U.S. House Redistricting: Illinois

[realisticidealist]

They should give Lipinski a swing district.

He actually fits his current district pretty well.

[Gravis Marketing]

Is there any chance they'd append part of the northern earmuff to IL-7 to keep its population up, while making IL-4 based in the southern half?

[muon2]

Is there any chance they'd append part of the northern earmuff to IL-7 to keep its population up, while making IL-4 based in the southern half?

The southern part of IL-4 can certainly stand on its own, but attaching the northern part onto IL-7 would reduce the black population below 50%. IL-7 will have to reach more to the south side in IL-1 and 2 to maintain a black majority. The northern part of IL-4 could pick up parts of IL-5 and 6 to become a second Hispanic majority district.

[Gravis Marketing]

Is there any chance they'd append part of the northern earmuff to IL-7 to keep its population up, while making IL-4 based in the southern half?

The southern part of IL-4 can certainly stand on its own, but attaching the northern part onto IL-7 would reduce the black population below 50%.

But does that matter? It won't prevent the African-American community in the district from electing the candidate of its choice, not by a long shot, and I thought there were questions about whether three 50.1% districts can be made in Cook County any more, so it may not be on the table. Otherwise, won't IL-7 have to expand at the expense of IL-1 and IL-2?

[muon2]

Is there any chance they'd append part of the northern earmuff to IL-7 to keep its population up, while making IL-4 based in the southern half?

The southern part of IL-4 can certainly stand on its own, but attaching the northern part onto IL-7 would reduce the black population below 50%.

But does that matter? It won't prevent the African-American community in the district from electing the candidate of its choice, not by a long shot, and I thought there were questions about whether three 50.1% districts can be made in Cook County any more, so it may not be on the table. Otherwise, won't IL-7 have to expand at the expense of IL-1 and IL-2?

Three black-majority districts are still possible, but not in Cook County alone. One way is to extend IL-2 into Will and Kankakee. Certainly the Dems could negotiate to have one district under 50% without a legal challenge, but I think then IL-7 would extend into GOP areas to the west, not to the north.

[krazen1211]

Three black-majority districts are still possible, but not in Cook County alone. One way is to extend IL-2 into Will and Kankakee. Certainly the Dems could negotiate to have one district under 50% without a legal challenge, but I think then IL-7 would extend into GOP areas to the west, not to the north.

Is it a given that 2 hispanic districts and 3 black districts will help the pubbies?

[muon2]

Three black-majority districts are still possible, but not in Cook County alone. One way is to extend IL-2 into Will and Kankakee. Certainly the Dems could negotiate to have one district under 50% without a legal challenge, but I think then IL-7 would extend into GOP areas to the west, not to the north.

Is it a given that 2 hispanic districts and 3 black districts will help the pubbies?

Not automatically. If the black districts expand south that will carve up IL-11 held by Kinzinger. A 2nd Hispanic district will push other Dem districts into the suburbs and could then reduce either IL-10 or IL-8 by taking up parts of those districts.

[ill ind]

