US House Redistricting: New York

[cinyc]

According to the New York Post, New York Democrats are reportedly feuding over the shape of Charlie Rangel's district.  One plan has the district sprawling from Harlem to Westchester, presumably picking up African-American majority parts of the North Central Bronx and at least Mount Vernon.  That could be drawn as a majority black VAP district.  Another plan has the district becoming a Hispanic majority district in Manhattan and the Bronx.

Republicans also might be refusing to name the Upstate Republican seat to axe.   Assembly leader Sheldon Silver thinks its possible that no agreement would be reached this week, leaving the courts to draw the map.

[So the Heroes Fall]

I wouldn't mind a court-drawn map, since it would probably threaten more upstate Republicans than downstate Democrats (the downstate Democratic seats Torie is salivating over are basically cases where the seat is currently in the 60s for Obama and would go to "only" high 50s or so. More legitimately Republican winnable seats downstate would also mean the possible end of Peter King.)

[muon2]

According to the New York Post, New York Democrats are reportedly feuding over the shape of Charlie Rangel's district.  One plan has the district sprawling from Harlem to Westchester, presumably picking up African-American majority parts of the North Central Bronx and at least Mount Vernon.  That could be drawn as a majority black VAP district.  Another plan has the district becoming a Hispanic majority district in Manhattan and the Bronx.

It'll be interesting to compare the result to this thread started a year and a half ago.

Politico posted a story this week about a problem for Rangel and Waters unrelated to their ethics charges. The demographic changes in their districts are replacing blacks with Hispanics, and neither live in majority-black districts anymore.

The two House Democrats represent districts that were once iconic centers of African-American culture and history — Harlem and Watts — that have changed dramatically since they were first elected. Rangel’s home base and Waters’s district — now known as South Central — have undergone radical change as blacks now account for one-third of their local population, and each district is at or close to majority Hispanic.

Those demographic shifts have not posed reelection problems for either Rangel or Waters, who have used their local popularity as the foundation to exercise major clout on Capitol Hill.

But what happens in those districts after Waters, 71, and Rangel, 80, step down is an open question, as the urban areas come to terms with the political impact of Latino immigration and family growth over the past four decades. The redrawing of district boundaries after the 2010 census — and the passing of the torch from a civil rights generation of leaders to a more modern, diverse set of candidates — could bring change to these congressional seats.

Back in January I looked at majority-minority districts in NYC and LA. I see the same changes reported by Politico, though both districts could be preserved at the expense of other areas.

In Manhattan, I found a district similar to Rangel's would be about 51% hispanic. To make that district black either requires cutting into Long Island, or going into the Bronx. I did the latter, and had to include Mount Vernon in Westchester as well to get a district that is 54% black (CD 15). It was easy to make two hispanic districts with over 60% (CD 7, 14) with the remaining area in those two boroughs less a small part to connect white districts from upstate to NYC. The yellow district at the bottom of the picture is a majority-asian district.

[Torie]

I wouldn't mind a court-drawn map, since it would probably threaten more upstate Republicans than downstate Democrats (the downstate Democratic seats Torie is salivating over are basically cases where the seat is currently in the 60s for Obama and would go to "only" high 50s or so. More legitimately Republican winnable seats downstate would also mean the possible end of Peter King.)

Where on earth are you getting your numbers BRTD?  My "fair and balanced" court drawn map had the numbers below, and it ain't Obama "high 50's" baby.  But be happy anyway BRTD. Think of all those green marginal seats that Atlasians can speculate about and game theory on for hours on end. It would just be fabulous BRTD. And you know it is good right to have marginal CD's don't you, from a public policy perspective right?  So the court will just be doing the Lord's work, assuming it draws my map, rather than some weird Lewis fantasy (although in the end I think I finally beat him down some in a protracted "war" of attrition).

[Vasall des Midas]

On Turner's district? Nah, the numbers beat me, not you.
On the LI carve? Nah. Nobody ever thought it implausible, no one but you will ever think it remotely reasonable.

[cinyc]

NYS Senate Republicans are going to release a Congressional map tomorrow.  Whether that map is solely their map or a compromise map with Assembly Democrats remains to be seen.

Either way, it is a reaction to the federal court order that the legislature quickly provide a map by Wednesday, with objections to be heard by Friday.  The Congressional map is on a fast track.

