US House Redistricting: West Virginia

[muon2]

WV prohibits county splits.

The prohibition is in the WV Constitution. Article I section 4:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Compactness however is ill defined compared to contiguity. Thus current CD 2 stretching in a single band of counties is ok, since arguably it makes 1 and 3 compact.

[muon2]

The legislature probably won't have much choice. The map will have to be districts of whole counties that produce the most nearly equal population. Any other map would be subject to challenge.

[muon2]

Worth pointing out that they didn't gerrymander Capito out when they had the chance before 2002.

Are you suggesting that they want her to stay there instead of doing something else (considering she was a freshman up in 2002)?  Or is it because WV Dems have such fond memories of Arch Moore? 

I contend that federal law requires nearly population as nearly equal as practicible. When that is combined with the state constitutional requirement of contiguous whole counties, then there will be an obligation to create a map that makes the three districts most equal, given the population of the counties. That generally takes partisan considerations out of the picture.

If there was no way to get close to equal population and a county split was required, then partisan considerations could take a front seat.

[muon2]

The WV legislature really pushed the courts on their map. The maximum deviation is just over 0.5% (3197) and it's not very compact. Since there are other ways of matching whole counties with a smaller deviation, it's not surprising that the court rejected it.

Here are a couple of alternatives that significantly improve on the passed map. Option A keeps the panhandle attached to Charleston. The maximum deviation is just under 0.2% (1231)



Option B puts Charleston with the south and the panhandle with Morgantown. That leaves a long district along the Ohio River. The maximum deviation here is 0.15% (930).

[muon2]

The Cooper plan splits only one county, Taylor, to achieve nearly mathematical equality. I've looked and I think that Lewis' plan is the minimum deviation with no county splits. I've made a smaller version of the map to compare with my options with greater deviation.



One question for the WV legislature is what map a federal panel would impose. I wouldn't rule out Lewis' plan in that case. The state has shown a strong policy interest in keeping counties whole, and Lewis' deviation is well within the acceptable limits when there is other compelling state interest. Also the state hasn't objected to a combination of the Panhandle and Charleston, so I see no reason why there would be an objection to the linking the Panhandle with Beckley instead.

[muon2]

I took a quick look at the PVI's for Lewis' map. They are R+8, R+7, and R+9 respectively. That's probably about as bad as it gets for the Dems. If they are worried about a court imposed map, then this has to be part of their worries.

Compare that to something like my option B that kept the south together in one district; the PVIs are then R+10, R+9 and R+5. Rahall's current district is R+6, and I doubt he'd want to go to R+9 when he could stay the same or do better by his party in the legislature.

[muon2]

If you compare the Cooper plan to my map, it's pretty clear that it's intended to protect McKinley and Rahall. It's a map aimed at 1-1-1 with the Republicans having an entrenched incumbent in the wouldbe swing seat, so really 2-1 R.

But I think your map today is at best a 1-0-2 with incumbents to make it 2-1 R, and over the decade it becomes 3-0 R as the GOP develops a bench.

[muon2]

http://www.wvmetronews.com/news.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=50351

But on Monday, the state Senate was hard at work on an alternative called "the more perfect plan." The map would put the Eastern Panhandle, the Northern Panhandle and connecting counties into District 1.

District 2 would go from Marion County in the north, Kanawha County in the south and Wood County in the west.

District 3 would encompass southern West Virginia.




Perhaps this, based on the above, if they decide not to split counties. Deviation of 1441.




Otherwise, this is being thrown around and splits 2 counties.

http://media.trb.com/media/acrobat/2012-01/289779220-15172344.pdf

Given what the court said, they'll have to split counties if they want a map like this. Both of my maps, and certainly Lewis' map, are whole county plans with smaller deviations. They court cited the ability to draw whole county plans with less deviation as a reason to strike down the passed map.

[muon2]

Stayed? So that means in this case... what, exactly? The Feds will hear the case, but the state map is used for 2012?

It means the federal district court went off the deep end simply because they wanted to quote Bob Dylan in a decision, and the Supreme Court is trying to curb the use of the courts as a weapon in redistricting.

There is no real harm if West Virginia uses districts quite similar to what they have been using for the past 10 years and only have a 0.8% deviation.

The SCOTUS will eventually rule whether "practicable" is a synonym for "devoid of common sense".

