet/Napierville is liable to become a little more marginal as a result of its boundaries being ungerrymandered), PARTYTIME! Two flies with one swatter! (A fairer map and an obnoxious idiot gone. Three flies if you count the extra Hispanic seat itself.)

[minionofmidas]

He said he hadn't seen them, he never said they weren't possible. If you want to be that literal.

[BigSkyBob]

He said he hadn't seen them, he never said they weren't possible. If you want to be that literal.

His exact words were,

"It's not possible to make another 50%+ VAP Hispanic district in Illinois..."

So, being "literal" I was exactly right, and he, and you, were exactly wrong.

[minionofmidas]

'kay, so I was reading the post below that. Not that it matters anyhow - it's not possible to draw one that would elect a Hispanic and represent a community of interest, and thus not possible to draw one that can be used to argue your case in court. That random connector strip through whiteyland isn't going to be ordered by any court (whether a court could be found to strike it down, had the Democrats drawn it themselves, is quite another matter. Probably not, though it's happened.) Come back when you have a map that does without Elgin. (Not saying it's literally impossible, as I haven't tried.)

[dpmapper]

Though the new and long overdue Dem-leaning seat based on Aurora/Joliet/Napierville is liable to become a little more marginal as a result of its boundaries being ungerrymandered),

I have no interest in debating what constitutes a "fair" or "gerrymandered" map, but as someone who grew up near Aurora and who went to high school in Aurora I did want to chime in to say that an Aurora/Naperville/Joliet district is NOT by any means "long-overdue".  Draw it if you want, but Aurora has little in common with Naperville, other than the fact that they're large and happen to have grown so that they're next to each other.  Aurora is an old city and has been large, with a sizable poor Hispanic (and some black) population, for decades.  (Think of Lowell in relation to Boston, if you will.)  Naperville, on the other hand, is your classic suburban boom town of the 80's and 90's (fueled by easy access to I-88), with new subdivisions and tons of upper-middle class whites and Asians.  In 1960 it was probably was only at a population of ~30K.  

Aurora is probably most naturally paired with Elgin, to be honest.  Both cities have a similar history of being sizable, semi-industrial Fox Valley cities in Kane County that long ago got a large influx of blacks and Hispanics.  The tri-cities of St. Charles, Geneva, and Batavia have long been linked with Aurora as well (although they're now very different demographically).  

[minionofmidas]

'kay, the area just always struck me as belonging together when compared both to the (whiter and mostly more affluent) inner suburbs between them and Chicago, and the areas beyond. And I always hated the suburbs-to-rural strips of the previous map's incumbentmander. But I'm no expert on the area.

(re dpmapper)

[dpmapper]

Just for fun, this is roughly how I would divide Chicagoland if I were drawing pure Community of Interest districts.  

City districts:
Cyan, south Cook suburbs + far south Chicago: 68% black.
Yellow, near west + near south sides of Chicago: 77% black.
Blue, north side of Chicago: this is what I'd call "fashionable Chicago" - the wealthy, the yuppies, the gays, the bohemians.  
Pink, southwest Chicago + Cicero and related inner suburbs: 58.9% Hispanic.
Tan, northwest Chicago + inner west suburbs: 44.8% white, 44.1% Hispanic, very blue-collar/working class, for the most part.  

Suburbs:
These first three have substantial Asian populations (close to 10% or more); the last four do not.  

Teal, north shore: Very wealthy, lots of Jewish voters, starts at Evanston but I stopped going up the shore at North Chicago/Waukegan because that's a pretty stark dividing point, so I went inland to pick up some more middle class suburbs in Cook County.  
Red: Northwest Cook.  Newer suburbs like South Barrington, Hoffman Estates, and Schaumburg (plus a few older ones like Arlington Heights which couldn't fit anywhere else), lots of high-tech (Motorola, etc).  
Light Green: The older core DuPage suburbs of Wheaton, Glen Ellyn, Elmhurst, etc, plus all of
Naperville and the towns south of Naperville (which are basically Naperville-lite).  

Lavender: mostly the rest of Lake County exurbia/suburbia
Purple, near southwest suburbs: mostly older suburbs, quite white at 82.3%.  
Orange: All of Kane county, plus some more Fox River communities in McHenry county.  I also added the Cook County bits of Elgin and the parts of Kendall that are most tied to Aurora.  I did *not* add the DuPage bits of Aurora since they're more similar to Naperville than to the rest of Aurora.  
Brown: Joliet plus Kankakee (these two make a lot of sense together), the rest of rapidly-exurbaning Will County, plus Kendall (which is starting to get some exurban population) and Grundy (had to add something...)  

[In case you're wondering, all of the city districts would be solid D, of course, and most of the suburban districts would be very close to even, with the exception of the teal district which is at 64% Obama.  But even there a Dold vs. Schakowsky matchup would be quite interesting I think, given Jan's socialist sympathies.  Ironically, but maybe not surprisingly, the suburban district that is least Obama-friendly (at 52.7%) is the purple one, home of one Bill Lipinski.] 

