State Legislature Redistricting

[jimrtex]

Is there really any possibility the two MS chambers will be able to compromise on their maps?

It doesn't sound too good with the senate election committee putting out an alternative to the map proposed by the senate redistricting committee.

I suspect that a lot of representatives might be content with using the current lines for this year's elections.  Every one of them was elected from those districts.  It also gives the Republicans a chance to take control of the House.

There might not be time for a court to draw districts for this year.  You're not going to get a court to usurp legislative authority and draw a map just in case the legislature fails to do so.  They will wait until there is an actual failure.  They might not have time to draw districts in time, and they are unlikely to enjoin the election at all.  So they might draw new districts, but the legislature could have a chance to redraw them.

And a court master might not be as demanding as the USDOJ.

[jimrtex]

Minnesota maps

http://www.gis.leg.mn/redist2010/plans.php?plname=L1101_0

I don't know enough about the area, but clearly seems GOP favored, and going nowhere.

I noticed that they included KML files.  Can these be used directly with Google Maps?

[jimrtex]

MALDEF is attacking the Illinois house map.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/5568895-418/latino-group-says-dem-redistricting-plan-violates-election-law.html

I give them credit for being nonpartisan.

If it was the congressional map, they would be complaining that it was too compact.

[jimrtex]

Proposed map for the Vermont House of Representatives:

http://vermont-elections.org/2011LABMaps.html

It eliminates all of the two-member districts.

Interesting. Does this mean they might be changing the crazy multi-member Senate districts?

I was reading the minutes of the Legislative Apportionment Board.  It is a pretty interesting process.  The redistricting statutes says that the LAB submits their proposal to the legislature and then the legislature may approve the proposal or substitute their own.  There have been comments to the press from members of the Democratic legislative leadership suggesting that the LAB was engaging in an intellectual exercise.

The 2010-11 LAB is a tri-partisan body.  Previously, parties qualified to participate based on their vote in the gubernatorial election (25%), but there was an election with an independent where the Democratic candidate finished 3rd and missed the threshold, so it would have been a uni-partisan GOP board.  The legislature changed it so participation was based on having enough representatives elected for 3 sessions from different counties, and the Progressives qualified along with the Democrats and Republicans.

So there is a chairman appointed by the Supreme Court, and two members of each party, one appointed by the governor, and the other by the party itself.  So instead of a 5-member board, there is a 7-member board.  In the critical votes on going with single member districts, the Progressive and Republican members outvoted the Democrats and the Republican chairman who was appointed by the Supreme Court.

The LAB creates a "tentative proposal" which is then submitted to the "board of civil authority" (BCA) of towns and cities that are tentatively split.  BCA is apparently a generic term that encompasses various forms of government organization.  The BCA may recommend alternative district lines, which the LAB may consider before making their "final proposal" to the legislature.

It is not clear whether the LAB can adjust the entire proposal, or are limited to adjusting the boundaries of town-splits based on recommendations of the BCA.  In earlier versions of the the HB Plan (HB stands for Hintgen and Brooks, the two Progressive member, with Steve Hintgen being the major protagonist), there were 6 2-member "initial districts".  For example, in Middlebury, Middlebury College has enough population for a single house district, but apparently relatively few voters).  It is unclear whether if the Middlebury town board proposed a 2-member initial district whether the LAB could agree, or if they are now stuck with 2 districts.  The minutes of the latest two LAB meetings have not been approved, and are not online, but apparently the LAB decided to go absolutely uniformly to single-member districts.

The alternative GL Plan (GL stands for Gerry Gossens and Tom Little, Gossens is a Democratic member, and Little is the chairman appointed by the Supreme Court.  A Republican, he appears to have widespread cross-party respect.)  provides for the following: 44 single-member, 28 two-member, 4 three-member, 4 four-member, one five-member, and one 17-member "initial districts".

