State Legislature Redistricting

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yeah Dayton's not going to sign that. But it's much closer to a dummymander than a gerrymander and could easily backfire in many places.

Take my old home of Mankato in district 20. They split it in half in House seats, probably figuring that'll make the current 23B more winnable by removing heavily DFL parts of downtown Mankato and replacing them with rural areas. But it's still not much more than a fool's gold seat, and that's at the expense of turning a true swing seat in the current 23A into another fool's gold type seat. But that's a district where the DFL already holds all the seats anyway. But also look at Mower and Freeborn counties. It splits them, but Mower is still DFL enough to carry the new district 26 (the two other counties are swing anyway). So you just end up with a currently GOP seat getting heavily DFL Freeborn county attached. And they split the DFL town of Faribault down the middle which does make sense, but not attaching the eastern half to heavily DFL Northfield and adding that to the seat of teabagger extremist Sen. Mike Parry. It's easy to see what they were doing with the west (creating a GOP seat by extending it up to the exurbs), but it could cost them in the east. And I can't make heads or tails what they were doing in Rochester. Or St. Cloud for that matter.

There are some pretty logical choices here (targeting Denise Dittrich by attaching her hometown of Champlin to some uber-GOP areas in NW Hennepin County and chopping up the rest of the district, they also shored up that new GOP incumbent in Cottage Grove as well as they could), but a lot of this just strikes me as "We don't know exactly what to do with this town so we'll just chop it up in a weird way and hope things work out." Honestly it wouldn't shock me if this map is voted down if every Democrat votes against it as well as more endangered Republicans.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I just plugged some numbers into Dave's Redistricting App, and I doubt Mike Parry, a hardline Tea Party type is going to be too happy with an almost 53% Obama district. Or that Julie Rosen is going to like going from a McCain by 7 to Obama by 4 seat.

And I have no clue what they were doing in Mankato. They changed the core Mankato seat from 58% Obama to 55% Obama, and changed the North Mankato-St. Peter seat (now also with a large chunk of Mankato proper, and the most Democratic chunk too), from a 51% Obama seat to a 58% Obama seat. Uh...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

But they're taking the gambles in the wrong places. They did some pretty clever and downright evil things in northern and western Minnesota (Putting Bemidji in a McCain House seat is the most notable example), but the way they drew southern Minnesota gives the impression that they seem to expect every election to have the same turnout figures as 2010. A lot of it seems like attempts to target certain incumbents by basically carving up the district, without taking into account that they haven't exactly eliminated any friendly district. They seem to have targeted Kory Kath in this manner without realizing that the two new seats split from his old are both MORE Democratic than his current seat.

The most obvious example is 22A. It's clear they're trying to target current 26B incumbent Patti Fritz who barely held on in 2010 by cutting her hometown of Faribault in half. This makes sense, as does running the western half up to the exurbs. But the eastern half is ran up to the college town of Northfield, resulting in a seat that gave Obama about 10 points more than Fritz's current seat. And this seat is also more Democratic than the current 25B which narrowly elected a Republican in 2010 and includes Northfield now. Now I can understand the GOP realizing they can't really shore that guy up and have to just let the chips falls where they are for a Republican from Northfield, but the result is a Dem pack district for no real reason. And they've added this seat to Mike Parry's Senate district as stated before. Kath could easily get elected in 22B, 22A is the most Democratic seat south of the Twin Cities and together the Senate seat is Dem-leaning. So you probably end up with a DFL trifecta in a region where that really shouldn't happen under a GOP gerrymander all because of a very clumsy half-assed attempt to eliminate two DFL incumbents who'll both probably survive anyway AND flip the Senate seat to boot.

Then there's 21B. This is an obvious attempt to shore up the Republican in the current 27A, who narrowly won only because certain types didn't turn out in Freeborn county and the DFL foolishly nominated someone from Mower County to run in that seat. The seat has gone from about 57% to about 54% Obama which is probably the best that can be done for a district containing all of Freeborn County. But for some reason they separated it from Mower County, putting the latter in a Senate district with those two other counties that should easily re-elect Dan Sparks, and giving Freeborn to what's basically Julie Rosen's current seat, flipping it to an Obama district. So they're endangering Rosen without making Sparks really all that vulnerable. I think they're also trying to shore up State Senator Jerry Miller by removing those two south eastern counties and giving him more conservative territory to the north and east of Winona. But that's not a guarantee as that's still not enough to full cancel out Winona especially in an election where the college kids actually turn out, which 2010 was not. So they could go from 2 out of 3 State Senators among those 3 seats to 0 quite easily. Dumb dumb dumb.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