[muon2]

'kay, so I was reading the post below that. Not that it matters anyhow - it's not possible to draw one that would elect a Hispanic and represent a community of interest, and thus not possible to draw one that can be used to argue your case in court. That random connector strip through whiteyland isn't going to be ordered by any court (whether a court could be found to strike it down, had the Democrats drawn it themselves, is quite another matter. Probably not, though it's happened.) Come back when you have a map that does without Elgin. (Not saying it's literally impossible, as I haven't tried.)

I'm not sure I follow your argument, Lewis. The current CD-4 has an extremely thin connector to bridge two distinct communities of interest that both happen to be Hispanic. Since the court OK'ed that bridge, I would expect that another similar linking bridge would also pass the court.

The 50% is such a barely there majority that it probably wouldn't give Hispanics an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. The better statement for me to make would have been it's not possible to create a second district that would give that opportunity, because that is correct. Frankly, I think the VRA is past it usefulness and the only federal standards on redistricting should be compactness, because that what really counts.

I would agree that a bare 50% VAP majority is unlikely to meet statistical tests needed to show that Hispanics could elect their candidate of choice. However, a compact SW side district can be drawn at 59.4% VAP with DRA as shown in the earlier link to my March post. SCOTUS decisions would suggest that if a compact Hispanic district can be drawn, then the earmuff should not.

If a compact Hispanic CD-3 is required then that leaves the question open for a second Hispanic district. Certainly the proportion would argue for its creation if one can be made to elect a candidate of choice. If the thin connector was legitimate for the NW/SW connection, then why wouldn't it be equally valid for a NW Chicago/Elgin connection?

[minionofmidas]

'kay, so I was reading the post below that. Not that it matters anyhow - it's not possible to draw one that would elect a Hispanic and represent a community of interest, and thus not possible to draw one that can be used to argue your case in court. That random connector strip through whiteyland isn't going to be ordered by any court (whether a court could be found to strike it down, had the Democrats drawn it themselves, is quite another matter. Probably not, though it's happened.) Come back when you have a map that does without Elgin. (Not saying it's literally impossible, as I haven't tried.)

I'm not sure I follow your argument, Lewis. The current CD-4 has an extremely thin connector to bridge two distinct communities of interest that both happen to be Hispanic. Since the court OK'ed that bridge, I would expect that another similar linking bridge would also pass the court.

The 50% is such a barely there majority that it probably wouldn't give Hispanics an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. The better statement for me to make would have been it's not possible to create a second district that would give that opportunity, because that is correct. Frankly, I think the VRA is past it usefulness and the only federal standards on redistricting should be compactness, because that what really counts.

I would agree that a bare 50% VAP majority is unlikely to meet statistical tests needed to show that Hispanics could elect their candidate of choice. However, a compact SW side district can be drawn at 59.4% VAP with DRA as shown in the earlier link to my March post. SCOTUS decisions would suggest that if a compact Hispanic district can be drawn, then the earmuff should not.

If a compact Hispanic CD-3 is required then that leaves the question open for a second Hispanic district. Certainly the proportion would argue for its creation if one can be made to elect a candidate of choice. If the thin connector was legitimate for the NW/SW connection, then why wouldn't it be equally valid for a NW Chicago/Elgin connection?

It's the same old issue whether what would be drawn if a court draws it versus whether what a legislature is absolutely required to do. A court would not draw the district as the Dems drew it, that's not in question at all. The issue is only whether it was illegal for the legislature to do so, and you can be of two opinions on that one, though it's also clear which outcome is more likely (for the map to be upheld). In other words, the same basic scenario as in Alabama and South Carolina, except for the issue of whether the northern seat would elect an Hispanic at all, which makes the case weaker. (Including the common sense option of the court drawing one quite solid but not overpacked opportunity seat plus an "influence" seat.)
The current Gutierrez district's connector that Dems want to keep is razor-thin and outrageously ugly, of course. (The district was created that way back in 1990 because back then that was the only way it could be done. It really should have gone in 2000 - the easiest way to do it would have been to give Gutierrez a solid Hispanic majority seat that also has a lot of Blacks, and Davis a solid Black plurality seat that also has a lot of Hispanics. But I suppose Davis is a weak clown who needs the protection.) But at least it doesn't catch a lot of whites with no community of interest with the two Hispanic areas being connected, which the two-Hispanic seats maps do and which has been used as an argument to strike down seats in the past.
BK thought it was probably possible to draw two 54% Hispanic seats, with the earmuff connector in existence but only a small part of the southerly Hispanic area appended by it. That's probably a more worthwhile idea than the Elgin maps.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

BK thought it was probably possible to draw two 54% Hispanic seats, with the earmuff connector in existence but only a small part of the southerly Hispanic area appended by it. That's probably a more worthwhile idea than the Elgin maps.