[traininthedistance]

I think most plausible court-drawn maps would be on balance a mild net positive for the Democrats, though of course most of the incumbents in both parties would be absolutely livid.

Anyway, here's what I'd do if I was a court drawing the maps.  All districts within 1000 of ideal; no towns split north of Westchester/Rockland, and both town and village splits are minimized as much as practical downstate; obviously county splits are kept low as well.   I gave very little consideration to most incumbents here, and it shows.  I guess you could say that Turner and Gibson are the casualties here, but in the case of NYC it's a lot messier than that.  Gibson is pretty clearly axed though.

All racial stats are by VAP, of course; I'm not bothering with them outside of NYC.

On Long Island:



District 1: 52.0% Obama, 54.7% Dem.  Not much you can or should do with Tim Bishop's district, which remains swingy.  It does take parts of Islip instead of Smithtown; Islip's a huge town so I feel more comfortable splitting it instead.

District 2: 53.6% Obama, 55.3% Dem.  Now entirely within Suffolk County.  In fact, it's the rest of Suffolk save for a couple villages in Babylon- Amityville, Copiague, and Lindenhurst, a stub of what used be a huge South Shore cutout.  Cleaning up the lines, especially between 2 and 3, make this district a lot swingier, and Israel will have to fight for re-election, though he's still favored most years.

District 3: 50.3% Obama, 52.9% Dem.  The flip side of a weaker NY-2 is a weaker NY-3, as Peter King now has to represent what on paper is just R+1 if that.  In addition to all of Oyster Bay, King also takes in all of D-leaning North Hempstead from Ackerman, parts of Hempstead (some of which he had already), and a silver of NYC for population equality.  However, he'll probably still win most years.

District 4: 57.2% Obama, 58.5 Dem.  I really don't get why everyone wants to axe McCarthy, as it makes more sense to keep her in a district entirely within the town of Hempstead.  Okay, and Long Beach.

...

Onto NYC!



District 5: 64.9% Obama, 68.8 Dem; 35% White/17.8% Hispanic/40.1% Asian.  This is basically the Queens portions of both Ackerman's and Turner's districts; it's probably more recognizable to Ackerman and he'd likely win both the Dem primary and the general if he moved here from Long Island.  However, it's also drawn to be Asian-plurality (the only such district outside the West Coast), and could hopefully elect an Asian at some point.

District 6: 84% Obama, 85.5 Dem; 17.2% White/45.5% Black/17.1% Hisp./12.8% Asian.  Meeks' district has to expand, and it's impossible to keep it AA-majority and also entirely within Queens.  It's my opinion that crossing all sorts of jurisdictions to keep that magic 50%+1 shouldn't be required, especially as Meeks is no danger anyway.  Enough of the whites are Republican, and enough of the Hispanics and Asians don't vote, that this remains a rock-solid AA district in both the primary and general.  The primary axis of expansion is to unite the Rockaways all in one district, further contributing to the breakup of NY-9.

District 7: 76.9% Obama. 78.8% Dem; 25.8% White/51.9% Hispanic/13.7% Asian.  This seems like Velasquez's district, containing the core of her old district (Bushwick etc.) and upping it a few points by replacing the horrible gerrymander to Sunset Park with the much more nearby Jackson Heights/Corona area… except that Joe Crowley lives here (and it's not like he has anywhere else to run) and Velasquez doesn't.  Both of them will be super pissed.  To which I say too bad, this is a fair map.

District 8: 87.0% Obama, 85..2% Dem; 54.8% White/19.0% Hispanic/15.8% Asian.  Jerry Nadler gets a compact, sensible district entirely within Manhattan, as Boro Park is broken off and given to a Brooklyn district.  Along with Carolyn Maloney, he's the only NYC rep without at least a little bit of a complaint.

District 9: 75.4% Obama, 78.3% Dem; 52.8% White/23.5 % Hispanic/15.9% Asian.  This district is entirely new, though I guess like NY-7 its main lineage is Velasquez's old district.  Stretching from Greenpoint and Williamsburg in the north to Sunset Park, Chinatown (the Brooklyn version), and Boro Park in the south, it could best be described by the three "H"s of Williamsburg: hipsters, Hispanics, and Hasidics, and it also unites historic Brownstone Brooklyn (Park Slope, BoCoCa, Brookyn Heights, etc.)  Also grabs a tiny bit of the Lower East Side for population equality.  Despite the low Hispanic percentage Velasquez could run here anyway; this might also give Turner his best chance but really he's screwed.  Having spent a lot of time in Brooklyn over the past couple years, I can tell you from experience that a district like this deserves to exist.

