US House Redistricting: Washington

[muon2]

So, if understand the dynamics in WA with 10 seats, then there is a conundrum on the east side. Either Yakima is split with the city and its immediate suburbs in different districts, or there is a transcasade link over the Snoqualmie Pass.

The numbers would also seem to support keeping Yakima intact (except perhaps for the IR) and the Cascades inviolate, but linking Benton county to Klickitat. I assume that is just as bad politically as the other options, since it would split the tri-cities.

[muon2]

According to the OFM, Eastern Washington grew more slowly than Western Washington.

Not very much slower.  If Washington had kept 9 districts, to keep the two in balance requires little more than moving Skamania to the east.

Going from 9 to 10 means that Eastern Washington goes from about 2 to 2.2 districts, and you have to shift 130,000 to the west.  You have 3 choices:

1) Really ugly split of Yakima County
2) Really ugly split of Tri-Cities
3) Kittitas and Chelan go west.

With most all the western population close to I-5, you end up with the districts pretty much chopping off pieces from north to south (start in Vancouver and go north until the district is full; continue in Olypmpia into Tacoma, etc.  Or you can start in Bellingham and go south.  So the 8th western district goes somewhere in the middle in the Seattle area.  But King County grew slower than the state, so to make room for the new seat it has too bulge outward.  But if you can add 130,000 in the middle, rather than the southern end, the changes are less dramatic.

So, of the three ugly choices, which would you support as a member of the redistricting commission? As I understand the process in WA, the legislature can only shift up to 2% of a district's population after the commission submits a map. That would suggest that whichever of these three paths is selected by the commission cannot be changed by legislative amendment.

[muon2]

According to the OFM, Eastern Washington grew more slowly than Western Washington.

Not very much slower.  If Washington had kept 9 districts, to keep the two in balance requires little more than moving Skamania to the east.

Going from 9 to 10 means that Eastern Washington goes from about 2 to 2.2 districts, and you have to shift 130,000 to the west.  You have 3 choices:

1) Really ugly split of Yakima County
2) Really ugly split of Tri-Cities
3) Kittitas and Chelan go west.

With most all the western population close to I-5, you end up with the districts pretty much chopping off pieces from north to south (start in Vancouver and go north until the district is full; continue in Olypmpia into Tacoma, etc.  Or you can start in Bellingham and go south.  So the 8th western district goes somewhere in the middle in the Seattle area.  But King County grew slower than the state, so to make room for the new seat it has too bulge outward.  But if you can add 130,000 in the middle, rather than the southern end, the changes are less dramatic.

So, of the three ugly choices, which would you support as a member of the redistricting commission? As I understand the process in WA, the legislature can only shift up to 2% of a district's population after the commission submits a map. That would suggest that whichever of these three paths is selected by the commission cannot be changed by legislative amendment.

(3) Because it also minimizes the changes in other districts.

I projected the eastern county populations forward to 4/1/2010 using recent population changes. Based on that It looks like CD 5 would shift Walla Walla to CD 4 and have all but 2 K people from Adams or Columbia and be on the mark.

Then, according to option 3, Klickitat goes to CD 3 and Kittitas and Chelan go to CD 8. I project CD 4 would now be about 8 K over population. One possibility to fix this would be to add East Wenatchee from Douglas to CD 8 and then put the eastern half of Klickitat in CD 4.

Finally CD 3 would only have to lose its portion of Thurston to be over by about 6 K. Presumably it could lose eastern Lewis to whichever district has the rest of Mt Ranier.

This would seem to do less to split communities of interest on the east side than either of the other alternatives.

[muon2]

...Klickitat County and a portion of Yakima, however, have to be in a bicascadial district. I decided to cross at the southern part of the state based on precedent---districts almost always cross here when they have to. In the 80s, a portion of Clark and all of Skamania Counties were in the fourth, in the 90s a portion of Klickitat was in the 3rd, and now a portion of Skamania is in the 4th. So, I needed about 128,200 people from Yakima County out of the fourth district. I left all of Yakima City in the fourth, however I had to put Union Gap as well as some unincorporated suburban areas to the east and west of Yakima into the third district. All of south Yakima County is in the third...

If you want to make a realistic map, I would recommend crossing at Skamania-Klickitat.

Then what?  Climb over desolate Satus Pass and snag some distant population from Yakima?  Continue along the desolate Columbia and split up the Tri-Cities? 

