How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission

[Хahar 🤔]

I always figured Morgan Hill was named after the prominent hill next to the town, but apparently that's called El Toro, not Morgan Hill. Now I know.

Morgan Hill certainly can't be in a Santa Cruz district; there's no usable road through the mountains there, and to get from Morgan Hill or Gilroy to Santa Cruz you need to go through either Watsonville or San Jose.

Cupertino has more in common with Los Altos or Saratoga than it does with San Jose, whereas Campbell would fit better with the San Jose district than with the richer areas to its south. Demographically, Cupertino now has a large Asian majority, but income is probably a better indicator of communities of interest in the South Bay than race would be. It would be nice to simply switch Campbell with Cupertino (and the districts would look cleaner, too), but unfortunately Cupertino is significantly larger.

 

Do you like this version of CA-15 better, Xahar, with its chop of Cupertino?  Yes, you are right, Cupertino has twice the median income of Campbell (140K versus 70K).  But it does not help the Asian "cause," because CA-15 is more Asian than CA-14 of course. The Asian VAP percentages with this chop are 17% for CA-14, 29.5% for CA-15 (down from 32% with my version), and 42.7% for CA-16. But in addition to furthering along the class warfare metric, the Cupertino chop also makes the map less erose. I am inclined to accept Xahar's suggestion, unless someone changes my mind. When it comes to the Bay area, I do listen more than when it comes to my neck of the woods in Socal (where I think I know next to everything).

I am fine with this map. Lowers the Asian % even more though, but that's not hugely important. Mike Honda would easily get through a primary here. And this creates a middle class district in the Silicon Valley. Then again the other district contains Mountain View, which has a similar income to Sunnyvale and Santa Clara. If we drop the pretense of having a high Asian % district, you can just add Mountain view to the 15th, and get rid of the chop in Cupertino, add the parts of SJ adjacent to Cupertino (similar incomes I think) to the 14th as well as the Almaden Valley. That would create a better middle of the road district though the 14th would still have all of Santa Cruz so it can't be a wholly upper class district in any case. The map you drew might just be a compromise of all these variables.

Ideally a chop of Cupertino wouldn't be necessary, but if it is, that's where it should be. I like sbane's idea of putting Mountain View in with the 15th in exchange for Cupertino and Almaden. That knob in the westernmost part of San Jose that juts out south of Cupertino and north of Saratoga is where I live; if all of Cupertino and Saratoga are to be in one district, that part of San Jose should be there also.

It's interesting that sbane's suggestion would essentially make one district running along 280 and 85 and another more generally aligned with 101. I think that makes sense.

[muon2]

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It isn't Mike, trust me. I drained the swamp dry. Nothing is left. The CVAP for this little VRA monster I bet is closer to something like 40%, maybe a tad higher - no more. You don't really think the courts would require this VRA monster to actually be drawn do you?

Your version does less to trash the map overall, requiring major surgeries all over the place, but it does drop the Hispanic percentage by one or two points. What I drew was the  max pack, saying F it to everything else, just as a masturbatory exercise.

This is the opinion of the DC district court in the Texas preclearance trial as to what the standard for measuring retrogression under Section 5 is:

http://tinyurl.com/74ppdvv

This is a section 5 decision and would be applicable to districts that impact Kings, Merced, Monterey, and Yuba.

A big part of the decision distinguishes between ability districts under section 5 and opportunity districts under section 2. I read this as saying coalitions and crossover voting can be considered in preclearance jurisdictions, though they are not generally applicable for section 2. It also implies that if there is evidence of polarized voting there, one would need a host of statistics to determine if the existing district is an ability district and to determine if the new district retrogresses it in any way.

[Torie]

The balance of the CA map is done!  I got screen shots of Nocal, and the Bay-Sacto area before I hit the save-as button, and that caused my software to freeze. It does that often now when I try to save the data, presumably because the file is so big. Fortunately, except for a couple of minor things (including the CA-01 label sitting somewhere in Socal ).  

