US House Redistricting: Florida

[Verily]

Shouldn't there be a new Hispanic majority district in South Florida?

Problem is there's nowhere for one to go. There have to be two black-majority seats and three Hispanic seats. Also, dilute the Cubans too much and you get Democratic seats. A 55% Hispanic seat in South Florida would probably elect a white Democrat before any Hispanic of either party as whites would control the Democratic primary and Cubans would be outvoted by the combined voting strength of whites and Puerto Ricans/other Hispanics.

[Verily]

Thing is the mass in the Everglades is also majority black.

Only just barely (exactly 50% black), total population 40,000. Drawing a district out there requires going through some heavily white areas. It is much easier to draw a black seat without taking in Belle Glade and environs. Try it.

[Verily]

Well FL-22 is without question gone.

FL-10, too. No excuse for cutting out the black parts of St. Petersburg. Bill Young might be able to win the resulting D+5 or so seat, but he's old and will likely retire instead.

There will also have to be two Democratic seats drawn in the Orlando-Kissimmee area. One might be considered a replacement for Brown's seat (although there will also be a marginal or possibly lean D seat in Jacksonville), but the other will be totally new.

Those are the pretty much unavoidable losses for the GOP. There might be others.

[Verily]

Well FL-22 is without question gone.

FL-10, too. No excuse for cutting out the black parts of St. Petersburg. Bill Young might be able to win the resulting D+5 or so seat, but he's old and will likely retire instead.

There will also have to be two Democratic seats drawn in the Orlando-Kissimmee area. One might be considered a replacement for Brown's seat (although there will also be a marginal or possibly lean D seat in Jacksonville), but the other will be totally new.

Those are the pretty much unavoidable losses for the GOP. There might be others.

I see easily where 1 district comes in (and the GOP will want to draw that anyway). I don't see where the second fits or why they would draw it.

Orange County alone is about a district and a half. Osceola County is around a third of a district. Both are exploding in population and trending hard towards the Democrats. Better for the GOP to put them together than to put them with one of the relatively marginal surrounding counties and risk the Democrats having four seats in the area instead of just two. (One problem is that the D area of Seminole County is at the northern end, away from Orange County, so it might not be easy to pack the Democrats into two seats in the area while meeting the fairness requirements.)

Remember that you also have Ds in Volusia and Flagler to dilute if you're a Republican drawing the map. It would be very hard to draw a map in central Florida that would pass court muster and also ensure only one D seat.

[Verily]

http://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/VR-FL-0151-0005.pdf

Page 42-44.



Prior litigation upholding the existing FL-03.

Pre-FRA and thus irrelevant, although the court may not throw it out anyway.

[Verily]

What are the growth rates of the Cubans vs non Cubans in Dade? This decade it's almost a sure thing that the Cubans will crack the non Cubans again, probably successfully, for 10 years; you can accomplish that fairly easily while still placing 1 (or even 2) districts entirely in Dade.

Eventually though they might quarantine off all the Democratic Hispanics at the south end and use to Cubans to crack the semi liberal whites.

I don't think this is really geographically possible. Nearly all of the non-Hispanic whites in Miami County live either (a) on the barrier islands or the nearby mainland, or (b) south of the city.

The northern whites are inaccessible except through the black areas (obviously not possible) or through downtown Miami. They would have to all be in one district because it's just too narrow to partition them otherwise. Drawing a district like that, I end up with 54% Obama--might be possible to lower that to 51-2% if you're more precise, but it can't go much lower, which is far from safe.

The southern whites are surrounded by and interspersed with non-Cubans, so they would go naturally in a south-Dade-and-Monroe Hispanic Democratic district (which is around 57-58% Obama and around 60% Hispanic VAP).

[Verily]

The Hispanic areas north of Hialeah (but still in Dade County) are actually very Democratic, like 65% Obama. I guess the Cubans don't live up there?

[Verily]

Here's my fair map of Dade and Broward Counties. There's no reason for Cubans to be dominating all three Hispanic districts, certainly; Hispanics should be considered as a group, and this map is much more geographically reasonable.

Blue: 57.7-42.3 Obama; 26.8W, 12.1B, 57.6H (VAP) (includes Monroe County)
Green: 54.8-45.2 Obama; 25.4W, 5.9B, 66.1H
Purple: 84.9-15.1 Obama; 10.8W, 50.6B, 34.7H
Red: 37.8-62.8 McCain; 6.4W, 1.5B, 90.6H
Gold: 73.3-26.7 Obama; 43.6W, 35.0B, 17.3H (plurality black on overall population, would definitely elect a black-preferred Congressman, and quite compact)
Teal: 61.7-38.3 Obama; 53.5W, 10.9B, 29.5H (unfortunately, most of the remaining blacks and Hispanics are in the SW corner, inaccessible for the gold district)

[Verily]

Here's my fair map of Dade and Broward Counties. Since non-Cuban Hispanics actually outnumber Cubans in Dade County, they got two districts and Cubans got only one.

Can't you read numbers? Cubans are a majority of the Hispanic population in the county.

Yeah, I misread that. I noticed and fixed it before you posted.

[Verily]

Krazen, your map violates the FRA (or whatever it's called). There's an unnecessary and illegal county split between Dade and Broward; you only need one to simultaneously create three Hispanic districts and one black district, as my map showed (and you need a split both for population equality and to create the black district--actually I think you might be able to create a majority black district all in Dade, but it has to reach down U.S. 1 all the way to Homestead in a long tail and looks ridiculous).

[Verily]

Krazen, your map violates the FRA (or whatever it's called). There's an unnecessary and illegal county split between Dade and Broward; you only need one to simultaneously create three Hispanic districts and one black district, as my map showed (and you need a split both for population equality and to create the black district--actually I think you might be able to create a majority black district all in Dade, but it has to reach down U.S. 1 all the way to Homestead in a long tail and looks ridiculous).

If you say so. No court has found such, so its merely an opinion that isn't taken seriously.

The law is quite explicit in saying that county splits are to be minimized (but subordinated to racial considerations), so you should take it seriously. I would not be shocked if the politicized Florida judiciary found otherwise, of course...

"[D]istricts shall, where feasible, utilize existing political and geographical boundaries." Clearly, not bridging the Dade-Broward line more than once is feasible, and it does not violate any of the other provisions.