US House Redistricting: West Virginia

[krazen1211]

Interestingly, State Senate Majority Leader John Unger thinks they might have to split counties this time around, and also thinks that it won't violate the state constitution.

Just like Arkansas...

In Arkansas, it is by state tradition. In West Virginia, its a state constitutional provision.

They're probably just trying to pack CD-2 hard.

[krazen1211]

Here's a map that leaves Rahall in his current district and packs Capito with some more Raese Counties.




+504/-1062/+557

Rahall adds Randolph County (59% Manchin).
Capito adds the following.

Mineral County (54% Raese)
Grant County (72% Raese)
Tucker County (55% Manchin)
Barbour County (54% Manchin)

McKinley adds the following:

Mason County (61% Manchin)
Jackson County (50% Manchin)
Wirt County (53% Manchin)
Calhoun County (52% Manchin)

The Key issue is that Mineral County is pretty big, and of course this map puts the panhandle together, and I think should help then win CD-1 back.

[krazen1211]

They split Kawanha and put Putnam into CD-3. This CD-2 is pretty strong for a Republican.

http://www.legis.state.wv.us/legisdocs/2011/1x/maps/senate/Senate_Redistricting_Proposed_CongressionalMap.pdf

[krazen1211]

They split Kawanha and put Putnam into CD-3. This CD-2 is pretty strong for a Republican.

http://www.legis.state.wv.us/legisdocs/2011/1x/maps/senate/Senate_Redistricting_Proposed_CongressionalMap.pdf

That's pretty awesome from a Dem point of view. It cuts Capito out of her own district and moves some of the hardcore Republican counties from WV-1 into WV-2. Also, it looks much better.

WV-2 is pretty Republican there, and WV-1 will be an uphill climb.

WV-3 of course grabs a lot of suburban Charleston. Doubt its enough to endanger it though.

Interesting map either way, and probably could be done without splitting counties.

[krazen1211]

Charleston legislators are opposing this effort to slash their county in two.

[krazen1211]

Just so that we have a picture of the map on this thread:




Here are the 2010 Senate numbers:

Manchin/Raese

WV01- 54.5/43.4
WV-02- 50.5/47.7
WV-03- 57.1/40.9

Kinda lame. My map gets the same result without splitting counties and while putting Capito surely in WV-02.

[krazen1211]

Charleston legislators are opposing this effort to slash their county in two.

Really? "Slash"?

Really. They seem to agree as they just went with the obvious flip 1 county plan.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WV_XGR_SPECIAL_SESSION_CONGRESS_WVOL-?SITE=WVHUN&SECTION=news&TEMPLATE=hddefault&CTIME=2011-08-04-12-40-24


West Virginia should move Mason County from its 2nd U.S. House District to its 3rd in response to the 2010 Census, a Senate committee decided Thursday, rejecting a more ambitious draft plan that swapped 19 counties among the three congressional districts.

The scuttled draft had also split Kanawha and Harrison counties between two districts for the first time. That and other elements of the draft incurred the wrath of Republicans, who hold the 1st and 2nd District seats.

But lawmakers from both parties had also signaled a reluctance to attempt the substantial changes championed by Senate Majority Leader John Unger, the redistricting committee's chair.

The draft created compact districts that were equal to or within one person of the ideal size of 617,665 residents. Both are key goals of redistricting. Thursday's amendment would result in districts that range within several thousand residents.

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http://www.rollcall.com/news/governor_signs_new_west_virginia_map-208223-1.html

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed West Virginia’s Congressional redistricting bill into law Thursday morning, the Democrat’s spokesman told Roll Call.

The new lines leave the state’s three districts, represented by two Republicans and one Democrat, almost identical for another 10 years.

[krazen1211]

http://www.dailymail.com/News/201201040033

The Cooper plan looks really solid for McKinley.

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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

[krazen1211]

Rahall doesn't seem to want to share the wealth. Manchin/Raese shows that the 3rd district has all the straight ticket Democrats. As long as you maintain that district, it won't be easy to win either of the other 2.

[krazen1211]

The state got its map back.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WV_REDISTRICTING_WVOL-?SITE=WVHUN&SECTION=news&TEMPLATE=hddefault&CTIME=2012-01-20-12-11-19


West Virginia can run its congressional races with the redistricting map recently struck down by a panel of federal judges, after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to stay the ruling.

[krazen1211]

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.

[krazen1211]

That 3rd is a great pack I think.

[krazen1211]

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