US House Redistricting: Michigan

[Torie]

OK Verily. It won't do too much "damage" to fix it. The purple district will get maybe 1%-2% more Dem in its PVI, and the Green district about 1%-2% less or so, I would guess. I was fighting hard for every PVI point. Michigan is an interesting state to do, because it has these Dem nodes in it, and so the game is to neutralize them, one by one (with two black districts of course a given): Muskegon, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Bay City and Saginaw, Flint, the Dem areas of Macomb and Oakland, Ann Arbor, and the white Dems of Wayne. One does that by packing multiple nodes into one Dem district, or neutralizing the nodes by appending them to otherwise GOP areas.

You get an "A" for this exercise if you hew to the rule of 4 - 4 Dem seats each for Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

[Brittain33]

Anyway, the VRA only applies to Michigan insofar as you need to avoid having districts that intentionally dilute the black vote such that their preferred candidate routinely loses. Even 45% black wouldn't be an intentional dilution.

Yes, the election of Peters and Levin shows that you probably don't need a 55% black district to have a black Democrat win the primary and then the general election. There is surely a white Democratic base that won't reflexively switch to the Republicans to vote against a Dem candidate, although the Detroit vs. suburbs dynamic is an issue.

[Sbane]

You get an "A" for this exercise if you hew to the rule of 4 - 4 Dem seats each for Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

I would really be interested in seeing a PA map with only 4 Democrats. And what is meant by "Dem seats"? Would you consider a district that voted 51-47 for Obama a Dem seat or a Rep seat if I put one of the Republicans there? In any case a PA map with just 4 Democrats is a disaster in the making for the pubbies. Even in Ohio I had trouble keeping the Dems down to just 4 seats.

[Torie]

You get an "A" for this exercise if you hew to the rule of 4 - 4 Dem seats each for Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

I would really be interested in seeing a PA map with only 4 Democrats. And what is meant by "Dem seats"? Would you consider a district that voted 51-47 for Obama a Dem seat or a Rep seat if I put one of the Republicans there? In any case a PA map with just 4 Democrats is a disaster in the making for the pubbies. Even in Ohio I had trouble keeping the Dems down to just 4 seats.

No, a Pubbie seat in general is one where in an even election, the Pubbie wins by say at least 3%.  Since Obama won the nation by 7%, if he wins by 4%, that is that 3% GOP lean. Sure a 6% GOP lean would be better, but in some places, that is just not possible, without conceding too much, or simply isn't there at all, like in the Philly suburbs, even if you knock out the most Dem areas of them.

Bear in mind, that since this exercise is mostly about protecting GOP incumbents now, rather than knocking out Dem ones, as long as the Pubbie incumbents stay around, and do a reasonably good job, they should be OK in districts with this amount of GOP lean from an even partisan baseline, even if Obama wins the nation again by 7% (incumbency should give them a 3-5% margin pad or so I would think).

But in the Detroit metro area we have an exception, where we are trying to knock out Dem incumbents Peters and Levin.

[Torie]

You get an "A" for this exercise if you hew to the rule of 4 - 4 Dem seats each for Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

I would really be interested in seeing a PA map with only 4 Democrats. And what is meant by "Dem seats"? Would you consider a district that voted 51-47 for Obama a Dem seat or a Rep seat if I put one of the Republicans there? In any case a PA map with just 4 Democrats is a disaster in the making for the pubbies. Even in Ohio I had trouble keeping the Dems down to just 4 seats.

Did you see what I did to the inner city Pittsburgh district?    Again, in west PA, the Dem districts have lost a lot of population, which allows for a big Dem pack, particularly since PA lost a CD. So the Dems in west PA will have but one seat - on paper. Yes, Holden and Altmire may hang on (and probably will), and the Dems win 6 seats, but those two will be representing GOP districts - and vote accordingly. Good for them. And in suburban Philly, the Dems will be competitive, if there is a rather significant shift back their way, defeating some GOP incumbents, but nothing can be done about that. The available territory is too marginal.

[Brittain33]

Seeing all this--how exactly did Peters survive this year in his current district?

[Torie]

Seeing all this--how exactly did Peters survive this year in his current district?