The Vermont reapportionment statutes appears to favor an apportionment, in the conventional sense, as opposed to how it is often used in the US, vs a districting plan.  The legislature approves (as a bill) a final planof initial districts.  The local BCA then subdistrict the initial districts.  If an initial district has 2 members, splitting into single member districts is optional.  If I understand the statute, a town that would be split has absolute veto power, to force either an other plan, or no split.  With an ideal population of 4172, it is pretty hard to avoid town splits if single member districts are used, but may be more avoidable with two-member districts.  This is true, even though the LAB uses a deviation of +10% to -10%, or 20% total, vs. the 10% total that other legislatures typically use.

If an initial district has 3 or more members, then the BCA must subdistrict it into a combination one and/or two member districts.  It appears that the legislature is required to accept any subdistricting plan that complies with statutory provisions - the most severe limit is that the deviation of any district must not exceed the largest deviation of the initial districts (ie + or - 10%).

During the early meetings of the LAB, it appears that Little thought he had the support to create a conventional plan, with multi-member initial districts.  Hintgen kept refining his plan and, Little would make a comment that everything the LAB produced were public records and would be available to the BCA when they did their subdistricts.  But eventually Hintgen got the majority to go with his plan.

IIUC, the HB proposal now goes to the BCA of towns that are split, and they may recommend alternative boundaries within their towns.  Because of the single-member districts there are lots of towns that are split.  Conceivably the LAB will accept all their recommendations, and they will be happy.  Alternatively, the towns will decide that the single-member districts are horrible and contact the legislators to substitute their own plan.  

A single-member plan is sure to threaten lots of incumbents.  If there are two representatives from a district with 8000 people, there is a good chance they are neighbors.   And even if they are not physical neighbors they might be politically similar.  You might have a more liberal member who happens to live in a farmhouse in a more rural part of town, but is elected by voters in town, or a store owner who lives in town who garners support from rural constituents.  Two incumbents might face one another in a single-member district, with an open seat in the same town, or an incumbent might face a less favorable electorate.

There are also quite a few RD 2-member districts.   With such small districts, personal campaigning can be effective.  It might be feasible to knock on all doors.  And there may also be a high level of civic involvement by ordinary voters.  A strong R incumbent might finish in the top 2 against two D opponents in a nominally Democratic district.  All Republicans will vote for him, and any voter who wants a bipartisan delegation will vote for him, and pick between the two Democrats.  In such a case, the Democrats are actually running against each other, and might not be willing to run as partisan clones.  

The current plan has 42 2-member districts and 66 single-member districts, so 84 representatives (56%) are elected from 2-member districts.  At the time of the OMOV decisions, Vermont elected 2 representatives from each town, so that it had a 246-member House, and there may be a sense that 2-member districts are proper, and single-member districts are exceptional.

After the LAB makes their final proposal for 150-member single member districts, and if it were approved by the legislature, that would be end of the process.  Because all the "initial districts" would be single-member districts, there would be no role for the BCA in the process.

If the GL plan had been adopted by the LAB as the tentative proposal, then there would be very little role for the BCA at this point, since its initial districts only split two towns.  In one case, Milton is split so a Grand Isle two-member district has enough population, with the rest of Milton forming another two-member district.  The other town that is split is Eden, which is split between 2 single-member districts.  If they were in a 2-member district, Johnson would have a dominant position (40% or so) in a 7-town district extending north to the Canadian border.  I'd guess that this was a patch to get a district up to enough population.

If the GL plan were approved by the legislature, then all the initial districts with 2 or more members would be subject to subdistricting by the various BCA.

So my bet is that single-member plan gets tossed by the legislature.  They might adopt the GL plan, or perhaps could take the HB plan and paste all single-member districts together, but I'd guess that they would view it to be so radical it might be totally ignored.  The GL plan has a 17-member Burlington, South Burlington, Winooski district.  The legislature might logically try to split Burlington out as its own initial district (9 or 10 members).