But they're taking the gambles in the wrong places. They did some pretty clever and downright evil things in northern and western Minnesota (Putting Bemidji in a McCain House seat is the most notable example), but the way they drew southern Minnesota gives the impression that they seem to expect every election to have the same turnout figures as 2010. A lot of it seems like attempts to target certain incumbents by basically carving up the district, without taking into account that they haven't exactly eliminated any friendly district. They seem to have targeted Kory Kath in this manner without realizing that the two new seats split from his old are both MORE Democratic than his current seat.

The most obvious example is 22A. It's clear they're trying to target current 26B incumbent Patti Fritz who barely held on in 2010 by cutting her hometown of Faribault in half. This makes sense, as does running the western half up to the exurbs. But the eastern half is ran up to the college town of Northfield, resulting in a seat that gave Obama about 10 points more than Fritz's current seat. And this seat is also more Democratic than the current 25B which narrowly elected a Republican in 2010 and includes Northfield now. Now I can understand the GOP realizing they can't really shore that guy up and have to just let the chips falls where they are for a Republican from Northfield, but the result is a Dem pack district for no real reason. And they've added this seat to Mike Parry's Senate district as stated before. Kath could easily get elected in 22B, 22A is the most Democratic seat south of the Twin Cities and together the Senate seat is Dem-leaning. So you probably end up with a DFL trifecta in a region where that really shouldn't happen under a GOP gerrymander all because of a very clumsy half-assed attempt to eliminate two DFL incumbents who'll both probably survive anyway AND flip the Senate seat to boot.

Then there's 21B. This is an obvious attempt to shore up the Republican in the current 27A, who narrowly won only because certain types didn't turn out in Freeborn county and the DFL foolishly nominated someone from Mower County to run in that seat. The seat has gone from about 57% to about 54% Obama which is probably the best that can be done for a district containing all of Freeborn County. But for some reason they separated it from Mower County, putting the latter in a Senate district with those two other counties that should easily re-elect Dan Sparks, and giving Freeborn to what's basically Julie Rosen's current seat, flipping it to an Obama district. So they're endangering Rosen without making Sparks really all that vulnerable. I think they're also trying to shore up State Senator Jerry Miller by removing those two south eastern counties and giving him more conservative territory to the north and east of Winona. But that's not a guarantee as that's still not enough to full cancel out Winona especially in an election where the college kids actually turn out, which 2010 was not. So they could go from 2 out of 3 State Senators among those 3 seats to 0 quite easily. Dumb dumb dumb.

Why exactly, should I assume that you are more intelligent than the consensus of the Republican caucus was?

You seriously think gerrymanderers are always intelligent then? LOL. I'm just plugging the numbers and reporting on the results. It's all moot though because Dayton's not going to sign t that.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Somehow I don't think the main factor in which Dayton will sign it or not is what I tell him.

Dayton won't sign it because it screws over some individual Democrats who'll be lobbying him not to. As I said, it does target some areas well, but some of the other moves are just dumb and I could see it failing if all Democrats vote against it along with endangered Republicans.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The IP doesn't run as strong in state legislative races in Minnesota so that doesn't work very well. Also Southern Minnesota is pretty polarized, races tend to be the same all the way downballot.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It does in some areas. But there are some where the moves are just puzzling and obviously won't benefit.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Two Democrats (well one was appointed by Arne Carlson so he's probably more of a Souter.), one appointed by Ventura, and the remaining four are Pawlenty appointees. The Chief Justice though, while a Pawlenty appointee has a history of working with and being appointed by both parties as well as Ventura. She was known for sounding openly annoyed and hostile to Coleman during the recount hearings. Of the other three though two are obviously right wing and one there isn't a lot of information on.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I don't think either side fears a court drawn map, our last four maps have been that way. The current map doesn't really favor either side that much either, the Republicans had a bigger House majority in the first election under this map than they do now. But they probably know there's a lot of seats they aren't holding if they remain the same population shifts might benefit them a little, but considering they lost the popular vote for the legislature even in 2010 and had a ton of close seats, there are simply many who know that they are done if radical changes aren't made in their favor. A couple might survive on a fluke, but most wouldn't.