You mean like this? These two monstrosities are 51.5% Hispanic each.

[minionofmidas]

Does it really have to be quite that ugly? Ugh.

[muon2]

Aurora is probably most naturally paired with Elgin, to be honest.  Both cities have a similar history of being sizable, semi-industrial Fox Valley cities in Kane County that long ago got a large influx of blacks and Hispanics.  The tri-cities of St. Charles, Geneva, and Batavia have long been linked with Aurora as well (although they're now very different demographically).  

If you look at the Hispanic population in the Elgin/West Chicago/Aurora corridor, it's enough to make a solid Senate district of 200K that can elect candidates of choice for the Hispanics. Even at the coarse level of DRA mapping it can be linked to NW Chicago for a CD with 57% Hispanic VAP.

[minionofmidas]

Interesting. Can you draw us a map with that? (And another Hispanic seat in SW Chicago, of course?) That might be a harder case to answer.

[krazen1211]

'kay, so I was reading the post below that. Not that it matters anyhow - it's not possible to draw one that would elect a Hispanic and represent a community of interest, and thus not possible to draw one that can be used to argue your case in court. That random connector strip through whiteyland isn't going to be ordered by any court (whether a court could be found to strike it down, had the Democrats drawn it themselves, is quite another matter. Probably not, though it's happened.) Come back when you have a map that does without Elgin. (Not saying it's literally impossible, as I haven't tried.)

Guitierrez would be the incumbent in the northern 40-45% district. MALDEF desired the split idea because the southern district would give them a fair chance at electing a 2nd Hispanic.

[nclib]

Do the mappers hate Lipinski or did they (more likely) run out of Democratic-leaning areas to give him?

As was said previously, the move makes the seat safer for Lipinski in a primary, not for Democrats in a general.

Also, Lipinski can afford to have a less Democratic CD, with his voting record and ethnic ties. (The other Chi. reps would be concerned about having to moderate if their CD's became less than D+10). And even if Lipinski leaves, that CD would still at lean D in most years.

[jimrtex]

All it takes is an extension of the northern half of the "earmuff" to the west to take in some Hispanic suburbs. South here is 59.2% Hispanic VAP while the north is 50.2%- it's easy to make it up to 53% VAP or so but I shifted things around to be as tidy as possible while still Hispanic-majority.

Also possible: rather than extending out to Elgin the northern district could remain a pseudo-earmuff and take in part of my map's southern district. Doing so, you could have two districts that were 53-56% Hispanic VAP. (edit: and this would make a bit of since anyway, since Gutierrez is from the northern half of the existing district and it'd allow him to keep his existing district mostly intact).

So, while a second Hispanic district wouldn't exactly be tidy or compact, it isn't very difficult to create.

Here is a second two majority-Hispanic-VAP-district-map that was posted here.

Isn't the northern earmuff Puerto Rican, and Elgin mostly Mexican?  So besides linking a city with an exurb you are combining two distinct groups.

[minionofmidas]

The total current 4th district was 56% Mexican and 11% Portorican in 2000*, so I doubt it. It may well be that the Portoricans live mostly in the northern earmuff, but they're not alone there.

*18% Anglo, 4% Black, 3% Asian and non-hispanic mixed race, 4% non-specified or unclassifiable Hispanic, 4% other specified Hispanic origins

[muon2]

Isn't the northern earmuff Puerto Rican, and Elgin mostly Mexican?  So besides linking a city with an exurb you are combining two distinct groups.

The total current 4th district was 56% Mexican and 11% Portorican in 2000*, so I doubt it. It may well be that the Portoricans live mostly in the northern earmuff, but they're not alone there.

*18% Anglo, 4% Black, 3% Asian and non-hispanic mixed race, 4% non-specified or unclassifiable Hispanic, 4% other specified Hispanic origins

The PR population dominated the very near NW side two decades ago when IL-4 was first assembled. Since then there has been a lot of influx from other Hispanic groups even as the PR population has spread out. Mexican and other Central American groups dominate throughout the region.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

So the Republicans released their own map to go with their court challenge. It's supposed to create a second Hispanic district, but... it's only 46.5% Hispanic VAP. Yeah, that's not going anywhere. If you're curious, their map can be seen at the bottom of this pdf. They really hate Rock Island County, because it's split both here and in their proposed state legislative maps they released a few months ago.

[krazen1211]

So the Republicans released their own map to go with their court challenge. It's supposed to create a second Hispanic district, but... it's only 46.5% Hispanic VAP. Yeah, that's not going anywhere. If you're curious, their map can be seen at the bottom of this pdf. They really hate Rock Island County, because it's split both here and in their proposed state legislative maps they released a few months ago.

Mark Veasey in Texas released a map with even lower figures of hispanics as measured by voter registration.

[whaeffner1]

If anyone has looked at the Republican's map yet, they should post it.  It looks much more fair and less gerrymandered than the one that Democrats passed.  Post it if you can find it.