US House Redistricting: Georgia

[So the Heroes Fall]

I just realized the new seat has a good chance of having the highest GOP PVI in the country. You could easily draw a seat stretching from Cherokee to around Hall counties that would probably be around an R+30.

[krazen1211]

The 11-3 map.



I ran the 13th down rather than sideways. It's not overly hideous.

The 2nd here is about 36% black. Probably winnable for the right candidate, but should keep Sanford on his toes.

The existing 12th is utterly dismantled.

The new 14th is probably a 56% or so McCain district, just eyeballing it.

[So the Heroes Fall]

I highly doubt the DOJ would approve that map.

[krazen1211]

I highly doubt the DOJ would approve that map.

Shrug. It's not like the existing 13th is a clean district. I haven't thought much about running it south rather than north.

The 9th is just sitting there begging to pick up some blue precincts.

[Bacon King]

That wouldn't make it through the assembly's redistricting committee. Nobody wants Texas-style fajita strip districts, nor is it really neccesary for an 11-3 district. Legislators from the north would go mad seeing that map.  assuming the state wants a fight with the Feds to get that 11th district anyway (though the combative signals from the new Secretary of State and Attorney General make it seem possible), this map wouldn't be it.

I doubt Graves (Hall) and Broun (Clarke) would really like being in the same district, and you're making Westmoreland's district unneccesarily marginal. The new district could tilt with demographic change too.

I won't be at a computer until tomorrow (posting on my phone now) but I'll try my hand at a 11-3 map when I get the chance.

[Vasall des Midas]

What makes you think you could abolish a VRA seat while gaining a seat overall? Unless the Black pop. dropped, that seems just perfectly obviously imposs.

[Bacon King]

What makes you think you could abolish a VRA seat while gaining a seat overall? Unless the Black pop. dropped, that seems just perfectly obviously imposs.

I personally agree with you, but Attorney General Olens has indicated that he's itching for a fight with the government over redistricting.

Expect something subtle I think, if the legislature takes the bait salivating over that possible extra seat. Perhaps a new district for Bishop with a similar racial breakdown, but exchanging some of the current whites in his district with wealthier, more Republican whites in Houston County perhaps? That way "on paper" it wouldn't be as bad. Or perhaps even give him a district he could win in 2012 but would be likely to lose in 2014, thus muddying up any lawsuit against it.

Of course, not saying the GOP here would actually try to pull any of this, but it sadly is an option on the table for them. Oh well.     

[krazen1211]

That wouldn't make it through the assembly's redistricting committee. Nobody wants Texas-style fajita strip districts, nor is it really neccesary for an 11-3 district. Legislators from the north would go mad seeing that map.  assuming the state wants a fight with the Feds to get that 11th district anyway (though the combative signals from the new Secretary of State and Attorney General make it seem possible), this map wouldn't be it.

I doubt Graves (Hall) and Broun (Clarke) would really like being in the same district, and you're making Westmoreland's district unneccesarily marginal. The new district could tilt with demographic change too.

I won't be at a computer until tomorrow (posting on my phone now) but I'll try my hand at a 11-3 map when I get the chance.

Per his facebook, Tom Graves lives in Gordon County. Nathan Deal I believe lived in Hall County.

I would not call that fajita stripping, though. Is it abolishing a VRA seat? That depends on whether you think the new 13th is significantly less compact than the old 13th, which wrapped around 7 counties.

The 14th is, as I said, somewhat marginal, but I think that could be helped by shifting precints in Gwinnett to the 7th. I think I made the 7th excessively strong since it has Forscythe.

The existing 2nd is not a VRA district, is it?

Westmoreland's district isn't even close to marginal.

Fayette, Coweta, Heard, Carroll are all 66% counties. Troup is 59%, then he has the White section of Muskogee, Douglas (50/50), and 30k people on the southern tip of Fulton.

[Sibboleth]

Seems fairly compact to me.

[Vasall des Midas]

Why wouldn't the second district be protected by the VRA? And maybe you're thinking of the 2002-6 version of the thirteenth or something.

[krazen1211]

Why wouldn't the second district be protected by the VRA? And maybe you're thinking of the 2002-6 version of the thirteenth or something.

Well, its a plurality, not a majority district.

The old 13th obviously was a pretty ugly mess and I have it in the back of my mind. The new 13th still chops through counties and wraps, although the perimeter is obviously lower.

[Vasall des Midas]

Why wouldn't the second district be protected by the VRA? And maybe you're thinking of the 2002-6 version of the thirteenth or something.

Well, its a plurality, not a majority district.