There will be 10 Congressional Districts, you need to throw out your old way of thinking.   A lot has changed in the last 40 years.  For one, the Tri-Cities and Vancouver are both significant population centers.   And I doubt that 40 years ago a significant percent of the working population of Kittitas County commuted to King County for work. 

So why does the 15th legislative district do this? Why do we not have some sort of East King-Kittitas legislative district, or something along those lines, instead? Why does the 15th LD stretch from Clark to Yakima if it's so unrealistic?



I'm not saying your suggestion is impossible. I just don't think it is the most likely outcome.

But if I'm being stubborn by looking at Washington's legislative and congressional districts stretching back to statehood, and seeing that the East-West divide has never been bridged anywhere but the Columbia River in 121 years, then so be it.

I get the historical precedent that has put all crossings along the Columbia. However, one big factor is the Redistricting Commission and the rules that govern it. Here's what I get from the SOS:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Clearly both the Snoqualmie pass and Columbia River path meet the third rule. In my previous posts I was trying to gauge how the three main options would satisfy or break the second rule, and it seems that splitting Yakima or the Tri-Cities may violate that rule more than a trans-Cascade district would.

I think we should also look at the fifth rule in considering those options. If I look at the last two presidential elections then CD 4 and 5 are firmly R, while CD 1, 6, 7 and 9 are firmly D. CD's 2, 3, and 8 were the most competitive being within 5% for the 2004 race and voted for Obama with less than his statewide margin in 2008. Shifting CD 3 east to pick up a good portion of the Yakima valley would clearly make it less competitive as it would tilt more strongly R. The effect of shifting part of CD 8 over the mountains does not have to make it so uncompetitive, depending on the choice of King County suburbs that would be in the new district. CD 8 also starts with more of a D lean than CD 3 so shifting more Rs to it serves to increase competition.
 
The Commission is bound to follow the law, and following mapping history is not one of their rules. If they truly consider both preserving communities of interest and providing electoral competition, then they may be forced to use the Snoqualmie Pass option.

[muon2]

The only time a CD will cross the Cascades is along the Columbia.

The only time a CD will cross the Cascades is along the Columbia.

The only time a CD will cross the Cascades is along the Columbia.

If you don't already understand this, repeat it to yourself enough times until you do...

OK, I understand what you are saying, and I hear a number of WA posters assert this. So far, I have seen no justification for this other than historical precedent. Perhaps I am naively assuming that the commission will follow the law, rather than merely follow their gut. So, I am open to an argument against a non-Columbia crossing based on WA state law.

These points must be the legal basis for the map:

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[muon2]

So, is there any idea yet as to where the 10th CD will be? I lean towards Olympia so the capital can have its own seat. But I don't live there so I hope some f the residents will weigh in.

[muon2]

The consensus seems to be that the Snoqualmie Pass link is undesirable, but so is a split of Yakima city. The discussion about using US 12 as a connection led me an idea. One can keep Yakima intact and connect it to Vancouver by way of US 12 and I 5. It does put Longview and Kelso in two different districts, but that doesn't seem as bad as some other alternatives.

[muon2]

I don't think keeping the city of Yakima together is worth splitting up the Olympic Peninsula, Longview-Kelso and Thurston County/whatever is going on near Centralia.

I didn't spend much time on the Olympic Peninsula, so that would be easy to adjust as would whether Centralia was with Olympia or not. I was just working on the shape of CD 3 to try to keep Yakima intact.

I'd be curious as to the local views on the merits of splitting Longview from Kelso as a trade for keeping Yakima whole.

[muon2]

I didn't spend much time on the Olympic Peninsula, so that would be easy to adjust as would whether Centralia was with Olympia or not. I was just working on the shape of CD 3 to try to keep Yakima intact.

I'd be curious as to the local views on the merits of splitting Longview from Kelso as a trade for keeping Yakima whole.

You only keep the northern tip of Kitsap in your scenario, which may have to happen anyway (Inslee, ferry link).

As for the splits, Olympia and Centralia have no reason to be together.  SW Thurston is very Centralia centric, so that can be split off too.  Splitting Olympia and Lacey also makes sense as well.  Lacey is predominately military and spill over Central Puget Sound sprawl and is more Tacoma/Seattle centric.  As is Yelm and SE Thurston County.   Olympia and is older built, and is more SW Washington/Olympic Peninsula/Pacific Coast centric.  Tumwater too, except its building. 

Politically, I'd assume Longview-Kelso would want to stay united. 

But what if it's that split or Yakima city split?

