US House Redistricting: Washington

[Brittain33]

Pronunciation guide to Washington place names, perhaps a helpful resource for other spectators on this thread going as nuts as I am:

http://www.ap.org/washington/pron.html

[Brittain33]

You'll get testimony like this:  Sure its an easy drive in summer, but let me tell you as someone who drives to work everyday over Snoqualmie Pass to my job at Microsoft...

There are such people and perhaps one of them would testify, but they would be unrepresentative of Cle Elum, since from my reading of this data, less than 10% of daily commuters from the town's zip code commute to the west side of the Cascades daily. It's possible to do, but one has to be dedicated and willing to commute more than 2 hours each way. It's 2 and a half hours to Redmond, combine that with getting into Seattle itself and parking to attend a hearing, I wouldn't say "convenient." 2 hours from where I live can take me into one of five other states.

http://hairycow.name/commute_map/map.html#from:98922

Not sure how many people live in the town (less than 2,000 in last census) vs. the zip code, but you're hanging your hat on a few hundred individuals to justify this, at most. Also, I'm not sure what policy purposes it serves to have this person represented by a single representative at home and at work. That would seem to be at odds with the principle of grouping urban cores together into the fewest number of districts and creating separate districts for suburbs in other states.

[Brittain33]

We had a very passionate debate of Kittitas vs. Columbia River Gorge on this thread a month or so ago. Check it out.

[Brittain33]

Does anyone want to draw a map of New York or Georgia under this new standard of linking exurban and rural commuters with the places some of them work? Would be weird, isn't it?

Finding Kittitas commuters like righteous men in Sodom solely to make WA-8 more Republican--and let's be honest, that's all that is about--is, at best, a contestable standard.

[Brittain33]

Which areas have the most ties to those on the other side of the mountains is relevant when figuring which areas to append to a district that will be dominated by folks from the other side of the mountains.

I get that, and I still think it's weird to fixate on the existence of a few commuters as proof of ties when there are many other factors in the communities themselves that would determine whether they should be represented by a common vote in Congress or not. Whether or not a few people regularly move from one to another, I think it has to be considered as one of many factors, especially if those long-distance commuters are atypical for their community. I really don't think anyone has proven that the economies of those two counties are linked with the westside in a substantial way, and we should also be discussing the nature of the economies in various places--rural, exurban, suburban, etc. and what policies they would seek from a representative. There, the case for the Columbia River connection seems stronger by virtue of linking rural, exurban, and small city areas together, but I don't have personal connection.

The closest discussion of mountain passes I recall is in the Colorado thread, but there I think the issue is of the representative himself being able to visit multiple places in the district easily. (This is why highway links that cut the corner of a neighboring district should hardly disqualify a map.)

[Brittain33]

The reality is that the bulk of the growth has been in the four districts represented by Republicans.

Eastern Washington is growing more slowly than western Washington. That's two of the districts.

[Brittain33]

The four Republican-held districts are overpopulated by about 398,000 people,

How much of that overpopulation is in two districts, WA-8 and WA-3, one of which was held by a Democrat for the past decade?

[Brittain33]

The WaPo says the Washington Democratic Party strongly endorsed this map. Interesting.