P-O-N-T-I-A-C (80% for Kerry - 17,759 to 4,499 in the city, and about 53% for Kerry in neighboring Auburn Hills I think).  And he had West Bloomfield (about 59% for Peters - that must be where the Jewish lawyers live ), and Farmington Hills (57% for Peters).  All three are gone now, appended to the black district (except for about 15 precincts in Farmington Hills which were added to McCotter's green district). He also had to lose marginally GOP Waterford (47.5% for Peters). Instead, he now has marginally (56% for  Levin) Dem Madison Heights (not that big a town, but I needed to put it in his district, to shove all of West Bloomfield out of his district and into the black district to make its march to Pontiac both legal and via all Dem - and heavily Dem, pathways), and three townships in Macomb, two GOP (Shelby 60% for Bush, and Sterling Heights 52% for Bush) and one marginally Dem (Warren - 56% for Kerry, and maybe 53% for Levin or less).

But Pontiac is 90% of the story.

[Sbane]

You get an "A" for this exercise if you hew to the rule of 4 - 4 Dem seats each for Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

I would really be interested in seeing a PA map with only 4 Democrats. And what is meant by "Dem seats"? Would you consider a district that voted 51-47 for Obama a Dem seat or a Rep seat if I put one of the Republicans there? In any case a PA map with just 4 Democrats is a disaster in the making for the pubbies. Even in Ohio I had trouble keeping the Dems down to just 4 seats.

Did you see what I did to the inner city Pittsburgh district?    Again, in west PA, the Dem districts have lost a lot of population, which allows for a big Dem pack, particularly since PA lost a CD. So the Dems in west PA will have but one seat - on paper. Yes, Holden and Altmire may hang on (and probably will), and the Dems win 6 seats, but those two will be representing GOP districts - and vote accordingly. Good for them. And in suburban Philly, the Dems will be competitive, if there is a rather significant shift back their way, defeating some GOP incumbents, but nothing can be done about that. The available territory is too marginal.

What I did was create Holden a Democratic district within SE PA, and then tried to shore up the Philly area Republican. Actually worked decently well though I did end up with a 54-44 Obama 15th district. Every other Republican district is at least 50-48 Obama or more Republican.

Your Michigan gerrymander is also fascinating, but you should keep one thing in mind. Those blue collar voters that swung hard agains the Democrats this year, could come right back to them and more. If Obama loses in 2012, and a pro business Republican is elected with the economy still stagnating, expect huge swings back in these sorts of areas. Did these areas go even more Republican in 2010 than in 2004? 2004 is a good prism to view how things are really. 2008 was too screwy of an election as well as 2010.

[Torie]

I am well aware that among the cohort of voters that I am talking about, 2010 was a GOP high tide mark. That is one reason why I split the marginally Dem areas of Macomb that are now in Levin's district between the Peters' district and the Miller district. And that was why I worked so hard to try to shore up McCotter's district, which is very vulnerable if he is not the incumbent. I largely failed in the latter endeavor. It just is not possible given the Michigan law constraints. And if you have to have Dem areas in your CD, better that it be ones that can swing your way, rather than those that think Pubbies are generally toxic, and will give you the permanent finger, no? 

Another trick is to see where the demographic growth will be. At least McCotter's district has a lot of real estate ripe for more middle class exurban Pubbies to move into over time. It seems clear that the population growth in his part of Oakland was pretty robust. That is why the Green district did not have to add much territory, even with the bounce up in the population requirement per CD juiced by Michigan losing a CD.

[Sam Spade]

Your Michigan gerrymander is also fascinating, but you should keep one thing in mind. Those blue collar voters that swung hard agains the Democrats this year, could come right back to them and more. If Obama loses in 2012, and a pro business Republican is elected with the economy still stagnating, expect huge swings back in these sorts of areas. Did these areas go even more Republican in 2010 than in 2004? 2004 is a good prism to view how things are really. 2008 was too screwy of an election as well as 2010.

In Michigan, certainly.  PA - less certain actually.  Ohio - if they didn't, I'd be shocked.  Blue collar Dem voters in Ohio have the habit of swinging Republican a lot historically.

[RBH]

adding a few images with some concept ideas







I don't know enough about how Oakland County breaks down to tell you how Peters v. Rogers would go with that alignment.