[muon2]

*I and brittain, and others, feel that communities with minimal commercial ties that nonetheless have similar political interests (through shared economic and demographic characteristics) are more reasonable to put together in a district than communities with some few commercial ties but few or no shared political interests, while Sounder and cinyc, and others, seem to feel the opposite. All of this assumes geographic neutrality, of course, since in either case we're cutting across a navigable but remote pass through the Cascades.

You either misunderstand or misrepresent our position.

It is not that going across the Snoqualmie Pass is great, but that splitting of Yakima or the Tri-Cities is worse.  While you claim to be putting together "communities" with similar interests you don't recognize that you are splitting a community.

By drawing a line along the Cascade crest you are claiming that there is no community of interest between King and Kittitas.  But when you draw a line through Yakima that is just a boundary line.  I claim that there is a stronger community of interest within Yakima that you are ignoring.  Now if you could explain why part of Yakima has strong ties with Vancouver, while the other has strong ties with Spokane or the Tri-Cities, I can understand why you advocate splitting the county, and perhaps even the city.

The reason that Chelan County was split off from Kittitas was because during winter people had to travel through Seattle or Spokane (where the railroads met) in order to get to the courthouse in Ellensburg.  With development of I-90 over the Snoqualmie Pass it is relative easy to get to Ellensburg from Seattle.  We know that traffic at the Kittitas-Grant line is half of that at of the Kittitas-King line.  So even if people are not commuting, they are visiting their parents who have retired, or to a 2nd home in the mountains.  And even in 2000, 8% of workers who resided in Kittitas worked in King County.

If we were to agree that a split of Yakima is not a good idea, and a district over the Snoqualmie Pass is not a good idea, let's try this:

Eastern Washington plus Skamania and Clark are apportioned 3 districts, while the remainder of the state is apportioned 7 districts.

So:

Vancouver-Yakima: Clark, Skamania, Yakima.

Spokane-Northeast: Spokane and its 4 neighbors + Ferry and Okanogan

Tri-Cities-Transcascadia-Palouse: The rest of eastern Washington.

And since we've accepted the idea of not splitting counties:

West: Thurston, Lewis, Cowlitz, Pacific, Grays Harbor, Mason, Jefferson, Clallam

King+Pierce (4 districts):  

Tacoma-Pierce West

Seattle

King East

King South-Pierce East

Snohomish

Puget Sound-Northwest:  Whatcom, Skagit, Island, San Juan, Kitsap

I took a similar approach when I drew my map. Rather than start with separate districts, I looked at groupings of districts. That was especially true for the three eastern/southern districts.

I looked at different combinations on the west side to bring the three up to the correct population. A plan that excluded Kittitas from the e/s-3 was going to create the political effect of putting Kittitas at a disadvantage by being a small minority of a district. Keeping the east intact and running to the I-5 corridor set up more politically balanced districts. Then it became a question of how to best link the two sides without splitting any city.

[muon2]

I'm still somewhat partial to my Yakima-Vancouver connection.

The consensus seems to be that the Snoqualmie Pass link is undesirable, but so is a split of Yakima city. The discussion about using US 12 as a connection led me an idea. One can keep Yakima intact and connect it to Vancouver by way of US 12 and I 5. It does put Longview and Kelso in two different districts, but that doesn't seem as bad as some other alternatives.

[muon2]

I've updated my version of WA. I concentrated on keeping cities together as much as possible and Seattle, Olympia and Yakima are all intact. There are about 5000 people split from Tacoma. White Pass on US 12 is the only trans-Cascade crossing.

Politically, all the incumbents remain in their current districts (at least according to Vote Smart). The map create three solid Dem districts (1, 7, 9) and three solid GOP districts (3, 4, 5). The other four are competitive based on the 2010 Senate race: CD 2 - 50.3% R, CD 6 - 50.7% D, CD 8 - 51.9% D, and CD 10 - 52.4% R.

[muon2]

I like that map better than your previous versions, Muon, but I still can't see them ever using a Lewis-Yakima crossing.

I don't understand why a path along the Columbia then across the Satus Pass is considered better than White Pass. In the end both connect Vancouver and Yakima. Am I missing something?

[muon2]

I like that map better than your previous versions, Muon, but I still can't see them ever using a Lewis-Yakima crossing.

I don't understand why a path along the Columbia then across the Satus Pass is considered better than White Pass. In the end both connect Vancouver and Yakima. Am I missing something?

