US House Redistricting: New York

[timothyinMD]

Any map that eliminates Bob Turner's seat is unacceptable.  If we have to bend over backward to draw Hispanic and black seats, they can keep two Republican seats.





This shouldn't be that hard, and the map shouldn't look like a piece of garbage, esp in NYC

[Gravis Marketing]

Any map that preserves the earmuffs and makes them even more urban is a gerry, IMO. Those suburban towns in Monroe County you shed in order to make it more of a D vote sink include Louise Slaughter's home town of Fairport.

[traininthedistance]

Any map that eliminates Bob Turner's seat is unacceptable.  If we have to bend over backward to draw Hispanic and black seats, they can keep two Republican seats.

Any map that:

a) keeps the earmuffs
b) splits the North Country like that
c) goes down to only one AA district in Brooklyn

does things WAY worse than dismantling Turner.  You could very easily make the case for a fair map that eliminates one of Crowley/Ackerman/McCarthy downstate and Gibson upstate, and turns Turner's district in the Orthodox South Brooklyn seat.  Fine, I'd be willing to accept that.  But the map you have is a total non-starter for so many reasons.

[asexual trans victimologist]

I stopped paying it serious attention as soon as I saw what was done to the Capital District and that the earmuffs still existed.

[TJ in Wisco]

I stopped paying it serious attention as soon as I saw what was done to the Capital District and that the earmuffs still existed.

The earmuffs are terrible, but would you like the capital district to look like? TimothyinMD's map looks pretty much the same as muon's in that area. Pretty much all of them are ugly in some way around there.

[cinyc]

Any map that preserves the earmuffs and makes them even more urban is a gerry, IMO. Those suburban towns in Monroe County you shed in order to make it more of a D vote sink include Louise Slaughter's home town of Fairport.

The court is likely to draw a least-change map, meaining the earmuffs might actually end up staying.

[muon2]

Any map that eliminates Bob Turner's seat is unacceptable.  If we have to bend over backward to draw Hispanic and black seats, they can keep two Republican seats.





This shouldn't be that hard, and the map shouldn't look like a piece of garbage, esp in NYC

I have the same question about minority VAPs in the minority districts. What did you get for yours?

[muon2]

Any map that preserves the earmuffs and makes them even more urban is a gerry, IMO. Those suburban towns in Monroe County you shed in order to make it more of a D vote sink include Louise Slaughter's home town of Fairport.

The court is likely to draw a least-change map, meaining the earmuffs might actually end up staying.

It will be interesting to see since the court is not using political data or incumbent addresses. Much of the current upstate shape is precisely due to those factors. If they aren't there at best they can use communities of interest as a proxy.

[Torie]

I stopped paying it serious attention as soon as I saw what was done to the Capital District and that the earmuffs still existed.

The earmuffs are terrible, but would you like the capital district to look like? TimothyinMD's map looks pretty much the same as muon's in that area. Pretty much all of them are ugly in some way around there.

You know, the Albany CD does not have to be an ugly duckling.

[traininthedistance]

I stopped paying it serious attention as soon as I saw what was done to the Capital District and that the earmuffs still existed.

The earmuffs are terrible, but would you like the capital district to look like? TimothyinMD's map looks pretty much the same as muon's in that area. Pretty much all of them are ugly in some way around there.

You know, the Albany CD does not have to be an ugly duckling.

My Albany district is similar:

All of Albany, Schenectady, Rensselaer, optionally Schoharie, and then finish up with the bottom tip of Saratoga.  It's not that hard to make a good district there!

[Vasall des Midas]

From way up when in this thread.

[muon2]

I stopped paying it serious attention as soon as I saw what was done to the Capital District and that the earmuffs still existed.

The earmuffs are terrible, but would you like the capital district to look like? TimothyinMD's map looks pretty much the same as muon's in that area. Pretty much all of them are ugly in some way around there.

You know, the Albany CD does not have to be an ugly duckling.

My Albany district is similar:

All of Albany, Schenectady, Rensselaer, optionally Schoharie, and then finish up with the bottom tip of Saratoga.  It's not that hard to make a good district there!

Yes, I did split the Capital Region, but I did so with justification. The two districts covering the region are each nearly whole counties. The four counties including Albany are under population by 3698 and the six counties with Schenectady are over by only 510, and very little population was shifted accordingly. As a bonus both districts have the potential to be competitive in the right year.

CD 19 (Albany) W 77.3% [D+5]
CD 20 (Schenectady) W 90.0% [R+1]

[Vasall des Midas]

No Muon, that this is quite unjustifiedly bizarre. Quite frankly everything from 18 to 23 there is Wrong with a capital W.

[Torie]

No Muon, that this is quite unjustifiedly bizarre. Quite frankly everything from 18 to 23 there is Wrong with a capital W.