I thought we'd been over that... random cutoff points have no real relevance to the Voting Rights Act. The relevant question is whether South Georgia has enough Blacks to "deserve" a Representative of their choice, and whether the district boundaries are drawn in such a fashion as to give it to them. There are no two plausible answers on either question.

[krazen1211]

Why wouldn't the second district be protected by the VRA? And maybe you're thinking of the 2002-6 version of the thirteenth or something.

Well, its a plurality, not a majority district.

I thought we'd been over that... random cutoff points have no real relevance to the Voting Rights Act. The relevant question is whether South Georgia has enough Blacks to "deserve" a Representative of their choice, and whether the district boundaries are drawn in such a fashion as to give it to them. There are no two plausible answers on either question.

Didn't the Supreme Court decline to require such a district in South Georgia in the 90s?

[Vasall des Midas]

Why wouldn't the second district be protected by the VRA? And maybe you're thinking of the 2002-6 version of the thirteenth or something.

Well, its a plurality, not a majority district.

I thought we'd been over that... random cutoff points have no real relevance to the Voting Rights Act. The relevant question is whether South Georgia has enough Blacks to "deserve" a Representative of their choice, and whether the district boundaries are drawn in such a fashion as to give it to them. There are no two plausible answers on either question.

Didn't the Supreme Court decline to require such a district in South Georgia in the 90s?

That was, precisely, a not-at-all-compact district. That actually anchored into the Atlanta Metro. When the state had fewer districts to go round.

Though yeah (and somewhat bizarrely) it was Republicans who wrote the anti-gerrymandering caselaw connected to the VRA, in a series of partisan 5-4 decisions in the 90s. Basically, you can't legally discriminate Black voters, or Hispanic voters, or Native voters, *either positively or negatively*. Though you have to do so fairly badly to actually be called on it. This is really just Kennedy's and O'Connor's position; Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Ginsburg and Breyer have no record of ruling anything beyond "this is bad for my party and therefore I'm vetoing it because I can", and the Obama appointees haven't been on the court for any VRA case.
The court has been careful never to go so far as to say you can't gerrymander VRA states at all (or, only the areas of the state where race doesn't have anything to do with it - you certainly still can  with Austin liberals all you like), and it will be careful not to in the future either, but it would have been the logical conclusion to its argument.

[Bacon King]

I know this is "US House" redistricting, but I'll just put this here unless you guys think another thread is appropriate.

Georgia's legislature will have quite a hard time redistricting its own seats. The southern half of the state will lose something like two Senate seats and six Assembly seats to the Atlanta metro.

I've toyed around with the seats in the south, it looks like they'll be facing many tough decisions- which Republicans get their districts carved out? They can't remove the Democratic districts left down there, because it would make all the surrounding Republican seats more marginal.

Also, districting the new districts in the Atlanta area could very well prove difficult as well (though I haven't messed around in the app yet there)- more seats and greater population density necessarily means more compact districts, which makes it a lot harder to protect suburban Republicans in counties like Gwinnett and Cobb from the inevitable demographic shifting.

[Bacon King]

Seems fairly compact to me.

And definitely more compact than this monstrosity:

[muon2]

Why wouldn't the second district be protected by the VRA? And maybe you're thinking of the 2002-6 version of the thirteenth or something.

Well, its a plurality, not a majority district.

I thought we'd been over that... random cutoff points have no real relevance to the Voting Rights Act. The relevant question is whether South Georgia has enough Blacks to "deserve" a Representative of their choice, and whether the district boundaries are drawn in such a fashion as to give it to them. There are no two plausible answers on either question.

Didn't the Supreme Court decline to require such a district in South Georgia in the 90s?

That was, precisely, a not-at-all-compact district. That actually anchored into the Atlanta Metro. When the state had fewer districts to go round.

Though yeah (and somewhat bizarrely) it was Republicans who wrote the anti-gerrymandering caselaw connected to the VRA, in a series of partisan 5-4 decisions in the 90s. Basically, you can't legally discriminate Black voters, or Hispanic voters, or Native voters, *either positively or negatively*. Though you have to do so fairly badly to actually be called on it. This is really just Kennedy's and O'Connor's position; Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Ginsburg and Breyer have no record of ruling anything beyond "this is bad for my party and therefore I'm vetoing it because I can", and the Obama appointees haven't been on the court for any VRA case.
The court has been careful never to go so far as to say you can't gerrymander VRA states at all (or, only the areas of the state where race doesn't have anything to do with it - you certainly still can  with Austin liberals all you like), and it will be careful not to in the future either, but it would have been the logical conclusion to its argument.