The LAB didn't spend too much time on the Senate plan (until the latter meetings).  Before the OMOV decisions, each county had one senator, with the remainder apportioned by population.   While the Vermont constitution requires one and two-member representative districts, it sets no limits on Senate districts.  Statute provides for apportionment of the 30 senators among counties or groups of counties.  All 14 counties, except Essex and Grand Isle would be entitled to at least one senator.

Chittenden is entitled to about 7.5 senators, with no other county entitled to more than 3.  The reapportionment statutes say that senators should be apportioned to counties or groups of counties, but also the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment should be respected.  In the past, towns have been shifted between counties, so that the county-based districts are somewhat like those in Ireland.

It appears that there are several counties that are a little bit short of enough for a whole number of districts that were rounded up, while those that an excess population were two far above to be rounded down, so instead must have had towns shifted out.  And they may have rounded Chittenden up to give it 4 2-member districts.  All in all, the rounding was imbalanced and they ended up with 31 seats.  The constitution says that county and other political subdivision boundaries should be respected, but is not specific about counties.  The statutes say counties (or groups of counties), but because of population equality have not been strictly followed in the past.  The 2-member districts in Chittenden don't really comply with the statute, unless you can make a case that large multi-member districts violate equal protection.  Do Yankees talk enough to be a protected linguistic minority?

Apparently Republicans tried to break up the Chittenden senatorial district in 2001, and failed. Like for the House, the LAB only makes a proposal which the legislature may adopt or replace.  There might be some support for smaller districts from the other counties, who are wary of 1/4 of the senate being elected from a single big city district.

[jimrtex]

Are these the new Ohio legislative maps?

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/upload/reshape/GA/mann-dirossi-senate.pdf

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/upload/reshape/GA/mann-dirossi-senate.pdf

Yes, and the Apportionment Board is expected to approve them at their meeting this morning. The group that ran the competition has an analysis of the proposal in terms of the contest parameters.

Their interpretation of the constitution is wrong.  The constraint is not on one district dividing more than two units, but rather the boundary between two districts dividing more than one unit.

You can't split off the piece of McCoysville where Bob Hatfield lives (and then cut off a big chunk of Hatfieldtown where many of his supporters live AND put the rest of McCoysville and Hatfieldtown in another district.

If you accepted the contest interpretation, then it is a violation of the constitution for a district to split both Montgomery and Greene counties.

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"such units" is a reference to the units prescribed in division (B) - counties, townships, municipalities, and city wards.   "between two districts" is describing the boundary between any pair of two districts.

Their interpretation would mean that if City A was divided between District 1 and District 2, and Township B was divided between District 2 and District 3, that "two districts" would refer to "three districts".

When I submitted my entry they asked about my plan which included districts that split both Cincinnati and Columbia Township and Cincinnati and Sycamore Township.  I explained that their interpretation was wrong, and didn't hear any more about it.

Similarly with respect to the drawing of two 50% BVAP senate districts in Cuyahoga County, I not only sent them a lengthy explanation of why it was impossible, I sent them demonstration maps showing the problems with an attempt at two majority BVAP districts, and also provided a plan with 5 majority BVAP house districts.

The "winning" plans clearly violated the Ohio Constitution to draw their senate districts (and the case in NC would appear to indicate that a State may not exceed reasonable state reapportionment standards to create VRA districts.

[jimrtex]

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.

Is it the county that violates the constitution, or each district?  I would argue that the requirements are on the drawing of the house districts.

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.

I think that creation of house districts and senate districts are independent processes, though there may be some feedback to adjust house districts so that they can be combined.  Your viewpoint may be based on your experience in Illinois, where senate districts are split to form house districts.  My solution would be to increase the size of the Ohio House to 105 members and eliminate the nesting requirement (105 is chosen so as to not reduce the number of senators, and to eliminate the possibility of any natural nesting (105/33 is 3.18).

To create 2 50% BVAP senate districts results in 4 50% BVAP house districts, and the packing of two of the house districts to overwhelm the district in west Cleveland  (70.6%, 59.9%, and 19.9%) to yield 50.1%; and the other is 56.0%, 51.0%, 45.5% for 50.7%.  If you totally ignored city and ward boundaries, and perhaps even precinct boundaries, you might be able to squeeze those 3 house districts over 50%.

