US House Redistricting: Minnesota

[ilikeverin]

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

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.

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, 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").

[muon2]

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

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.

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.

[jimrtex]

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

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.

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.

[jimrtex]

Back in January on this thread I speculated on a plan with minimal changes. 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.

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.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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.

[jimrtex]

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?

[muon2]

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.

[jimrtex]

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.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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





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.

[Torie]

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

[Torie]

Back in January on this thread I speculated on a plan with minimal changes. 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.

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.





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

[ilikeverin]

Either of those chops makes sense.

[minionofmidas]

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/DFL-Congress.jpg

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/gop-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.

[muon2]

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/DFL-Congress.jpg

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/gop-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.

[Torie]

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.

[minionofmidas]

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.

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.

[ilikeverin]

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.

[muon2]

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.

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 to be the best though the population would need to be adjusted to make it exact.

[muon2]

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.

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.

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).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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.

[minionofmidas]

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

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.

[muon2]

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.

[ilikeverin]

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?

[Torie]

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.

[BigSkyBob]

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.

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 to be the best though the population would need to be adjusted to make it exact.

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!