  Actually playing with the population figures a bit, it is quite feasible for Il-2 to start at Jesse Jr's house in the South Shore neighborhood and take in the southeast side of Chicago and run south taking in Thornton, Rich, and Bloom townships in Southern Cook County as well as the area in Bremen that it presently encompases.  Then run south in Will taking in Frankfort, Monee, Crete, Green Garden, Will, Washington, and Peotone Townships in Will County.  (Crete and Monee have healthy AA percentages)
  In Kankakee County it can take in Manteno, Sumner, Yellowhead, Ganeer, Momence, Aroma, and Pembroke Townships,  Then inclued the eastern half of Kankakee Township, and the southeast Side of Kankakee (which along with Pembroke Twp have a substantial--if not majority AA population)
  A district like this is the right size and about 55 % AA.
  Disctict 1 can then take in parts of the former District 2 to the north and east, and the remainder of Orland Township to balance the population but still get a district that is about 53% AA.
  This moves District 1 south and east opening up more southside (Englewood, West Englewood, Chicago Lawn, New City) for District 7 to expand.  Also District 7 includes and abuts to some of the faster growing areas of Chicago so population isn't such a big deal--Anyways one can get a 53% or so AA district out of this.
  3 AA districts are pretty feasible.
  I do not see 2 Hispanic ones though--not without demolishing Il-3 and Il 5 anyways.    (For instance a Southern District would have to encompass Joliet.  Getting a Il-3 around that and keeping it Democratic would be pretty hard to acomplish.  I was unable to get a northern standalone district even expanding out into Addison Twp in DuPage and Elk Grove northwest of O'Hare.) The northern part of the earmuff actually lost population along with several areas in West Town and Logan Square no longer having a Hispanic majority.  There was some spread out in areas too such as Belmont-Cragin, Montclair, Portage Park, Irving Park and Albany Park neighborhoods, but it will take the growth in the south added to this to countearct the loss of population in the north to get a reasonable district.
    I think that the earmuff will remain in some form for the next 10 years.
  In 2020 though, if trends remain the same, there will only be 2 AA districts and there will be 2 Hispanic Districts.
Ill_Ind

[ill ind]

  Also, if Il-7 is extended west, there is an easy way to still get the earmuff around it.  Right now the north-south connection between the two sections is empty land between I290 and I-294.  They could simply extend it west along I-290 to Salt Creek Forest Preserve, then south to I-88 and then back east again, pulling Elmhurst  and Oakbbrook Terrace into Il-7.

 The population free-possibilities are endless

Ill-Ind

[krazen1211]

I tried making 2 hispanic districts and couldn't with the final census data.


http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/7726/chicago.png







The red district is 51% Hispanic while the slate green one is 47% Hispanic. It might hit 50 by 2020 though.

This map eliminates Lipinski's district by pairing him with Biggert, and swamps Dold, Walsh, and Roskam with Cook County votes.

[freepcrusher]

how does Peter Roskam get elected? Someone with an ACU of 98 shouldn't be able to survive in an EVEN district.

[Invisible Obama]

how does Peter Roskam get elected? Someone with an ACU of 98 shouldn't be able to survive in an EVEN district.

It's more Republican than the PVI would indicate. Republicans heavily control all local offices there.

[Dgov]

how does Peter Roskam get elected? Someone with an ACU of 98 shouldn't be able to survive in an EVEN district.

It's more Republican than the PVI would indicate. Republicans heavily control all local offices there.

And it would probably have a more Republican PVI, but Obama won 57% there in 2008, which pushed the numbers left.  Its more like an R + 3 district.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

how does Peter Roskam get elected? Someone with an ACU of 98 shouldn't be able to survive in an EVEN district.

It's more Republican than the PVI would indicate. Republicans heavily control all local offices there.

And it would probably have a more Republican PVI, but Obama won 57% there in 2008, which pushed the numbers left.  Its more like an R + 3 district.

I beleive it was R+3 prior to 2008.

[muon2]

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

This map is intended to favor Dems as they control both houses and the governor's office. I tried to avoid any egregious gerrymanders, and I suspect that some of the suburban Chicago districts could be made more favorable. The only really ugly districts are IL5 (Quigley) and IL9 (Schakowsky). IL5 had to take a pretty strained shape to get a voting-age Hispanic plurality, although it still isn't nearly as bad as the current Hispanic-majority IL4 (Gutierrez). IL9 had to pick up the vacated IL5 precincts that didn't have enough Hispanics, as IL7 (Davis) has just a 50.1% voting-age black majority and could not pick anything up. 

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.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Here's another attempt at Illinois.