Given that GA is 30% black, any map that doesn't have at least 4 districts where blacks can elect a candidate of their choice would be subject to a section 2 challenge, and the DOJ would probably reject it under section 5 for the same reason. That wouldn't help the GA AG if he wants to pick a fight over the applicability of section 5.

The legislature may want a map that is as safe from section 2 as they can imagine, but still picks a fight with the DOJ. That would certainly include squeezing out Barrow while making 4 districts with >50% black VAP to meet the standard set in the 2009 Bartlett decision.

[Bacon King]

Here's an evil idea- putting the black parts of Albany, Columbus, Macon, AND Augusta  all in the 2nd district. I've been toying around with it on the app and it can actually be done pretty easily; it can be done in two ways. First, it could cut across the northern edge of the black belt all the way from Alabama to South Carolina and fit three full districts south of it (with an extension the width of a single county cutting down to Albany). Alternatively, you could give Bishop more of his old territory and a cleaner-looking district, but it would require one of the south districts to awkwardly skim the SC border through Augusta and take in the white suburbs to the north. Either way, it eliminates Barrow, prevents a Marshall comeback, and provides a ~55% black VRA district for Bishop (and with enough of his old territory that he'd be pretty safe from a primary challenge by someone more liberal).

Will post maps.   

[Bacon King]

Here's option A.



Eastern district (incumbent is Kingston): 60% white, 32% black (-320 from ideal pop.)
Southern district (no incumbent): 65% white, 28% black (+181 from ideal pop.)
Central district (incumbent is Scott): 60% white, 35% black (-215 from ideal pop.)

Green district (incumbent is Bishop): 54% black, 41% white (+161 from ideal pop.)

the three Republican districts here aren't perfect, but the focus here is the 2nd district.

[Bacon King]

Here's Plan B.

Dark blue- Kingston- 63% white, 29% black
Medium blue- Scott- 63% white, 30% black
light blue- Barrow (but he'd lose)- 62% white, 31% black

Green- Bishop- 56% black, 39% white

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

How Republican are South GA Whites, BK? 75%? 80%?

Or another way of to approach this would be to ask if you know the McCain versus Obama number on your maps in what would be Kingston's district especially, since it was mentioned, yet again off board, that he could lose in a bad year if you target Barrow.

[krazen1211]

How Republican are South GA Whites, BK? 75%? 80%?

Or another way of to approach this would be to ask if you know the McCain versus Obama number on your maps in what would be Kingston's district especially, since it was mentioned, yet again off board, that he could lose in a bad year if you target Barrow.

Chatham County is about 40% black and went 57% Obama. Simple math suggests the nonblack portion is about 70-75% Republican.

[Verily]

Reposting this here:


I'm curious if anyone knows--has Dave's Redistricting been updated for the 2009 ACS figures? I ask specifically about Georgia (I know he has new figures for New England.) I was poking around the NYT map, and then verified this info on the American FactFinder Census site, and the black population is increasing so fast in some parts of the suburban Atlanta metro that it may in fact be not only possible but easy to draw a fourth black majority seat in the Atlanta metro (which could affect whether the DOJ  sues to force one).

For example, Rockdale County, GA was estimated at 32.6% black in 2008 ACS and is now estimated at 37.0% black in the 2009 ACS. On that 3.4% annual increase, it would be around 39% black at the 2010 Census (which is less than a full year after the ACS). Similar rapid growth is shown in Newton County, Henry County, Douglas County and Cobb County (and to a lesser extent in Gwinnett County, where Hispanics and Asians form the larger part of the new residents, and in Clayton County, which increased from 51% black in 2000 to 60% in the 2009 ACS but seems to have stabilized recently). It is accompanied by a slight decline in Fulton County, but the decline in Fulton is tiny relative to the increase in the others. If the changes really are that rapid, how easy a black district is to create might change dramatically from the 2008 estimates to the 2009 ones, or to the actual 2010 census figures (which will include another half-year of change after the 2009 estimates). And even on the 2008 numbers it is possible, just barely, to craft four black majority seats in the area (albeit only 50-51% black each.)

[Verily]

Per the above, using the ACS 2009 data, four black-majority seats in the Atlanta metro. They probably could be a lot neater (in their boundaries with one another); this was just my first attempt. On the 2010 Census, assuming trends continue, this will be slightly easier. Also, I limited myself to Cobb, Douglas, Fulton, Fayette, Clayton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Henry, Newton and Rockdale Counties. It becomes a LOT easier if you're allowed to reach into Spaulding and Coweta Counties (which historically were separate but today I think have a fair number of commuters).

[Bacon King]

Here's the census definition of the metro area. Pretty easy to fit four black districts in those borders, especially if one doesn't mind some tendrils.