I tend to agree with your interpretation of the Constitution as far as splits, but I disagree with your conclusion about the black majority senate districts in Cuyahoga.
There is a way to draw two black-majority districts, even following the ward rules. I didn't follow the ward rules, because I was aiming for better compactness and didn't have to follow wards for the competition.
The way to two black-majority districts while preserving wards requires an unconstitutional split of Cuyahoga. The key is to get Oakwood, Glenwillow and Solon into one of the two districts which leaves separate fragments on both the eastern and southern ends of the county.
I made that split in my plan and I provided a lengthy rationale, which in a nutshell starts with a proof that at least one county must be treated unconstitutionally in NE OH. Then when considering which county to split unconstitutionally I found three reasons to support the choice of Cuyahoga. It is the largest population county, it only is required to have 10 whole house seats based on population, and by doing so one can create two black-majority districts without any other constitutional violations.
You can draw 11 districts in Cuyahoga; or 10 districts and one that is almost entirely in Cuyahoga (see 11.08). The rules are general for all counties. And it should be considered a violation of equal protection to take advantage of the large size to create many districts that are overpopulated or underpopulated, which is systematic bias.
Sections 11.10 and 11.11 deal with the creation of House and Senate districts from counties. Section 11.10(C) elaborates on section 11.08. When I looked at the inherent conflict in the constitutional requirements applied to NE OH, I considered a number of sections that could be violated and resolve the problem. I also felt that to resolve the problem only one section should be violated. It appears that most plans chose to violate section 11.11 on the formation of Senate districts. I see nothing to indicate that a violation of section 11.10(C) isn't equally acceptable to resolve the conflict. Actually, by resolving it that way, I can do a better job of spreading population since I don't have to systematically underpopulate Cuyahoga.
I had done an shared map designed to create 11 black-majority House districts and 4 in the Senate. In that plan, without any unusual squeezing, HD 8 is up to 49.4% without going into Cleveland. Based on the testimony on the congressional plan, I would think that would be sufficient to elect the candidate of choice.
It's not hard to balance the wards and percentages when a plan isn't trying to micromanage compactness. For instance, this is a simple adjustment to the competition plan that divides no more than one ward between a pair of districts. The percentages in 11 and 12 become 67.5% and 65.6%.
I would think that 2 SDs and 4 HDs over 50% with a fifth HD just under 50% would be better than 1 SD and 5 HDs over 50% with a second SD just under 50%. The upper chamber seat is usually given more importance by minority groups.
No argument there. As we have discussed previously, a threshold test for compactness would have greatly reduced the schizophrenia for me. The map I posted above would lose about a point and a half in the competition even though the boundaries of only 4 of 99 districts were adjusted.