Dingell v. Conyers wouldn't happen but it would be a pretty vicious map.

Adding Pontiac to Levin's district as a vote sink district is also vicious.

Removing the two counties won by Schauer and adding Republican friendly counties is also pretty devious. Along with the open Dem seat.

So that might wind up as a 9-5 map in a current 9-6 state.

I'm not sure if 10-4 is realistic. But crushing Peters at the expense of 4 other Dems could occur. And I doubt that Kildee could be drawn out of his district.

[Torie]

The green district is far too Dem, and you did not get rid of Levin. The Dems would love your map. Mine will have a more GOP green district, and get rid of both Levin and Peters. The Levin district that you designed might not fly because it is too erose. One needs to make the districts look more compact, by filling them out with places without many voters. Granted my latest little work in progress gets a bit erose with the Flint district, as I have the Flint district now taking in Pontiac (I "need" to do this to beef up the McCotter district and get the Peters district to the point where Peters will have to vote like a Pubbie to survive), but I am trying to cosmeticize it, but the more cosmetic it is, the most GOP votes I have to lose, so it is a balancing test. The trick is to design every CD but 4 in Michigan, to all being carried fairly comfortably by Bush 2004, and if not by McCain, he at least would have got quite close.

The first thing you need to do, is to strip the black districts of white votes in their south tails, shoving those voters into the Dingell district, so that one of the black districts needs close to 400,000 more in population, all made up with Oakland County Democrats. The more you can strip the black districts of white voters in the south, the more you can round up Dems in the north.

[RBH]

I never said I was gonna get rid of Levin. I said I was gonna turn his district into a vote sink.

And there is NO Dingell district on this map. Dingell is drawn out of Congress in this map.

And are there minorities in Oakland County that aren't in Levin or Conyers district?

[Torie]

I never said I was gonna get rid of Levin. I said I was gonna turn his district into a vote sink.

And there is NO Dingell district on this map. Dingell is drawn out of Congress in this map.

And are there minorities in Oakland County that aren't in Levin or Conyers district?

You put Ann Arbor into a Pubbie district?  Oh dear. Do you think a Pubbie could win the gray district absent a wave? And yes, there are a lot of blacks in the Peters district, particularly in Pontiac, but beyond that, in the upper middle class more Jewish parts of Oakland, in particular West Bloomfield and Farmington. That is where the bourgeoisie blacks live now (those that cannot quite afford that, live in Southfield). Why on earth would they live anywhere else, if black? Unless you have an intellectual bent, and want to live in Ann Arbor, which is certainly where I would live, if I were "sentenced" to live in the Detroit metro area. Ann Arbor was such a joy to live in when I was in law school there. Gosh, how I love that town.

[RBH]

Let me make this easier for you to understand

Ann Arbor/Lansing is an open DEM seat
Or as I said "Along with the open Dem seat."

Which for the first election will occupy Democrats on a primary when they could be trying to increase momentum for Peters or a challenger for one of the other Freshmen.

"And yes, there are a lot of blacks in the Peters district, particularly in Pontiac"

I wasn't referencing the current map when I said that "are there minorities in Oakland County that aren't in Levin or Conyers district?".. I was referencing my map, where Pontiac is in Levin's district and Bloomfield Hills is in CD8.

So, a summary
CD1 is redder (picking up the solid red Grand Traverse area, dropping the purpleish tail)
CD6 is redder (losing Schauer's house/Battle Creek, losing another county Schauer carried, picking up turf that John Dingell's challenger won)
CD8 can use work but it's Livington and presumably redder parts of Oakland County
CD9 is now the Lansing/Ann Arbor seat which Dems will win
CD10 picks up some random parts of Macomb.
CD11 could use some pruning but if McCotter keeps it in 2008, he won't lose it
CD12 becomes redder with Pontiac
CD13 picks up Hamtramck/Highland Park and is like 58-59% Black
CD14 combines parts of Dingell's seat with Conyers district and is majority black.

[Sam Spade]

Rather impressive, I must say.  Let us know how it goes.

[Mr.Phips]

This is my final map for Michigan. I am quite sure that it is legal. I made the districts look as compact as possible, and minimized down to the absolute minimum both county and township and city splits. My former map had too many county splits.