District 10: 85.7% Obama, 86.8% Dem; 24.6% White/51.0% Black/16.7% Hispanic.  The two black districts in Brooklyn need to expand, and where they go is south.  So now Ed Towns has a bunch of Russian immigrants stuck at the southern end of his district.  Oh well.

District 11: 82.2% Obama, 84.4% Dem; 28.9% White/51.7% Black/11.5% Hispanic.  Unlike just about everywhere else on the map, I somewhat deferred to the old lines where drawing the boundary between 10 and 11, as that preserves the Carribean/West Indes population in 11.  This district completes the dismantling of Turner's district, withdrawing from Park Slope in order to go south, with its eventual destination the minority-heavy precincts in Coney Island.

District 12: 49.2% Obama, 52.4% Dem.  63.9% White/14.3 Hispanic/14.4% Asian.  Very little change for Grimm, just cleaning up some lines around Bensonhurst.  This district was already sensible.  Remains swingy but tilt-R most years.

District 13: 80.6% Obama, 76.8% Dem.  61.1% White/17.7% Hispanic/11.6% Asian.  Again, little change for Maloney beyond cleaning up some lines, and pushing north into Spanish Harlem because something needs to push north.  It doesn't threaten the VRA status of the next two districts, so it ought to be kosher.

District 14: 90.9% Obama, 91.5% Dem.  14.5% White/27.1% Black/52.6% Hispanic.  You can't make Rangel's district anything but majority-Hispanic without making it incredibly ugly.  Here I try to preserve Central Harlem at least, and draw in such as way as let Serrano's district go east without diluting it too much.  The lines in this part of the map may need to be fiddled with for VRA purposes, oh well.

District 15: 90.7% Obama, 91.6% Dem. 28.5% Black/59.2% Hispanic.  Serrano's core remains in the South Bronx, but this district also soaks up much of Crowley's territory in the Bronx.  I really didn't like that crossing, and would hope that a court would like it much either.

Upstate in the next post.

[traininthedistance]

And now we start heading upstate.  The NYC suburbs:



District 16: 66.6% Obama, 68.8% Dem.  46.8% White/25.1% Black/20.8% Hispanic.  Engel's district basically retains its Bronx-to-Yonkers-to-Rockland shape, and it's a weird gerrymandered shape that you'd expect to be dismantled in a court map, but it allows for the remainder of Westchester to entirely fill a district, so I say it stays. A couple towns are split here, but the village lines are followed as exactly as DRA will let me.

District 17: 63.2% Obama, 61.6% Dem.  An all-Westchester district for Lowey.  Nan Hayworth lives here but she'd run in 18 for sure.

District 18: 50.0% Obama, 53.0% Dem.  Orange, Putnam, and the more rural portions of both Rockland and Duchess.  This is a natural swingy exurbs district which is more Republican than its neighbors to both the south and the north.  Hayworth doesn't live here, but she'd run here.  I'd expect this district to be fiercely-contested every single cycle.

...

And finally, Upstate proper.  No towns are split here at all.



District 19: 56.2% Obama, 55.9% Dem.  Hinchey's old district sort of made sense except for the finger to Ithaca, so it excises that, and pushes further north and east to become a Hudson Valley-Catskills district that only goes as far out as Binghamton.  All of Columbia, Greene, Ulster, and Sullivan; also incudes the river portions of Duchess (such as Poughkeepsie), and most of Broome and Delaware, just leaving little cuts for population equality.  This district remains lean-D but it's a good deal swingier.  Chris Gibson actually lives here, but I suspect his best bet would be to challenge Owens in the new NY-21.

District 20: 57.6% Obama, 59.4% Dem.  Tonko pushes east to take all of Rensselaer and the southern tip of Saratoga instead of Montgomery, which makes the district even more clearly Albany-centric.  Doesn't change PVI much I don't think.