And the majority depends on how mixed-race persons are tabulated.  So even though 2 50% BVAP are possible, albeit with a violation of the constitution, it is not a desirable result, since 5 50% BVAP house districts can quite comfortably be accomplished without packing or narrowly clawing bast 50%, which produces a senate district with a comfortable 50% BVAP, and another in the 40% range with two representatives.

Plus the contest rules were schizophrenic, since they created an incentive to crack elsewhere.

[jimrtex]

Is it the county that violates the constitution, or each district?  I would argue that the requirements are on the drawing of the house districts.

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 wasn't really referring to the current census, where Cuyahoga is entitled to 10.985 representatives, but rather the case where it might be entitled to10.485 and divided into 10 or 11 districts wholly within the county, which could be done without going outside 5% per district deviation, but I believe should be regarded as violation of equal protection since the discrimination is applied to an identifiable class of persons: Cuyahogans.

Doesn't your senate plan split Cuyahoga between 5 districts?

To create 2 50% BVAP senate districts results in 4 50% BVAP house districts, and the packing of two of the house districts to overwhelm the district in west Cleveland  (70.6%, 59.9%, and 19.9%) to yield 50.1%; and the other is 56.0%, 51.0%, 45.5% for 50.7%.  If you totally ignored city and ward boundaries, and perhaps even precinct boundaries, you might be able to squeeze those 3 house districts over 50%.

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%.

This is the version of your plan that I had modified to be based on whole wards. 



11.07(C) can only be used if it is not feasible to create districts with the units in 11.07(B).  And it is feasible to do so.  I doubt that lack of ready access to ward boundaries in the contest would count as non-feasible, since they were available on the SOS web site.

If a challenge were going to be made to the apportionment board plan it would be based on not forming districts from whole counties and whole cities and city wards when it was feasible to do so.  I really don't think it was the intent of the constitution that of only 5 districts made up of whole counties includes the 4 single-county districts that are outside the 5% deviation range.

This removes the two least Black wards from use in the 6 house districts.  I'm pretty sure I selected the other cites based on having 6/11 of the total county population.  It also required a change in the district that extends into Medina.

While it wasn't necessarily the intent to create 70.6% and 60.0% districts, rather than two that were at 65%, there may be no way to do so using whole wards plus all the other constraints.  10, 11, and 12 form the 50.1% senate district.  I may have had to pull Newburgh Heights out to tip the balance, which stretches from the airport to both East Cleveland and Maple Heights.

It is District 7 that is the 45% district, once you eliminate the split of Ward 10 and add University Heights you are in trouble, since Euclid is under 50%.

And the majority depends on how mixed-race persons are tabulated.  So even though 2 50% BVAP are possible, albeit with a violation of the constitution, it is not a desirable result, since 5 50% BVAP house districts can quite comfortably be accomplished without packing or narrowly clawing bast 50%, which produces a senate district with a comfortable 50% BVAP, and another in the 40% range with two representatives.

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.

How would a court look at it when that second seat was achieved by packing a pair of house districts and adding a 20% white district in west Cleveland?

[jimrtex]

A judge threw out Kentucky's state legislative maps.

Apparently, each house drew their own map.  The Republicans sued over the House map for splitting too many counties; A Democrat senator sued after her district was moved (from Lexington to northern Kentucky) so that she can not run for re-election this year.  Meanwhile, a district that is up in 2014 was moved from western Kentucky to Lexington.

The web pages for the senators have been updated to reflect their new districts.  Click on the Democrat from Lexington, and you will see an 8 county area in Northern Kentucky.

The redistricting requirements for Kentucky date from 1891 (don't split counties unless a county has more than one representative), so it sounds like the legislature has kinda followed the constitution while also trying to adhere to OMOV.

The legislature is still doing congressional districting (or may be stalemated).  Now they can do legislative districting again.