I redesigned the map, so that the 4th and 8th districts could get at heavily GOP Ionia and Barry counties, which were in CD 3 before, and CD 3 does not need them. I also beefed up CD 7, and deliberately made it more GOP than CD 8, because the incumbent there just got elected, and is more vulnerable. Nobody is going to defeat Rodgers in the 8th.

It is not possible to make CD 1 much more GOP, given county population constraints, county line break contraints, and districts needing to go from here to there. In any event CD-1 trended GOP in 2008 from 2004 a bit  - against the tide.  Its swing to Obama was only about 5%, in contrast to the national swing of about 10% (from Bush 2004 up 3% to Obama up 7% or so). I also tried to beef up where I could the CD's that trended the most Dem in 2008 from 2004, except for CD-8, which cannot be made more GOP given the law, and the limits on county splits, and the need to beef up the Pubbie in CD-7. For some reason Pubbies in CD-7 tend to struggle to get re-elected - or lose, as happened in 2008.

Where I did beef up a Pubbie, is in CD-6, which trended heavily to Obama from Kerry in 2008. I did take away quite heavily GOP St. Joseph, to beef up CD-7, but replaced it with even more GOP northern Allegan, and a slice of massively GOP Ottowa, and in the eye of the GOP storm in fact, in and around Holland Township, which is close to 3-1 GOP. What CD-2 lost there, and from its slice of Kent, which is now wholly contained in CD-3, it got back to a large extent with Grand Traverse. CD-4 lost Grand Traverse (the district in 2001 was drawn in a pretty erose manner to wander up to Grand Traverse), and it did suck up Dem Bay City (along with the balance of Bay County, which ex Bay City, is about even), but it also got most of the GOP thumb, along with the bulk of heavily GOP Ionia. The ying and the yang. In that regard, Saginaw County, of which CD-4 has a part, was very carefully gerrymandered. I dumped almost each and every Dem precinct in Saginaw into CD-5.

Oh, and the piece de resistance, is that I manged to make CD-11 a tad more GOP. That took work!    The "solution" was to put Pontiac in CD-5 rather than CD-14. And notice how I avoided CD-13 from touching CD-11. I did that in part to try to make CD-14 more black, but also because if they touched in Wayne, it probably would not be legal to do a split in a township or city between CD-11 and CD-14 in Oakland County. So that was a "two-for" as it were.

I am pretty confident that this is the map the GOP will adopt, with only minor variations. I worked very hard on it, and thought everything through quite carefully - I think. I am going to send this map to whomever in the legislature is in point person for drawing the map, and get his comments, if I can.

Curiously enough, eschewing getting rid of both Peters and Levin, and settling for just one defeated Dem, does not get you very far. First, it is difficult to do that, and still have a legal map, and the territory available, having removed most of the decidedly to heavily Dem territory, is pretty monocromatic, so slice and dice while still having a legal map, just does not accomplish much (unless you want to give a real opening to a Dem if Candice Miller in Macomb retires by making her district about even for Bush 2004). I did try to dump at the margins more Pubbies into CD -9 to defeat Peters, since Candice Miller in Macomb is just not doing to be defeated anytime soon. Peters indeed does have a chance to survive. Oakland has trended Dem since 2004 a bit, even in GOP areas, as a partisan baseline, and Peters demonstrated that this time in Oakland. He ran ahead of Bush 2004 by a couple of percent - not bad for a GOP wave election.

Here are the partisan numbers for the CD's. I did not bother to calculate CD's 10, 13 and 14, which would be a nightmare given they all are heavily in Wayne County. It would be well nigh impossible given the extent to which I have access to the data. Suffice it to say, that all three are massively Dem. Below are my CD numbers, and I will leave in place my splits data for Oakland and Macomb counties.