District 21: 52.5% Obama, 54.7% Dem.  Yes, the North County district needs to expand.  And the cleanest place for it to expand is Saratoga/Glens Falls, which is very much the gateway to the Adirondacks.  All of Clinton, Franklin, Lawrence, Essex, Warren, Washington, Lewis, Jefferson; most of Saratoga and one town in Herkimer which both equalizes population and makes the lines much neater.  This district is probably tilt-D now; Owens should be favored but he'll have to fight (and stay moderate); Gibson could try to move and run here as this district has much of his territory.

District 22: 47.4% Obama, 50.1% Dem.  The lines change a bunch but this is still Hanna's Mowhawk Valley district and he's even a bit safer if anything.  Oswego, Oneida, Madison, Chenango, Fulton, Montgomery, Otsego, almost all of Herkimer and a sliver of Delaware.  Could fall in a wave but it's pretty solidly R.

District 23: 59.3% Obama, 59.7% Dem.  I don't see any good reason not to do the Syracuse-to-Ithaca district.  Onondaga, Cayuga, Cortland, Tompkins, and the rest of Broome.  This configuration also has the benefit of creating a four-district West NY group that breaks off cleanly with no county splits.  Buerkle was probably a goner already, but now she's extra-goner; this is the safest Upstate district by Dem %.

District 24: 45.9% Obama, 45.8% Obama.  Finger Lakes and the Southern Tier, includes Chautaqua, Cattarugas, Allegany, Steuben, Chemung, Tioga, Schuyler, Yates, Seneca, Wayne, portions of  Ontario and one town in Livingston.  I'd rather not split two counties between this and 26 but I couldn't find another good way to do it within my population tolerance.  Reed is safe here, this is the one R district that won't even fall in a heavy wave.

District 25: 58.5% Obama, 59.3% Dem.  Every single "fair" map has a district which is basically just 95 percent of Monroe County, and this is no exception.  Down with the earmuffs!  Should be reliably Dem for Slaughter and/or whoever replaces her.  Though they'd have to work a bit in bad years, oh no.

District 26: 46.8% Obama, 44.7% Dem.  The rest of Monroe, Livingston, and Ontario, all of Wyoming, Genesee, Orleans, and Niagara, and a few towns in Erie.  This district is not actually much more R than Hochul's current setup (as it helpfully adds Niagara Falls), but I've still managed to screw her over by putting her Amherst home in 27.  It wasn't on purpose, that's just how the population math worked out.

District 27: 60.8% Obama, 55.6% Dem.  Higgins will be more than fine in this compact all-Erie district, which no longer splits Buffalo.

So… if we assume that Crowley takes the Hispanic Queens district meant for Velasquez, and Velasquez takes the white-majority Brooklyn district where her home is… the body count is thus:  Hochul and Buerkle are screwed and replaced by the opposite party, Turner and Gibson are just screwed, several other districts are made swingier but their general lean stays the same (ex-Hinchey, Israel, King).  So, basically it's just as if both axed districts are Republican, but more Dems are endangered in wave years as compensation.  Sounds fair to me.

[cinyc]

It's not clear to me that the court isn't going to just pick a map from competing Assembly and Senate proposals instead of trying to draw its own.  Time is tight.  Everything needs to be completed in the next two weeks or so because the petitioning process for the primaries begins March 20.  That's because another federal court moved up the federal primaries to late June in order to comply with military absentee requirements.

According to media reports, the special master asked if there was any non-partisan staff on LATFOR, the joint NY Assemby-Senate task force responsible for redistricting.  She was told that there is no non-partisan person on staff.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Ah, machine states!


Promoting establishment power at the espense of the people, on a bipartisan basis, for 200 years.

[Vasall des Midas]

District 6: 84% Obama, 85.5 Dem; 17.2% White/45.5% Black/17.1% Hisp./12.8% Asian.  Meeks' district has to expand, and it's impossible to keep it AA-majority and also entirely within Queens.  

Incorrect.

You've become yet another victim of the distinction between Black and non-Hispanic Black Only.

[TJ in Wisco]

Why would a court dismantle Turner's district instead of some combination of Ackerman, McCarthy, and King? The Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in southern Brooklyn form a pretty clear community of interest. If anything a fair map would unsplit the Jewish pockets instead of cracking them.

[Vasall des Midas]

Why would a court dismantle Turner's district instead of some combination of Ackerman, McCarthy, and King?