[jimrtex]

A judge threw out Kentucky's state legislative maps.

Apparently, each house drew their own map.  The Republicans sued over the House map for splitting too many counties; A Democrat senator sued after her district was moved (from Lexington to northern Kentucky) so that she can not run for re-election this year.  Meanwhile, a district that is up in 2014 was moved from western Kentucky to Lexington.

The web pages for the senators have been updated to reflect their new districts.  Click on the Democrat from Lexington, and you will see an 8 county area in Northern Kentucky.

The redistricting requirements for Kentucky date from 1891 (don't split counties unless a county has more than one representative), so it sounds like the legislature has kinda followed the constitution while also trying to adhere to OMOV.

The legislature is still doing congressional districting (or may be stalemated).  Now they can do legislative districting again.

The Kentucky and Pennsylvania verdicts are, effectively, identical.
Except that at least it wasn't the state Supreme Court... which is where the case is now going.

Sort of.  Pennsylvania had an updated redistricting procedure (post OMOV) and the Supreme Court was part of the process (not just as the ultimate judicial entity).  The 2011 plan is better than the 2001 plan that they had previously approved.  The Supreme Court essentially said that there could be no precedents that the redistricting commission could rely on.

Though one of the challengers in Pennsylvania was the senator whose district was moved, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did not consider that - and if you are going to respect county lines, you can't simply slide districts.  At best Pennsylvania could add a provision like in Ohio or Hawaii where the continuing senate districts are based on share of existing districts.

In Kentucky, there are no real guidelines.  So at best a court would have to cite previous cases.

[jimrtex]

The referendum of the California senate districts has qualified.

[jimrtex]

The Florida supreme court ruled the state senate map against the Fair Districting amendment today, while giving the house map the nod. They'll be redoing it in a special session next week.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/09/2684620/fla-justices-reject-senate-redistricting.html

This is the Florida Supreme Court opinion

http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/sc12-1.pdf

Basically they spend a great deal of time explaining that they get to define what the terms mean and that no deference should be applied to the legislature.  As predicted, the purpose of the initiative in Florida was to get the plan into the courts.  They managed to quote both Texas opinions from this year, as well as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court opinion.

They also adopted the position of the USDOJ that VRA districts must use a functional analysis, where election results are used to determine whether minorities are effective in controlling elections.   While only 5 counties in Florida are subject to Section 5 of the VRA, the amendment incorporates the retrogression language into the Florida Constitution.

I suspect that the difference in the two plans is due to the difference in size of the districts.  House districts are small enough that it is more practical to apportion them among counties.  Meanwhile, you can probably create reasonably compact House VRA districts, while Senate districts with 470,000 population may need to string together a lot of population.

The court seemed to take a totality of circumstance approach when determining whether the Senate plan favored incumbents.  They somehow thought that because districts retained an average of 64% of their population, that this was proof of incumbent protection.

One particular issue they had was with the numbering of senate districts.  Florida has overlapping senate terms, with even and odd-numbered districts elected in alternate years.  But rather than  continuing some districts which elected in 2010 until 2014, all senate districts will elect in 2012.  Florida's interpretation is that terms are truncated by redistricting.  That is, some senators were elected in 2010 to 4-year terms, but because there was redistricting, the terms were truncated to 2 years.  The new districts then elect for a 2-year remainder of the term.  So 1/2 the districts elect in:

2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016; while others elect in 2006, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2018.  That is 1/2 the districts have 3 elections over 4 years, while others have 3 elections over 8 years.  The numbers were changed so that instead some senators who had been elected in 2006 and 2010, would be elected in 2012 and 2016.  A side effect of the numbering would be to permit senators to serve an extra two years.  Florida has term limits, preventing senators who have served 8 years, from seeking re-election.  With renumbering, senators who had served 6 years, a full 4-year term and a truncated 6-year term could be elected to another 4-year term; while those who had served 4 years, could be elected to a 2-year term followed by a 4-year term.