They seem to be moving back towards some population latitude when the state makes a case for a neutral consistent factor like county lines. I've found the argument for any precision beyond 0.5% deviation largely meaningless. Analysis of typical mobility shows that 0.5% deviation is consistent wit the change in a congressional district population in April 2010 and November 2012. In science classes we teach that one should not use more precision than the data warrants. After two and a half years the precision of the map drawn to a single person is irrelevant with its first use in a general election.

That being said, I do think the state erred in using a map with the deviation they did when many others with whole counties were available that were within the 0.5% mark. They should at least have had better justification of why they would pass over those other alternatives.

[muon2]

Stayed? So that means in this case... what, exactly? The Feds will hear the case, but the state map is used for 2012?

It means the federal district court went off the deep end simply because they wanted to quote Bob Dylan in a decision, and the Supreme Court is trying to curb the use of the courts as a weapon in redistricting.

There is no real harm if West Virginia uses districts quite similar to what they have been using for the past 10 years and only have a 0.8% deviation.

The SCOTUS will eventually rule whether "practicable" is a synonym for "devoid of common sense".

They seem to be moving back towards some population latitude when the state makes a case for a neutral consistent factor like county lines. I've found the argument for any precision beyond 0.5% deviation largely meaningless. Analysis of typical mobility shows that 0.5% deviation is consistent wit the change in a congressional district population in April 2010 and November 2012. In science classes we teach that one should not use more precision than the data warrants. After two and a half years the precision of the map drawn to a single person is irrelevant with its first use in a general election.

That being said, I do think the state erred in using a map with the deviation they did when many others with whole counties were available that were within the 0.5% mark. They should at least have had better justification of why they would pass over those other alternatives.

Keeping incumbents in separate districts and keeping the districts the same seems like justification enough.

Many other options kept incumbents separate. The districts were similar, but not the same. The state never really rebutted the objections from the eastern panhandle that they had the most growth, not reflected in the plan.

[muon2]

I see that the jurisdictional statement of the appeal to SCOTUS was filed last week.

That got me looking at the alternatives proposed by plaintiff Cooper. Plan 4 was one cited by the court with a single county split, but plans 1, 2, and 3 were earlier submissions to the Senate redistricting committee. They are all referenced in the table at the end of the linked document, and none have any county splits. Moreover, Cooper 3 has a smaller variance (+113, +2, -116) than even Lewis' plan (+277, +2, -280). Sorry, Lewis.

[muon2]

Because they need to take it if they want to overrule the lower court (which did find a pressing need, for whatever bizarro reasons)? They can't just stay the lower court's decision indefinitely, can they?

Oh SCOTUS stayed the appellate court decision?

Yes, indeed it did. So I guess that is the equivalent of granting cert. I very much doubt SCOTUS is going to fly speck the state law, or try to decide if a lower population deviance is appropriate given the alternatives, etc. They may just hold that deviations of less than 0.5% or whatever are Constitutional if there is some reasonable reason for it under state law, like not splitting counties, or precincts, or whatever, and defer to the state courts as to whether the map comported with state law. I just can't see them evaluating a bunch of maps.  So I suspect the map the legislature drew will be upheld, since the grounds it was bounced was only based on the equality of population issue. My guess is that SCOTUS will hardly even look at the maps.

The WV Supreme Court itself deferred to the state legislature on the legislative districts, refusing to involve itself as to whether other maps better implemented the state law.

One question they may engage in is whether a whole county plan with a range of 0.79% should stand when there are many alternative plans with whole counties and significantly less deviation (like 0.04% in Cooper 3). The state will argue that their plan also preserved the maximum number of counties because it shifted only one county. Does that state interest justify the larger deviation?

[muon2]

Because they need to take it if they want to overrule the lower court (which did find a pressing need, for whatever bizarro reasons)? They can't just stay the lower court's decision indefinitely, can they?

Oh SCOTUS stayed the appellate court decision?

Yes, indeed it did. So I guess that is the equivalent of granting cert. I very much doubt SCOTUS is going to fly speck the state law, or try to decide if a lower population deviance is appropriate given the alternatives, etc. They may just hold that deviations of less than 0.5% or whatever are Constitutional if there is some reasonable reason for it under state law, like not splitting counties, or precincts, or whatever, and defer to the state courts as to whether the map comported with state law. I just can't see them evaluating a bunch of maps.  So I suspect the map the legislature drew will be upheld, since the grounds it was bounced was only based on the equality of population issue. My guess is that SCOTUS will hardly even look at the maps.