There's a number of reasons. Part of it is historical precedence. Part of it is that White Pass can get treacherous to go over during the winter. Part of it is that the southern part of Yakima County fits in with Klickitat and Skamania while putting Yakima proper with Vancouver just feels weird, especially if they aren't connected through anything besides White Pass.

While it might make sense from outsider perspective, it's not going to happen. No one will want it, including Herrera.

But since Dec I've been seeing Vancouver-Yakima links from the natives. Here are two recent versions.

Even though nobody cares, I'll continue: I toyed around with a majority-minority congressional district in King County.

Statewide view:

[muon2]

Including Yakima proper in the 3rd is fine so long as it includes a significant part of the rest of the county along with Klickitat. Having Yakima proper being the only part of the area in a western Washington CD isn't going to fly. And relying on US 12 as the only connector won't fly either.

It seems more like historical bias, but OK. My intent was to make keeping Yakima city intact a priority over having Klickitat go to CD 3 with a split of Yakima. I'll take your view under advisement.

Are there thoughts about the other areas of my map?

[muon2]

Including Yakima proper in the 3rd is fine so long as it includes a significant part of the rest of the county along with Klickitat. Having Yakima proper being the only part of the area in a western Washington CD isn't going to fly. And relying on US 12 as the only connector won't fly either.

It seems more like historical bias, but OK. My intent was to make keeping Yakima city intact a priority over having Klickitat go to CD 3 with a split of Yakima. I'll take your view under advisement.

Are there thoughts about the other areas of my map?

I can't tell from the zoomed-out map but do you happen to have Mercer Island with Seattle? If so I believe that would be a big no-no. It identifies more with the Eastside of King County than Seattle proper. Also Island county (Whidbey Island) needs to stay in the 2nd, a Sound crossing is pretty unlikely.

I have both of those covered. Mercer I. is in CD 8 and Whidbey I. is in CD 2. Vashon I. is in CD 7 with Seattle. The only complete Sound crossing is to link CD 1 from Edmonds to Kingston.

This is the detail area for my map (pink lines are the cities from DRA).

[muon2]

Parts of this map are along the lines that many have discussed in this thread over the last year. I think Culture King gets a prize, since his map has all the major parts right except for WA-1 and 2.

ok... I tried to make a compromise map between the various plan. Somewhere along the line I think I got lost but I think it could be a good indication of what may come out of redistricting:





It includes a majority-minority district (even though personally I don't see the point) and the 8th crossing over into the East side of the state via I-90. My goal was to try and tamper down some of the partisan differences (and create an Olympia district simply because I am biased for my home town). I made sure the 10th linked Olympia and areas south of Tacoma since so many of the plans seemed to take that route.

Partisan and Demographic data:

WA1: 52.5D-47.5R (74.7% white)
WA2: 51.3D-48.3R (77.8% white)
WA3: 44.3D-55.7R (83.4% white)
WA4: 35.1D-64.9R (57.3% white)
WA5: 41.7D-58.3R (85.6% white)
WA6: 52.6D-47.4R (79.5% white)
WA7: 78.0D-28.0R (73.1% white)
WA8: 45.2R-54.8R (75.2% white)
WA9: 61.0D-39.0R (49.7% white)
WA10: 53.4D-46.6R (69.0% white)

Honestly looking at the maps I feel like the dems gave up way too much with their versions while the Republicans went for the moon. I am not sure if that hurts the dems negotiating positions going forward.

So in the end:
2 Super-Solid D districts (the 7th and 9th)
1 Likely D district (the new Olympia-based 10th)
3 Lean D districts (the 1st, 2nd, and 6th)
2 Likely R districts (the 3rd and 8th)
2 Solid R districts (the 4th and 5th)

On thing I find interesting is that if population trends continue along the same lines then we could easily see the possibility for a majority-minority district east of the cascades (although it would quite possibly be the most conservative majority-minority district in the nation).

Thoughts? Is this a plausible scenario?

As you can see he had the shape of southern and eastern WA almost on the dot. He also correctly called the new WA-9 as a majority-minority district (49.67% Non-Hisp White). That majority-minority district seems to be behind the three-way split of Tacoma, though CK didn't need it in his version.

So the real surprise is WA-1 and 2. I take WA 3,4,5, and 8 as politically matching CK's analysis and new WA-10 going to the Dems. It looks to me like the commissioners were trying to compensate for the addition of a new D seat by putting another seat in play. This map would put Larsen in the interesting position of running to hold WA-1 where I think he lives, or running in the open WA-2 which should be a safe seat.