The minority opinion argued that the redistricting amendment was about favoring re-election of incumbents, and that it was not necessarily an advantage to be able to be re-elected.  The fundamental problem is that the term-limits wasn't particularly well thought out.  If Florida really wanted to limit service to 8 years, they could simply truncate terms of senators who had served 6 years when elected to another term.  Assigning numbers randomly would mean that about half of senators who had served less than 8 years, would get a favorable re-numbering.  Is arbitrary and capricious preferable to a deliberate practice?

The particular districts that they were concerned about were:

Two panhandle districts which were drawn east-west, giving an inland district and a coastal district.  The senate argued that the communities of interest were compact.

The senate had preserved a FL-3 junior district snaking south from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach (since it was smaller it didn't have to get to Orlando), which also pinned a district along the coast.  An illustrative plan keeping the district in Duval County was presented.

In the Orlando area, an existing black opportunity district was maintained, and a Hispanic opportunity district was created, with a district to the west having an arm between the two where an incumbent lives.

There was a long narrow black opportunity district in Palm Beach and Broward counties, and a parallel beach district.  The Democrats had demonstrated how to game the Roerck compactness measure by connecting two areas 40 miles apart by going inland and grabbing a large area of the Everglades (and likely using the western county line).  Though the plan was presented by the Democratic party, the court opined that it did not show intent to favor Democrats since Democrats won most seats in the area.

[jimrtex]

The senate had preserved a FL-3 junior district snaking south from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach (since it was smaller it didn't have to get to Orlando), which also pinned a district along the coast.  An illustrative plan keeping the district in Duval County was presented.

So an unabashed gerry to prevent the creation of a Volusia-based marginal, basically? (There shouldn't be a problem creating a minority Senate district in Duval alone, if somewhat on the close side of 50%.) Sounds like they were right to strike that.

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So they're saying the arm is bad, even though Whites live in it (assuming the arm is where I guess it is... Whites do live there). Highly interesting in that case, as that situation is exactly mirrored in the Congressional map (except the southern district is merely Hispanic influence, there not being the numbers for Hispanic opportunity with larger districts.) That incumbent is of course Dan Webster.

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Uh... that don't sound too reasonable. Of course the congressional map already does that, but it does so with good reason that may evaporate with smaller districts.

The Supreme Court doesn't have review authority over congressional districts.  That is left over from previous congressional revisions which were intended to make sure the legislature redistricted.  In the past, the Supreme Court could basically check that the population was more or less equal and the districts were contiguous.

The congressional districts have been challenged in state court.  The senate is suggesting that the trial be delayed so that filing can go forward.  The senate plan was drawn by the senate and the house plan was drawn by the house, while the congressional plan was a joint effort.

The congressional plan doesn't on the surface appear to have the problems that the senate plan did.  But there were a ton of complaints against the senate plan that the Supreme Court didn't buy into, and dismissed in fairly cursory fashion.   So basically you complain about everything and hope that some of it sticks.   Interestingly the lawyers for the League of Women Voters in Florida is a law firm that ordinarily works for Democrats.

The congressional plan ended up not drawing the St.Petersburg-Tampa minority district so that it dropped down into Manatee and Sarasota counties.  Curiously, a much smaller House district did do that, and it was approved by the Florida Supreme Court.

On the Orlando appendage, the court also attached significance to the fact that a senator lived in the area, and that during debate the question was raised whether anyone lived in that area, and even though the senator was in the chamber he didn't speak up.  So basically, parts of the debate are shaped in order to support the ultimate court case.

The congressional plan retains the Jacksonville-Orlando snake, but renumbers it to FL-5.  Corrine Brown convinced James Clyburn to try to persuade the national NAACP to get the Florida NAACP to drop its support of the redistricting amendments, in part because she believed its provision against favoring/disfavoring incumbents would cause her to lose her district would reduce the ability of a cohesive and compact minority community to re-elect their candidate of choice.  She is also a plaintiff in federal court challenging the authority to set congressional redistricting standards by the initiative process.