State



Chicago



IL-01 (blue, Bobby Rush - D) - Snakes from the shores of Lake Michigan (where Rush apparently lives) down to Joliet. 52.6% black VAP.
IL-02 (green, Jesse Jackson Jr. - D) - South side of Chicago to Kankakee. 52.4% black VAP.
IL-03 (purple, Dan Lipinski - D) - Expands south into more of suburban Cook County, but should remain safe for Lipinski.
IL-04 (red, Luis Gutierrez - D) - Retains the earmuff shape. 60.4% Hispanic VAP.
IL-05 (yellow, Mike Quigley - D) - Expands west into Elmhurst, but should still be safe Dem.
IL-06 (teal, Pete Roskam - R and Randy Hultgren - R) - Probably a pretty safe Republican district based in DuPage County. Doesn't really seem to be much point in trying to endanger of Roskam, since after 2006 Democrats gave up on beating him in his current district. Hultgren ends up in here since his home is in DuPage, but he'd run in IL-14.
IL-07 (grey, Danny Davis - D) - Gobbles up part of IL-01 in order to maintain its population. 51.7% black VAP.
IL-08 (light purple, Joe Walsh - R) - I'm still unclear as to where Walsh lives, but he'd run here; it's made pretty safe.
IL-09 (sky blue, Jan Schakowsky - D and Bob Dold - R) - Dold gets drawn into Schakowsky's district, but if he wants to remain in Congress he'll move into IL-10, since this is still a safe Dem district.
IL-10 (magenta, open) - Democrats might finally pick this seat up under this configuration, especially if they get someone other than Dan Seals to run. It picks up some Dem-friendly parts of Lake County from IL-08 and drops Dold's best areas from Cook.
IL-11 (light pink, Adam Kinzinger - R and Tim Johnson - R) - Kinzinger gets screwed in this district, as most of it is formerly Johnson's IL-15.
IL-12 (light purple downstate, Jerry Costello - D and John Shimkus - R) - Tried to draw this to squeeze one or two more points of Democratic performance out of it. Shimkus is drawn into the district as a result, but he'd just have to move one county over to what is basically his old district (now IL-15).
IL-13 (pink, Judy Biggert - R) - Adds Kendall County to most of her old territory; probably more Republican now.
IL-14 (brown, open) - I tried to connect as many Dem-friendly suburbs as possible. I think I've come up with something that would be a swing district. Hultgren doesn't live here anymore, but it's where he would run.
IL-15 (orange, open) - As I said above, Shimkus would run here, it's safe Republican and is mostly the old IL-19.
IL-16 (light green, Don Manzullo - R and Bobby Schilling - R) - Sprawls across the northern third of the state now. Safe Republican. Manzullo lives in the little strip that connects IL-17 to Rockford, so just assume that I fixed that because I don't want to redo the maps. Schilling is in the district, but just barely, so he'd run in IL-17.
IL-17 (purple monstrosity, Aaron Schock - R) - An insane monstrosity that gobbles up every Dem-friendly area from Rockford to Springfield. Schilling would run here. Schock ends up in this district since he lives in Peoria, but he'd run in IL-18.
IL-18 (yellow, open) - Pretty similar to the old IL-18, Schock would run here. Safe R.

[Padfoot]

Despite what the incumbent Democrats may prefer I can't see any map being made without an additional Hispanic district.  I think the "earmuff" district is going to be history.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

There aren't enough Hispanics in the north side of the earmuff for a second Hispanic-majority district. You can get up to around 44-45% VAP, and that's it.

[Bacon King]

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.

[timothyinMD]

I was bored and drew an awesome map for Illinois



The 5 downstate districts are all composed of whole counties, which I think is good

[Senator Napoleon]

How far do they deviate from the target population?

[timothyinMD]

Red is +206
Blue/Purple is +501
Beige is -214
Orange is +822
Hot pink is +2689

[Bacon King]

That's far too great of a deviation, I'm pretty sure.

[timothyinMD]

Haha, the one that was 2689 deviation is a paltry 0.3% deviation, and the others are 0.1% or less.  Who cares.  Besides, the census numbers are already outdated.  You can't make it perfect if you tried

[JohnnyLongtorso]

The app has partisan data (2008 election) for Illinois now.

Edit: Well, maybe not, the data is totally screwed up (at least for 2010, I haven't checked the old stuff).