US House Redistricting: Missouri

[Dgov]

Any reason you can think of for why the 5th stretches out that far?  I Assume it's intended to prevent Ike Skelton from running again (as he lives in Lafayette county), but it draws the 6th dangerously far into Jackson county.

Either way, this is almost certainly going to be vetoed by Nixon.  It eliminates Carnahan's district, and I'm pretty sure all the other Republicans are safe in their districts.

[Dgov]

Check out this post on SSP:

http://swingstateproject.com/showComment.do?commentId=257428

Western St. Louis County is pretty Republican.

Do you know if the bit about Cleaver's district is true? There must be a reason that they're excluding large sections of Jackson County and adding rural counties instead.

They might be more Republican.  The rural territory it adds is only ~53% McCain, and it takes in Ike Skelton's home (which is probably the biggest reason).  Also, i'm willing to bet the suburban area of Jackson county in the district is more reliably Republican than the rural areas that kept skelton in office.

[Dgov]

LOL, are they seriously worried about a Skelton comeback? The guy is like 5000 years old.

Well, i think they were planning this map before they beat him in 2010, but either way its a safe move.  No sense wasting republican votes in MO-5 when they can be used elsewhere.

[Dgov]

I don't see why they didn't just attach all of Jefferson county to MO-8.  It would be easy to do, and It's not like Cape Girardeau is running short on Republican voters.  Jefferson county isn't even really Democratic territory; it voted less than 51% for Obama and Bush won it in 2004.

[Dgov]

i hate this map. Is there some excuse someone can find in it to take it to the DOJ?

Probably not, it doesn't violate the VRA (that Black-pluralty district is already as black as it could realistically be anyway and the 5th is a black-opportunity district at least), and "Being a partisan dick" isn't DOJ worthy.

[Dgov]

And how many Black representatives from the city voted against the override?

Seriously. Are there recall petitions in Missouri?

Well, to be honest this is not a new occurrence.  Black Democrats favoring a map that benefits Black Democrats over White Democrats is actually relatively common in the South.