            Bush %       Kerry         Bush   
1st cd   53.48%   161,693   185,915   347,608
2nd cd   59.34%   144,147   210,352   354,498
3rd cd   59.12%   137,226   198,451   335,677
4th cd   55.24%   160,923   198,592   359,515
5th cd   39.45%   196,768   128,184   324,952
6th cd   55.09%   149,438   183,280   332,719
7th cd   55.19%   143,475   176,692   320,167
8th cd   52.61%   150,156   166,702   316,858
9th cd   55.01%   164,141   200,670   364,811
11th cd   52.83%   181730   203554   385284
12th cd   53.03%   167,775   189,385   357,160

Oh, and here are the Bush 2004 numbers in the old CD's for comparison:

CD                 Bush   %
District 1         53.33%   
District 2         60.11%   
District 3         59.09%   
District 4         54.86%   
District 5         40.46%   
District 6         52.84%   
District 7         54.38%   
District 8         53.70%   
District 9         50.38%   
District 10         56.24%   (now CD 12)
District 11         51.98%   
District 12         38.89%   (CD gone)
District 13         18.93%   
District 14         17.51%   
District 15         38.16%   (now CD 10)




MI-9 (turquoise CD)
  Kerry      Bush   
65,345     55,925    Macomb ex Shelby Township
10,643     16,553     Macomb Shelby Township (portion est 79.1%)
88,153   128,192    Oakland   
164,141   200,670   364,811
44.99%   55.01%   

CD-11 (green CD)
  Kerry       Bush   
  32,180     48,743   Oakland
149,550   154,811   Wayne
181,730   203,554   385,284
47.17%    52.83%

Oakland portion of CD-5 (yellow CD)
  Kerry      Bush   
30,176   20,474   50,650
59.58%  40.42%

Oakland portion of CD-14 (brown CD; black percentage in total CD 56%)
  Kerry      Bush   
141,889   84,025   225,914
62.81%   37.19%


CD-12 (light blue CD - old CD-10)
 Kerry        Bush   
117,363   125,320   Macomb ex Shelby Township
    2,809       4,368   Macomb Shelby Township (portion est 20.9%)
  36,174     42,740   St. Clair
  11,429     16,957    Lapeer (portion in CD-12)    
167,775   189,385   357,160
46.97%   53.03%   

 

Your 8th, 11th, and 12th all likely voted for Obama handily and could easily go Democratic in a good Dem year.  Gary Peters could well win MI-09 in 2012 on Obama's coattails.

[Torie]

Yep, and there is not a darn thing that can be done about it. If the Dems win the nation by 7%, some GOP seats are going to go down - certainly if they have no incumbent, or a suck incumbent. And that is how it should be. If you play much with this map, if a GOP incumbent retires, the Dems are more likely than not to pick the seat up, in an even election. Michigan is not the South. There are not huge partisan variations, after one gets done with the black, Jewish, and Dutch areas. And the Dutch live a long way from the blacks and the Jews. Combine that with the legal constraints, and if you can do better than this map, send it along to the redistricters.

By the way, Rodgers won CD-8 in 2008 by 57%-40%, while Obama was carrying it by 7%. Some GOP incumbent congressmen are nebbishes (like a long string of them in CD-7, who keep getting defeated, and the one that just got elected is more in the nebbish category, carrying on that tradition), and some are mensches. Rodgers is an uber  mensch. And McCotter is a mensch, if not quite in the uber category. Obama carried his CD by 9%, while McCotter carried his CD-11 in 2008 by 9%.  Oh, and nobody is going to beat Candice Miller, in Macomb. She won her CD in 2008 by 66%-31%, while McCain was carrying it by 2%.  So while her margin in her new district in 2008 might have been more like 63-37 or so, she remains invulnerable. Plus, her new Dem portions of Macomb are trending GOP. I keep such matters in the back of my mind.

[Mr.Phips]

Yep, and there is not a darn thing that can be done about it. If the Dems win the nation by 7%, some GOP seats are going to go down - certainly if they have no incumbent, or a suck incumbent. And that is how it should be. If you play much with this map, if a GOP incumbent retires, the Dems are more likely than not to pick the seat up, in an even election. Michigan is not the South. There are not huge partisan variations, after one gets done with the black, Jewish, and Dutch areas. And the Dutch live a long way from the blacks and the Jews. Combine that with the legal constraints, and if you can do better than this map, send it along to the redistricters.