It will be interesting to see if the district is challenged.  Even if you go from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, the district is just as ugly.

The arm in Orlando is in the congressional map, but since representatives don't have to live in their district it is less of an incumbent-protection issue (and where does the representative live in that district?).  You can't complain about keeping a mostly white area out of a black district, especially since the Hispanic district is not overly packed, and the black district already extends a few 100 miles south.   Incidentally, the amendment says specifically "incumbent", and since Alan Grayson is not an incumbent it is perfectly legal to disfavor him.

The congressional district on the Gulf Coast doesn't appear to be as oddly shaped along the coast.  Collier County is covered by Section 5, which I assume means protecting farm workers in the inland area, and that splitting off the narrow coastal strip around Naples may be required.

The Broward-Palm Beach black congressional district is similar in concept to the demonstration plan for the senate plan, except the congressional map includes some needles stretching up from the ends.  FL-22 is not particularly compact.

The Florida Supreme Court upheld districts in Dade County that were challenged on racial grounds, and the congressional maps look reasonably coherent.

The particular districts that are challenged in the congressional map by the Democrats are FL-4, 5, and 10; FL-12; 13; and 14; and FL-26.  I don't see them getting anywhere in the Tampa Bay seat, given that a House district that extended into Manatee and Sarasota were approved.

The Florida Supreme Court said that the legislature should have used a functional test for checking the effectiveness of minority districts (eg rather than checking BVAP%, you should determine what the minimum number of blacks in a district are in order that they can elect their candidate of choice (but of course not noticing whether that candidate is a Democrat).

It would be rather surprising that the the Florida Supreme Court would find FL-5 violates the Florida Constitution when the claim is made that the redistricting amendment was simply incorporating language from the VRA.

[jimrtex]

It doesn't get to be reviewed by the State Supreme Court automatically, but it might end up there. Mind you, it might not, either. I'm not exactly waiting with baited breath.

How do you "challenge FL-26" without demanding the entire south (minus the Black districts) be redrawn from scratch?

Seems that either I'm remembering something that was ever false or Webster moved at one point. He used to live - or I wrongly heard he did - very close to both Adams and Mica, right about where their new district and his new district meet. But now wiki says he lives in a western suburb. *shrug* Anyways, the design doesn't screw Grayson at all, it screws Polk County Republicans in favor of Orange County Republican incumbents.

The State House district in question in the Tampa Bay might have been an actual Black-majority district? That would kinda make sense. Possibly.

What's the complaint regarding FL-4? Some majority Black bit in Jacksonville that had to be excised from Brown's to make the numbers add up better elsewhere?

The lawsuits have already been filed in Leon Circuit Court.  The first complaint was after the legislature had passed the bill.  The second was after the governor signed it.  Florida does have to preclear their statewide maps, but they haven't filed yet that I can see (the covered counties are Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough, and Monroe).

It appears that the focus of the complaint is FL-5 and FL-13, and probably that packing black voters was done to favor Republicans in adjacent district.

http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-FL.php#litigation

The state court cases on the congressional redistricting are Romo v Scott, and League of Women Voters of Fla. v. Scott, if you go to the above link you will find links to the complaints.  They don't really get into the substance.

For most of the districts in the complaint, it is alleged that the district favors a party, disfavors a party, favors an incumbent, was drawn with the intent and result of the equal opportunity of racial and language minorities to participate in the political process; and diminishing their ability to elect their candidate of choice; not compact, and does not utilize political and geographical boundaries.

5, 4, and 10 would appear to be really a complaint about FL-5.

12 is not claimed to be a racial gerrymander, but simply a political gerrymander and not compact, but it must tie in with 13 and 14.  But unless the court finds fault with 14; 12 and 13 aren't going to overturned.  And since Hillsborough is a Section 5 covered county is 14 going to be challenged for going into St.Petersburg?