[muon2]

Larsen is originally from Lake Stevens, but currently lives in Everett. Larsen will definitely run in WA-02.

WA-1/WA-2 is definitely the big surprise for everybody, I think. We didn't realize how easily the Democrats would cave.

And yeah, CK gets the prize, I guess! Good job, lol.

Ah, my memory of Larsen's residence is out of date. So then both WA-1 and WA-10 are open seats and WA-6 has Dicks paired with Inslee, is that right?

[muon2]

PVIs from RRH.

1. R+1
2. D+7
3. R+3
4. R+13
5. R+6
6. D+5
7. D+29
8. R+3
9. D+16
10. D+5

I don't really recall how PVI is calculated, but can that really be right?  WA-10 more D than WA-03 is R, and barely less D than WA-05 is R?

And, yes, congrats CK.

If they calculated it correctly it is average of the two party vote from Pres 2004 and 2008. The average is then compared to 51.3% Dem which is the national average for those two races.

[muon2]

So we can assume that if the political environment doesn't better for the President we're looking at a 5-5 delegation next year?

No, I wouldn't say that yet. We don't know who the Republican candidate will be for the first and if it only voted 51% Rossi, it really is a 50-50 district.
I'd say there is an equal chance the delegation will be 6-4 D or 5-5.

I think a toss up district is the intent of the mappers. They can fairly say that a new seat was added and it favors neither party. That would be consistent with state law.

[muon2]

I thought it would be amusing to review of our early thoughts on a 10 district division. This thread is from early 2008.

[muon2]

We deserve this after getting screwed in Arizona.

The 2nd district makes perfect sense.  All those I-5 cities belong in one seat, the rural areas belong in one seat. 

Uh... no. Well, you can make the case that I-5 corridor fits together, but the resulting rural areas in the first are not even road contiguous, and the Northern part of the district has nothing to do with the urban seattle suburbs in King county.

The way the second is now make plenty more sense. Honestly, they could have just pulled out Everett from the second and kept Lake Stevens/Snohomish/Monroe, and boom you have a great tossup district.

A district can be entirely placed in Snohomish county with about 41K to spare. However Everett has about 100K and can't be removed and leave a whole district. If there is a district entirely within Snohomish part must be used to connect part of Island county through Stanwood, and another part should be used to connect King to Stevens Pass. What's left is a district entirely within Snohomish that is going to lean D.

[muon2]

We deserve this after getting screwed in Arizona.

The 2nd district makes perfect sense.  All those I-5 cities belong in one seat, the rural areas belong in one seat. 

Uh... no. Well, you can make the case that I-5 corridor fits together, but the resulting rural areas in the first are not even road contiguous, and the Northern part of the district has nothing to do with the urban seattle suburbs in King county.

The way the second is now make plenty more sense. Honestly, they could have just pulled out Everett from the second and kept Lake Stevens/Snohomish/Monroe, and boom you have a great tossup district.

A district can be entirely placed in Snohomish county with about 41K to spare. However Everett has about 100K and can't be removed and leave a whole district. If there is a district entirely within Snohomish part must be used to connect part of Island county through Stanwood, and another part should be used to connect King to Stevens Pass. What's left is a district entirely within Snohomish that is going to lean D.

While you can fit one in Snohomish county, where do you put Whatcom and Skagit counties? It makes no sense to put them into eastern Washington and conntecting them to the Olympic Peninsula, while its been done before, it is not ideal and it makes plenty more sense to simply continue south into Snohomish county.

I'm just saying that if you start with King plus the counties over the Cascades you have almost exactly 3 districts. That leaves a natural district in Snohomish, and then one is left with a 1980's style plan that crosses the sound for CD-2. One can argue that Bellingham has as much in common with Port Angeles as it does with Everett, and there's not the crazy county split in the Commission map.

[muon2]

Crossing the Puget Sound would just result in splitting another big county (Kitsap, which has been split for a while but has finally been unified in the new map). Alternatively you could go for Grays Harbor, Mason, Pacific, and Wahkiakum counties to minimize county splits... but that would be a very big district.

This is what it might look like with a cross-Puget CD-2 using the Cascade crossing from the Commission. I've kept whole districts in all the large counties except Pierce. Except for Pierce the county splits to equalize population remove relatively small parts of the county population. Note that both Snoqualmie and Stevens Passes are used to connect CD 8. I agree that CD 2 is big, but no bigger than CD 5.