Muon2 gives high salience to minimizing county splits (I had one more in the Albany area than Muon2 because I wanted to keep the Albany metro area together). It was interesting that the Minnesota court gave pretty high salience to minimizing county splits too, messing with the prior court drawn lines to cut territory from MN-04 that it had before to kick it out of Dakota County (territory that are inner-burbs tied to the hip to St. Paul), and having it take most of Washington County instead. That was sort of a surprise.

[asexual trans victimologist]

I stopped paying it serious attention as soon as I saw what was done to the Capital District and that the earmuffs still existed.

The earmuffs are terrible, but would you like the capital district to look like? TimothyinMD's map looks pretty much the same as muon's in that area. Pretty much all of them are ugly in some way around there.

My preferred type of district in that area would take in Albany, more of Rennselaer, and as close to all of Schenectady as can be managed. If more population is needed it should go up into Saratoga or down into Greene or Schoharie. muon's isn't great (quite frankly none of muon's upstate map appeals to me except maybe Western New York, though I love his NYC and Long Island), but including Greene makes it a bit less ugly. traininthedistance and Torie have done the best upstate maps so far.

[timothyinMD]

Rationale for my proposal:

1. Buff/Roch are similar cities and combined in one district keep from overpowering the suburban/rural portions of western NYS.
2. Making that a solid D allows all the surrounding seats to be highly competitive.  Same with combining D areas into the Albany seat.
3. Where is it written in stone that St Lawrence, Franklin and Clinton be in the same district?
4. I have no care or regard for incumbents' locations.  One doesn't have to live in a district to run in it
5. Racial stats are irrelevant.  Aside from Grimm and Turner, every other seat in NYC will elect a far left liberal Democrat who will vote the same way no matter what race they are.  To me they aren't whites, blacks, hispanics.  They're Democrats.

[asexual trans victimologist]

Rationale for my proposal:

1. Buff/Roch are similar cities and combined in one district keep from overpowering the suburban/rural portions of western NYS.

Try making this argument to somebody from one of them. They are entirely separate urban areas almost a hundred miles apart.

2. Making that a solid D allows all the surrounding seats to be highly competitive.  Same with combining D areas into the Albany seat.

In other words, a partisan gerrymander.

3. Where is it written in stone that St Lawrence, Franklin and Clinton be in the same district?

It's its own area called the North Country. It's a community of interest. Making a Sand Lake-to-Canada district while Malone is separated from Plattsburgh and lumped in with Utica makes about as much sense as Dutch Ruppersberger's district even if it doesn't look as horrible.

4. I have no care or regard for incumbents' locations.  One doesn't have to live in a district to run in it

traininthedistance's upstate map, which I think is the best I've seen so far, puts Hochul's and Higgins's homes in the same district, as well as Hayworth's and Lowey's and I'm not sure but I think maybe Gibson's and Tonko's.

[krazen1211]

Chopping Buffalo is just as partisan as it was 10 years ago. This time its merely proposed for the opposite party.

[timothyinMD]

I make no claim that my proposal is "non partisan" or gerrymander free.  It is expressly to help elect as many Republicans as possible.

[asexual trans victimologist]

I make no claim that my proposal is "non partisan" or gerrymander free.  It is expressly to help elect as many Republicans as possible.

Oh, okay. In that case and for that purpose it's actually a pretty damn good map.

[cinyc]

There was a hearing today.  According to the Albany Times-Union, the judge seemed largely interested in to what extent she should take incumbency into account when drawing her map.  The judge's map should be released by next Monday.

[Gravis Marketing]

Buffalo and Rochester are very different cities with different economies and politics. That would be like linking Raleigh-Durham and Winston-Salem, or saying Baltimore and Washington D.C. are basically the same. Rochester is built on knowledge industries and engineering while Buffalo is rust belt.

[cinyc]

Buffalo and Rochester are very different cities with different economies and politics. That would be like linking Raleigh-Durham and Winston-Salem, or saying Baltimore and Washington D.C. are basically the same. Rochester is built on knowledge industries and engineering while Buffalo is rust belt.

Parts of Buffalo and Rochester are currently in the same congressional district.  Legislators thought them sufficiently similar to include in the same district in 2002.  If the judge goes with a least-change map, they might still be linked in the same district, ugliness notwithstanding.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Both the earmuffs and Higgin's distict are ridiculous when you can draw districts entirely within Monroe and Erie counties. I hope they don't go with a least change map. The loss of two seats should preclude that entirely.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Rationale for my proposal:

1. Buff/Roch are similar cities and combined in one district keep from overpowering the suburban/rural portions of western NYS.
2. Making that a solid D allows all the surrounding seats to be highly competitive.  Same with combining D areas into the Albany seat.
3. Where is it written in stone that St Lawrence, Franklin and Clinton be in the same district?
4. I have no care or regard for incumbents' locations.  One doesn't have to live in a district to run in it
5. Racial stats are irrelevant.  Aside from Grimm and Turner, every other seat in NYC will elect a far left liberal Democrat who will vote the same way no matter what race they are.  To me they aren't whites, blacks, hispanics.  They're Democrats.

The rules do care about that, though.