The WV Supreme Court itself deferred to the state legislature on the legislative districts, refusing to involve itself as to whether other maps better implemented the state law.

One question they may engage in is whether a whole county plan with a range of 0.79% should stand when there are many alternative plans with whole counties and significantly less deviation (like 0.04% in Cooper 3). The state will argue that their plan also preserved the maximum number of counties because it shifted only one county. Does that state interest justify the larger deviation?

Who knows, but I really doubt SCOTUS wants to micromanage that way. If it were me, I would just set a bright line limit of 1.0% deviation, or 0.5% (maybe using your statistical approach of say what is the one or two standard deviation variance in population change between the census date and the election date in 95% of the cases, as to what that percentage is).  It is next to pointless to do case by case litigation over such small percentage variations. The Courts have better things to do, and SCOTUS doesn't like Courts being involved in redistricting anyway if it can reasonably be avoided. Somehow I suspect 1.0% might be it because it 1) is a whole integer, and 2) saves the WV map.

If they do it will be a departure from precedent. They have been willing to say how much is too much, but never how little is close enough. I'd like it if they did, but for now I'm a skeptic. I think they will have to find that the additional state goals justified the additional deviation, since it seems like they would rather leave the map in place.

[muon2]

Doesn't a 1.0% deviation save the map?

If that were the de minimis standard it would, but the deviation in Maine (the difference in population between the largest and smallest existing congressional district in Maine as a percentage of the ideal Maine congressional district population) was only 0.65% (8,669 people) and the three-judge court trashed the Democrats in their opinion when the Democrats argued that the existing districts could be used for the 2012 elections.

What is the absolute and percentage deviations in the congressional plan the West Virginia state government adopted again?

The range from largest to smallest is 0.79% of the ideal population. That's the number argued about in this case. There were at least 7 other plans with no county splits presented during legislative hearings before the map was adopted. Those plans ranged from 0.44% down to 0.04%.

[muon2]

The Supreme Court has unanimously approved the population deviation present in the WV remapping plan.

Here's the text of the decision. This is a big win for states that wish to apply neutral criteria and avoid arbitrary splits or groupings solely to minimize population deviation. It reverses the trend towards the need for computers to minimize population deviations. In principle, a commission like in CA could have avoided a number of municipal splits that were needed for exact equality.

[muon2]

Because they need to take it if they want to overrule the lower court (which did find a pressing need, for whatever bizarro reasons)? They can't just stay the lower court's decision indefinitely, can they?

Oh SCOTUS stayed the appellate court decision?

Yes, indeed it did. So I guess that is the equivalent of granting cert. I very much doubt SCOTUS is going to fly speck the state law, or try to decide if a lower population deviance is appropriate given the alternatives, etc. They may just hold that deviations of less than 0.5% or whatever are Constitutional if there is some reasonable reason for it under state law, like not splitting counties, or precincts, or whatever, and defer to the state courts as to whether the map comported with state law. I just can't see them evaluating a bunch of maps.  So I suspect the map the legislature drew will be upheld, since the grounds it was bounced was only based on the equality of population issue. My guess is that SCOTUS will hardly even look at the maps.

The WV Supreme Court itself deferred to the state legislature on the legislative districts, refusing to involve itself as to whether other maps better implemented the state law.

One question they may engage in is whether a whole county plan with a range of 0.79% should stand when there are many alternative plans with whole counties and significantly less deviation (like 0.04% in Cooper 3). The state will argue that their plan also preserved the maximum number of counties because it shifted only one county. Does that state interest justify the larger deviation?

Who knows, but I really doubt SCOTUS wants to micromanage that way. If it were me, I would just set a bright line limit of 1.0% deviation, or 0.5% (maybe using your statistical approach of say what is the one or two standard deviation variance in population change between the census date and the election date in 95% of the cases, as to what that percentage is).  It is next to pointless to do case by case litigation over such small percentage variations. The Courts have better things to do, and SCOTUS doesn't like Courts being involved in redistricting anyway if it can reasonably be avoided. Somehow I suspect 1.0% might be it because it 1) is a whole integer, and 2) saves the WV map.

If they do it will be a departure from precedent. They have been willing to say how much is too much, but never how little is close enough. I'd like it if they did, but for now I'm a skeptic. I think they will have to find that the additional state goals justified the additional deviation, since it seems like they would rather leave the map in place.

The Supreme Court has unanimously approved the population deviation present in the WV remapping plan.