By the way, Rodgers won CD-8 in 2008 by 57%-40%, while Obama was carrying it by 7%. Some GOP incumbent congressmen are nebbishes (like a long string of them in CD-7, who keep getting defeated, and the one that just got elected is more in the nebbish category, carrying on that tradition), and some are mensches. Rodgers is an uber  mensch. And McCotter is a mensch, if not quite in the uber category. Obama carried his CD by 9%, while McCotter carried his CD-11 in 2008 by 9%.  Oh, and nobody is going to beat Candice Miller, in Macomb. She won her CD in 2008 by 66%-31%, while McCain was carrying it by 2%.  So while her margin in her new district in 2008 might have been more like 63-37 or so, she remains invulnerable. Plus, her new Dem portions of Macomb are trending GOP. I keep such matters in the back of my mind.

Now, you cant be so sure about these things.  Democrats have never targetted these members.  People said that Allen Boyd, Melissa Bean, Jim Oberstar, Rick Boucher and Charlie Melancon and Bart Gordon(both of whom would have been defeated had they run for reelection) were invulnerable.  Democrats are likely to start targetting these Republicans in Obama districts and in a better Democratic year, they are likely to win some of these districts. 

[dpmapper]

Now, you cant be so sure about these things.  Democrats have never targetted these members.  People said that Allen Boyd, Melissa Bean, Jim Oberstar, Rick Boucher and Charlie Melancon and Bart Gordon(both of whom would have been defeated had they run for reelection) were invulnerable.  Democrats are likely to start targetting these Republicans in Obama districts and in a better Democratic year, they are likely to win some of these districts. 

Other than Oberstar (D+3 district), these are bad comparisons.  Bean was only a 3-termer, first elected against an old/weak incumbent and re-elected only in strong Dem years; the only reason her loss was an upset this year is because nobody thought Walsh was a strong candidate.  The 4 southerners that you mention represent districts that are R+6,+11,+12,+13, whereas you are complaining about districts that are roughly even, or maybe R+1 or 2.  With incumbents who have demonstrated an ability to win even through two straight Dem waves, you can take those chances.  (It's not as if *every* Dem in a D+3 or worse district went down this year - Minnesota still has Walz and Peterson, for instance.) 

[Torie]

I have figured out in my head a Michigan map that I think might work, which cedes a CD where Peters and Levin fight it out, while strengthening some of the GOP seats, and in particular CD's 8, 11 and 12.   I will put that map up in due course. This is a fun game actually. 

[muon2]

This is my next iteration. My goal was to give all the GOP incumbents at least at 54.5% Bush 2004 CD (GOP PVI +3% per Bush 2004 numbers), but better is 55% (GOP PVI per Bush 2004 numbers 3.5%). I wanted to pad CD-07's GOP lean, which has a weak GOP just now elected incumbent, and that meant excluding Battle Creek from CD-07 (a marginally Dem town), which weakened a bit CD-04, which absorbed Battle Creek, and so I scrubbed, and scrubbed again, every precinct, to get CD-04 to as close to 55% Bush 2004 as possible. No precincts are left to play with, as to that aspect of the game - none.

I am very sure the map is legal. That was carefully scrubbed too, as to every detail I think.

So Rogers moves out of his home in Livingston County, to Oakland County (where about a third of his existing CD is), to CD-09, which is heavily GOP now, to take out Peters. And in order to take out Peters for sure, I padded CD-09, so that it is Bush 2004 57.02%, which particularly against Rogers, means that Peters is done). Levin has a district now all in Southern Macomb, plus the Gross Pointes, very carefully gerrymandered, although it does not look that way, that Bush 2004 carried by a hair. The incumbent in CD-10, Candice Miller,  lives in Harrison Township in Macomb, and although she lives in safe CD-10 in this plan (largely her existing district) without changing the partisan balance much at all, her home can be drawn into either CD-12, if she is adventurous, and wants to run in CD-12. In the new CD-12, she would be the favorite to beat Levin in this now even district from a partisan perspective. Her old district had Shelby Township and the northern third of Sterling Heights, plus five precincts in Macomb township that are now in CD-12 now, so she has an "excuse," if she wants to run in CD-12, rather than CD-10. But she takes more risk running in CD-12 - for sure.