26 is challenged only as a political gerrymander and not utilizing political and geographical boundaries.   But it can be claimed that its configuration is forced because of the mainland part of the Monroe.  And US-1 from the Keys comes ashore in the district rather than going through the northernmost key.

What would happen politically if 26 and 27 were split along an east west line?

Incidentally, when Florida sought preclearance of the redistricting amendments after they had been passed by the legislature, they specifically highlighted the Jacksonville-Orlando congressional snake; the Jacksonville-Daytona senate snake junior, and the reed-thin Broward-Palm Beach districts as benchmark districts, and that they could interpret the new amendments as requiring their continuation.

http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/pub_info/redistricting2012/index.shtml

This has the litigation on the legislative plans.  The opinion includes illustrative maps on the alternatives.

By the way, the special apportionment session on the legislative map gets underway. tomorrow.  The legislature gets one more chance, then the Supreme Court gets to draw a map.

[jimrtex]

It doesn't get to be reviewed by the State Supreme Court automatically, but it might end up there. Mind you, it might not, either. I'm not exactly waiting with baited breath.

How do you "challenge FL-26" without demanding the entire south (minus the Black districts) be redrawn from scratch?

Seems that either I'm remembering something that was ever false or Webster moved at one point. He used to live - or I wrongly heard he did - very close to both Adams and Mica, right about where their new district and his new district meet. But now wiki says he lives in a western suburb. *shrug* Anyways, the design doesn't screw Grayson at all, it screws Polk County Republicans in favor of Orange County Republican incumbents.

The State House district in question in the Tampa Bay might have been an actual Black-majority district? That would kinda make sense. Possibly.

What's the complaint regarding FL-4? Some majority Black bit in Jacksonville that had to be excised from Brown's to make the numbers add up better elsewhere?

The Florida legislature opened its special redistricting session today, and indicated that a new senate map would be approved at the end of the 14-day session.  The House redistricting committee met, and the chair indicated it was the intent to defer to the senate in drawing its map, and unless something came up, the redistricting committee would meet on the 26th, with anticipated 2nd and 3rd reading before the full house on the following two days.

The last 25 minutes or so of the House committee meeting were a review of the SCOFLA opinion by the House counsel.  It is kind of interesting if you want to watch the video.

[jimrtex]

The senate had preserved a FL-3 junior district snaking south from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach (since it was smaller it didn't have to get to Orlando), which also pinned a district along the coast.  An illustrative plan keeping the district in Duval County was presented.

So an unabashed gerry to prevent the creation of a Volusia-based marginal, basically? (There shouldn't be a problem creating a minority Senate district in Duval alone, if somewhat on the close side of 50%.) Sounds like they were right to strike that.

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So they're saying the arm is bad, even though Whites live in it (assuming the arm is where I guess it is... Whites do live there). Highly interesting in that case, as that situation is exactly mirrored in the Congressional map (except the southern district is merely Hispanic influence, there not being the numbers for Hispanic opportunity with larger districts.) That incumbent is of course Dan Webster.

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Uh... that don't sound too reasonable. Of course the congressional map already does that, but it does so with good reason that may evaporate with smaller districts.

The chairman of the senate redistricting committee has issued a plan that addresses all the issues in the Supreme Court decision.

They based the minority districts on a functional analysis (eg whether the district would election the minority candidate of choice vs. a simple percentage of VAP), which permitted more compact districts.

They made a determination that the area between the Black and Hispanic districts in the Orlando was necessary, but they placed it in a district to the east.  If you look at the original map for the East Central area, you can't even see the connection to the rest of the district because it is covered up with a highway marker.

They took a more radical approach in Broward-Palm Beach, creating a 49% black district in central Broward, and a 25% black, 26% Hispanic district in northern Palm Beach.

The original map had a 55% black district, and then a 20% black district in southern Broward.  So they added the somewhat black area adjacent to the southern part of the district, and lopped off the Broward part of the district.

Instead of 3 districts to the crossing the county line, there is only one.

They also decided to draw for odd and even district numbers randomly.