And the last Republican to get 50% in Minnesota was Arne Carlson in 1994.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Gee you mean the Democrats would rather have blacks spread out into more seats thus increasing the Democratic vote in many districts rather than just pack blacks and thus Democratic votes into a few districts therefore making neighboring seats more Republican? What a shocker!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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Oh so the complaint is that the districts aren't gerrymandered to be majority black and have a bunch of Hispanics too?

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Uh...go look at a map and take note of what this type of district would look like.

It sounds like the Democrats are actually just doing what Republicans on this forum screaming against the VRA frequently call for, just drawing compact districts based on neighborhoods and ignoring racial figures. But krazen just wants an excuse to scream about how those evil evil white liberals are really extreme racists and want to screw over blacks for no discernible reason whatsoever (basically his standard logic in a post like this.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No that's not discernible because there's no advantage to electing white Democrats as opposed to black Democrats. And "packing" Wilmington makes sense simply because Wilmington is one city and there's no reason to carve it up into a million pieces just because that might give another district a better chance of electing a black. If Wilmington can fit into two districts, then why should it be cut into three?

I can't figure out a way to draw a plurality black VAP seat in Dover. The best I can get is 45% white to 43.9% black VAP, it's plurality black in total population but that number isn't taken into account. Why it's split three ways is rather obvious, since Dover is the only town in the area that votes for Democrats, it makes more sense to split it and get three districts capable of electing Democrats instead of one.

Obvious retort:

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Looking at things from a perspective of fair redistricting like in Iowa, yes. That's not happening here so the Democrats are simply drawing things to their partisan interest like any party in control in any state does. Is this a good thing? Of course not, but for any party to claim a moral high ground is ridiculous. In this instance the Democrats are splitting up an area when it benefits them politically, and keeping it compact if the entire area is Democratic and there is no reason to split it up. Is this consistent? Of course not, but the reason for the inconsistency is obvious, and it's not that all white liberals have an extreme hatred for blacks (which is pretty hilarious to claim considering the millions of white liberals who voted for Obama over Hillary.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So you are proposing two majority black seats, which is exactly what the status quo is. Except one happens to be more black than the other which doesn't mean much. The most likely representative from a 60% black VAP district is a black Democrats. Same with a 50% black VAP district. Hell even the case with a 45% black VAP district.

The second district is easily explainable in that it sounds designed to take in Republican or marginal areas and prevent a possible swing district. Pack Wilmington like that and you could end up with something like 2 safe Dem seats and one winnable seat, as opposed to the likely 3 safe Dem seats.

BTW once again if white liberals are all extreme racists who hate blacks more than anyone who did millions support Obama over Hillary?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Actually, from what I've heard, the Delaware Senate plan doles out favors to the Senate President's friends and allies (there are a couple of Republicans who are given safe seats, while two others are put in tougher seats). Not everything is some grand racist white liberal conspiracy.

And that's exactly what happened in the San Fernando Valley too (where the districts were actually drawn by one of the current reps' brothers form what I understand.) Considering how patronistic and machine-based New Jersey politics are that's likely what happened there.

The funny thing though is this type of blatant nepotism and all that is worthy of criticism as well, so why even go on the ridiculous racist angle?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Louisiana precleared.

http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/story/f9b272a433524b65a1620d58f33ea9a1/LA-XGR--Louisiana-Redistricting/

The redesign of the Louisiana House's 105 seats received clearance Monday from the U.S. Justice Department, paving the way for fall elections under the new maps and coming despite complaints from black lawmakers that the plan dilutes minority voting strength.



The obvious response, as the GOP has been much better about creating black districts than their Democratic predecessors.

LOL.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Some of their choices are slightly bizarre. They could definitely have created a totally new Democratic district in Morris County by combining Morristown, Morris Plains, Parsippany and Dover (plus the areas near each that are also Democratic) in one seat, but they chose not to do so for whatever reason, instead stranding all of those areas in R seats.

Turns out this isn't as easy now that I can try it with partisan data. This is the best I could do:



This little gerrymandered beast is still just 52.5% for Obama and averages 52.1% for Republican candidates for other offices. Granted it's more winnable than any of the seats they did put those places in.