So the bottom line, is that the GOP incumbents in the more marginal seats are all made safer,  and CD-02 and CD-03, which dropped a bit in Bush 2004 percentages, but are still the most GOP Bush 2004 CD's in Michigan. The bottom line, is that the Dems lose one safe seat (old CD-12), and one marginally Dem seat (old CD-09), in exchange for one toss up seat (new CD-12), and the GOP incumbents all made pretty much invulnerable (GOP + 3% PVI or better), absent a Dem wave.  So, the Dems in this plan get 4.5 seats, as it were, rather than 5 seats, and lose much hope of taking out any GOP incumbents.

If anyone has any ideas how to improve this plan, let me know. Thanks.






 

The numbers look sweet, but I'm not sure about the Ann Arbor area. It looks like there is a three-way split of Washtenaw. That would probably be disallowed under the statute.

[Torie]

Well in the current plan, Oakland has a four way split, and that certainly could have been avoided, but it wasn't. The law basically has a reasonable standard; there is no special award of negative points for having 3 way rather than 2 way splits of a county. The Washtenaw split is really just a population equalizer in any event. In the current plan, note that CD-05 does an adjacent split of Bay and Saginaw Counties, to take in both Bay City and Saginaw;  that would seem illegal on its face since the splits are both involving just one CD, CD-04, but it flew anyway.

I could squeeze CD-08 out of Washtenaw, without doing much damage really. Not that many people are involved. The effect however, would be to make CD-11 a bit more Dem, because that CD would have to take some territory from CD-12. Or all the CD's in the area would have to look more erose (with CD-08 and CD-11 both a tad more Dem, as they would have to reach down and take in Madison Heights, Berkley and Royal Oak in southeast Oakland.

I have another plan that puts Pontiac and West Broomfield in CD -08. That allows CD-11 to yes take in marginally Dem Farmington, but that it punches through Southfield Township (Beverly Hills, not the city of Southfield), and then take in GOP Broomfield, Birmingham, and Troy.  That way at the south end of his CD, he can lose 58% Dem Westland. The advantage of this plan is that Rogers can keep Livingston, and McCotter keeps Livonia, their respective home fields. And CD-09 is just shredded away, so Peters has nowhere to run at all. He would face Rogers in CD-08, with only Rochester where he lives in it, along with the GOP northeast corner of Oakland, and Pontiac, Auburn Hills, Waterfield and West Bloomfield, but the rest of the district is all Rogers territory, and heavily GOP (northwest Oakland and Livingston).  So basically CD-08, takes in heavily Dem Pontiac, marginally Dem Auburn Hills, 60% Dem or so West Broomfield, with the balance of the CD all comfortable to heavily GOP territory.

[Torie]

I am combining my three plans into one post.

To give some definition to my terms, I consider a "safe" GOP seat, one that Bush 2004 got at least 54.5% of the two party vote, with 55% being even better, and that was my goal, not quite reached in a couple of instances (I am between 54.5% and 55%).  A 52.5-54.5% Bush 2004 seat is lean GOP, and anything less than that is really in the tilt to tossup category.  Every percentage point counts - and counts a lot - in our divided and quite closely balanced partisan environment, with relatively few swing voters. A 54.5% CD by the way is a +3% GOP PVI from Bush 2004 numbers (Bush 2004 got 51.4% of the two party vote). Pubbies have been pretty successful in holding +3% or better GOP PVI districts in the past (well outside the South, until now, where some Dem fossils held on). Sure, some are lost from time to time, but not many.

The first plan is the one that tries to cut down the Dems to holding just 4 seats.  It does this by getting rid of CD-12. The Dem parts of CD-12 in Oakland County, are given to one of the black seats, CD-14.  (All 3 plans do that in fact.) CD-09 takes in the marginally Dem CD-12 areas in Macomb of Warren Township, and its third of Sterling Heights, while CD-10 takes the marginally Dem areas in Macomb of Eastpointe, St. Clair Shores, Mt Clements, and Clinton Township, all marginally Dem, while losing much of its thumb territory. So CD-10 becomes a more marginally GOP seat, renumbered CD-12. CD-09 in Oakland becomes comfortably GOP having lost its Dem areas in Oakland, in exchange for less Dem areas in Macomb. But having CD-05 go south to take in Pontiac, creates a barrier that makes it impossible for CD-11 to get at the heavily populated GOP areas in eastern Oakland (Rochester, Troy, Bloomfield), so it struggles to find GOP territory, without a whole lot of success; so CD-11 becomes just a tad more GOP and somewhat marginal.