Here's the text of the decision. This is a big win for states that wish to apply neutral criteria and avoid arbitrary splits or groupings solely to minimize population deviation. It reverses the trend towards the need for computers to minimize population deviations. In principle, a commission like in CA could have avoided a number of municipal splits that were needed for exact equality.

So, for you (Muon2) and also others (chiefly jimrtex), has the Supreme Court "departed from precedent" at all in this case.  There's still no defined always acceptable range of deviation (or a range within which the burden of proof would be 100% on the plaintiffs; the so-called de minimis range or something like that), right?  Was this a broader decision than you expected?  How much guidance that wasn't already there do district courts now have in malapportionment lawsuits?  I know this was a per curiam opinion, which sometimes are kind of like "duh" when one considers Supreme Court opinions that have already been given (like the recent Montana "mini-Citizens United" case, maybe).

It seems that SCOTUS has not so much departed from precedent but instead rolled back to their views at the time of Karcher. Karcher placed a burden on the plaintiffs to show that deviations could be avoided, then if they did the ball was in the State's court to show that there was a necessary objective requiring them. Since Karcher the window for the state seemed to get increasingly narrow with each decision. Now that window has widened again.

As I read it, once the the state creates its goals, a plaintiff would now have to show that their alternative redistricting plan meets the same goals but with a smaller population deviation. I think future cases will explore what goals are legitimate, but political goals (cores of existing districts) can now be included alongside purely geographic goals.

[muon2]

The Supreme Court has unanimously approved the population deviation present in the WV remapping plan.

Here's the text of the decision. This is a big win for states that wish to apply neutral criteria and avoid arbitrary splits or groupings solely to minimize population deviation. It reverses the trend towards the need for computers to minimize population deviations. In principle, a commission like in CA could have avoided a number of municipal splits that were needed for exact equality.

This is the key part of the decision where the Court quotes from Karcher v Daggett:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Most States are going to have difficulty demonstrating that they have consistently reflected those interests, both over time and within a plan.

That's why I think the decision may lend itself to use by commissions such as CA. They had a number of principles that were consistently applied and had to violate them to achieve exact population equality. If the population deviations were small otherwise the burden would shift to the plaintiffs to show that there was another viable plan that met the principles, but reduced the deviation.

As the WV case shows the plaintiff's burden requires meeting all of the state's valid criteria, which in their case included minimal population shifts between districts. Meeting only the historically consistent goal to keep counties intact was not sufficient to overturn the WV map.

[muon2]

The Supreme Court has unanimously approved the population deviation present in the WV remapping plan.

Here's the text of the decision. This is a big win for states that wish to apply neutral criteria and avoid arbitrary splits or groupings solely to minimize population deviation. It reverses the trend towards the need for computers to minimize population deviations. In principle, a commission like in CA could have avoided a number of municipal splits that were needed for exact equality.

This is the key part of the decision where the Court quotes from Karcher v Daggett:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Most States are going to have difficulty demonstrating that they have consistently reflected those interests, both over time and within a plan.

That's why I think the decision may lend itself to use by commissions such as CA. They had a number of principles that were consistently applied and had to violate them to achieve exact population equality. If the population deviations were small otherwise the burden would shift to the plaintiffs to show that there was another viable plan that met the principles, but reduced the deviation.

As the WV case shows the plaintiff's burden requires meeting all of the state's valid criteria, which in their case included minimal population shifts between districts. Meeting only the historically consistent goal to keep counties intact was not sufficient to overturn the WV map.

The California Constitution itself makes a distinction between congressional and legislative districts.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It is plausible that a California court would read the distinction as having a specific purpose.

I think the simplest solution would be for Congress to establish limits:

(1) Maximum 1% deviation;
(2) Maximum standard deviation 0.5%;

Neutral criteria approved by the legislature 5 years before the Census.

I assume the CA SC would read the language as SCOTUS has, which is that there is a distinction, but as just decided practicable must take into account other neutral factors used to make the map. The use of practicable is now taken to mean that another plan that meets the criteria but achieves lower deviation should be considered instead.

I like the suggestion for Congress to set some guidelines to constrain redistricting for that body. By deviation, I assume you mean the total deviation from largest to smallest. You might substitute average deviation for standard deviation since that has been the practice in those states that explicitly use that criteria. I would also add a fallback provision in the law outlining neutral criteria to be used if that state failed to meet its timely obligation.