False dichotomy. There is no reason to do either. Basically take train's 9th, 10th and 11th and align nw-ne-s instead, fiddle with the perimeter a bit, and hey presto, two Black districts and an Orthodox district.

[cinyc]

The Senate and Assembly are filing separate plans with the court today. 

The Senate Republicans' plan eliminates Hinchey and Ackerman's districts.  Charlie Rangel's district becomes a Hispanic majority district, likely solely in Manhattan and the Bronx.  44 counties are kept whole. 

The Assembly Democrats' plan also carves up Hinchey's district.  It combines Turner with a Democrat - or Democrat-leaning areas.  The exact mechanism is unclear, combining various Queens and Nassau districts, as is what happens to Rangel's district.

No maps yet, just two media blog entries here and here.

[cinyc]

The federal court is accepting maps from the public.  The deadline is Friday.

[Torie]

The federal court is accepting maps from the public.  The deadline is Friday.

It's a federal court eh?  That means we are in for a "least change" map, subject to the VRA.  It will be interesting to see just how that is applied in the context of having to get rid of two seats. It might be fun to take a crack at it, since in this exercise where practicable, you pay your respects to the existing gerrymander.

[Ѕenator Αverroës]

Per Capital Tonight, the maps will be posted at the bottom of this page before midnight.

[cinyc]

The map proposed by Assembly Democrats Republicans is here.

[The Head Beagle]

The map proposed by Assembly Democrats is here.

It seems New York legislators believe it should take us as long to download the map as it took them to draw it.

[cinyc]

The map proposed by Assembly Democrats is here.

It seems New York legislators believe it should take us as long to download the map as it took them to draw it.

It's probably the court's website straining to send out a 9MB file.

I made a mistake.  This is a map proposed by Assembly REPUBLICANS, not Democrats.

Strange map.  Rangel's district adds on parts of Queens currently represented by Maloney.  The rest of Maloney's district seems to be combined with Nadler's, which only includes Manhattan.  I'm not sure where she's supposed to run.  One Queens African-American majority district sprawls into Nassau.  Westchester is split four ways, with the Sound Shore put in a minority coalition district that includes the Bronx and Queens.  Hayworth's old NY-19 adds Poughkeepsie and Newburgh.   The new Southern Tier/Utica district gets custody of Ithaca.   The earmuffs are gone and Rochester gets its own district.  County splits seem minimized Upstate.

It would be interesting to see the partisan breakdowns.  DRA isn't working for New York for me.

[cinyc]

Here's the Assembly Republicans' proposal: 

Upstate


Long Island


NYC



The Assembly Democrat and Senate Republican proposals are still not available.  Senate Democrats aren't going to make a proposal.

[traininthedistance]

Why would a court dismantle Turner's district instead of some combination of Ackerman, McCarthy, and King?

False dichotomy. There is no reason to do either. Basically take train's 9th, 10th and 11th and align nw-ne-s instead, fiddle with the perimeter a bit, and hey presto, two Black districts and an Orthodox district.

Here's a redo of South Brooklyn that would maximally concentrate Orthodox voting power:



The Orthodox district (which isn't actually all Orthodox at all- there's also the Russian immigrants, minority areas in Coney Island, and Italian/Asian areas in New Utrecht) is 44.2% Obama, 54.2% Dem.  If I had left the SI district alone (which I could have but it felt wrong to strand Sunset Park like that) it would be just over 47% Obama instead.

[Sam Spade]

The Assembly Democrat and Senate Republican proposals are still not available.  Senate Democrats aren't going to make a proposal.

Not surprising since New York State Senate Democrats may be the most incompetent group of politicians ever.

[traininthedistance]

Here's the Assembly Republicans' proposal: 

Upstate is actually pretty alright except for the Ithaca finger; I suspect NY-19 is about equidistant between Gibson and Hinchey's current PVIs, which should make for a fun, competitive district that's going to flip frequently.

NYC, on the other hand, is an abomination. NY-12 carving out Hell's Kitchen?  Queens-to-Rye for NY-16??!  They better not be serious.

[cinyc]

This is a map of the Unity proposal, filed by various Hispanic and Asian legal defense type groups.  Note that the map is only of the NYC area.  They didn't even bother redistricting Upstate:



This plan literally axes Turner's NY-09.  There is no NY-09 on the map.