Meanwhile CD-08 becomes a marginal GOP seat, because it still has to take in Lansing, and while it gains some GOP territory in the East, it loses its heavily GOP territory in northern Oakland (now taken up to some extent by CD-05 so that it can link up to Pontiac.

So this plan creates 4 marginal GOP seats, CD's 01, 08, 11 and 12. And that is why this plan will not be adopted.  Rogers in CD-08, McCotter in CD-11, and Miller in now CD-10, to be renumbered CD-12, will not be very happy. Plus, one cannot beef up CD-01 much, without it looking embarrassingly erose. And given the play of geography in the next two plans, we can put MI-01 in safe GOP territory, without being so embarrassed.







So that brings us to the second plan. In this plan, CD-12 again loses its Dem areas in Oakland to CD-14, but this time is all in Macomb County, and also takes in the Gross Pointes in Wayne County. This is possible in this plan precisely because CD-12 is now otherwise all in Macomb county, with nothing in Oakland. Having CD-12 go into three counties, is probably not legal. So with the Gross Pointes in CD-12, we can make that a toss up district (rather than marginal GOP in the first plan), but in exchange, Miller (CD-10), Rogers (now all in Oakland in CD-09, with his old CD-08 now the number for Dingell’s old CD-15), and McCotter (CD-11) now all have safe districts. CD-01 becomes safe GOP as well. This plan is elegant, because it creates nice compact looking districts, and minimizes county splits, with CD-09 now all in Oakland County, and Oakland now having only 3 CD’s in it rather than 4.

The problem with this plan however, is that Livingston County is now appended to McCotter’s CD-11, so Rogers will have to move to Oakland County (where about a third of his district currently is).. Rogers will not want to move if it can be avoided.







So I suspect a third plan will be adopted: the one below. In this plan, Rogers keeps his Livingston base, with the rest of his district now in Oakland (except for a sliver of Washtenaw as a population equalizer taking up marginal political territory). The key to this plan, is to give Rogers the Dem areas of Pontiac and West Broomfield in Oakland, which he can handle, since the balance of what he has in Oakland is mostly heavily GOP, along with Livingston (CD-08 no longer has to cope with Dem Lansing and Inghram County, so he as plenty of GOP partisan pad to contain and neutralize Pontiac and environs).  

The old CD-09 is totally chopped up, and Peters has nowhere to run. (Yes, in that sense, it is convenient that Peters won in CD-09 this year, because if the Pubbie had won, then there would have been a real pushing and shoving match, as to which incumbent Pubbie gets what, and it might have been a toss up whether my first plan (which creates 3 marginal GOP seats), or this plan, were adopted.)

The last map at the bottom, shows what was the new now CD-08 looks like, with the green part in Oakland from the old CD-09 (except for GOP White Lake Township, which is from CD-11), the gray in the old CD-08 (CD-08 lost the pink area to the east, largely in Inghram County), and the green in Washtenaw (marginal partisan territory), is from the old CD-07. By CD-08 taking in Pontiac and West Broomfield, that  creates a geographic pathway for  McCotter’s CD-11 to then capture heavily populated GOP areas in Oakland of Troy and Broomfield via cutting through marginally Dem Farmington.  If  Pontiac is put in CD-05 or CD-14, a barrier is created that makes it not viable for CD-09 to take in West Broomfield, and that leaves CD-11 to cope with both Farmington and West Broomfield and drop some Dem precincts in Wayne, while trying to get at Broomfield and Troy;  that is just too much population in which to switch for CD-11. It does not work, because the 3 Dem districts in metro Detroit, the two black districts, and the Dingell district, end up with too much population.

So, in summary, I think this plan will be adopted more or less, because it makes all the GOP incumbents happy, and gives the GOP an even shot of winning what is now the 5th Dem seat in Macomb County (CD-12). We shall see what happens. I am going to send all of this data to the Michigan “redistricters.”

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

If they actually do put part of the 5th in Wayne County, that's gonna make for some interesting happenings during the county meetings back home... especially since the county has never really interacted with the 5th.