Comments as always are welcome. I have no real idea what the partisan numbers are. I can't see them unless I go to full screen, which causes crashes more often. It is probably best that way, anyway. We will look at the partisan numbers after we agree on a map, or agree to disagree. I have shown some flexibility, and thank Sbane, Muon2, and Lewis for their comments so far. They have been quite helpful. Keep them coming!

The constraints are very, very tight. It took a lot of work to avoid ugly chops - a lot of work. CA-01 and CA-02 are drawn the way they are, because I wanted to keep CA-01 out of the Central Valley. I wanted but one mountain-coastal CD to chop into the Central Valley, and that has to be CA-02 (more actually it chops into the mountain region, to round out its population). Contra Costa County was just a terrible headache to manage. I did the best I could.

All of the City of Sacramento is in CA-05 by the way. And the cut of CA-04 into Sacto County, is based on that cut almost perfectly taking but one town, the city of Citrus. Then I had CA-05 take the territory to the west of Citrus, and CA-03 take the territory to the east. One thing led to another.

I am using CD labels, which most closely match the old map CD numbers. I won't correct them until my charts are all done, so I know I am comparing apples to apples, as to what changed, even if the applies are of different varieties, as it were, because the lines changed of course.






OK, here are more zoom shots, showing the cuts. I did switch out couple of precincts involving CA-11, because I noticed that there was no road leading from San Joaquin to east Contra Coasta across the Sacto River estuary swamp, so I fixed it. That river delta region by the way that creates the barrier between San Joaquin and Contra Costa is great house boating country. You rent a house boat, turn on the motor, and chug along, with next to nobody around. You get a lot of peace and quiet and privacy, and nobody, but nobody, knows what you are doing on the house boast.  . That is my kind of vacation.

[Sbane]

I see you still have precincts in Antioch in the 10th. I would exchange them for the extreme western parts of the 11th. Did you do it because those precincts are relatively white for the area? Does this help you make a Hispanic influence district. What are the racial stats for the 11th?

Otherwise where you really need more robust Hispanic districts is in the Central Valley. What are the racial stats for the 20th, 21st and the 22nd?

[Torie]

I see you still have precincts in Antioch in the 10th. I would exchange them for the extreme western parts of the 11th. Did you do it because those precincts are relatively white for the area? Does this help you make a Hispanic influence district. What are the racial stats for the 11th?

Otherwise where you really need more robust Hispanic districts is in the Central Valley. What are the racial stats for the 20th, 21st and the 22nd?

Yes, it is a race thing, and no, it does not create an Hispanic influence CD, as it turns out. It just unites middle class whites in Contra Costa, at the cost of some erosity, and "unites" the Sacto estuary as it were a bit more. I don't feel strongly about it. Do you want me to switch it out? It will make CA-11a bit  more Pubbie (I deliberately have no idea if CA-11 as I drew it is in partisan play in any event - I suspect not).  

[Torie]

I see you still have precincts in Antioch in the 10th. I would exchange them for the extreme western parts of the 11th. Did you do it because those precincts are relatively white for the area? Does this help you make a Hispanic influence district. What are the racial stats for the 11th?

Otherwise where you really need more robust Hispanic districts is in the Central Valley. What are the racial stats for the 20th, 21st and the 22nd?

Good luck with that Sbane. CA-20 is the Hispanic CD, drawn to the max (about 60% VAP Hispanic). The other two are lower, but I don't know the exact figures, because my software crashed again.  Geography is a cruel mistress. I would be amazed if you can find an alternative which might actually be required by the VRA, and/or, is otherwise remotely desirable. Hispanics don't vote much in the Central Valley by the way. That is why Kern is 60% McCain, even though it is about 45% Hispanic or something. Tulare is the same story.

[Sbane]

I see you still have precincts in Antioch in the 10th. I would exchange them for the extreme western parts of the 11th. Did you do it because those precincts are relatively white for the area? Does this help you make a Hispanic influence district. What are the racial stats for the 11th?

Otherwise where you really need more robust Hispanic districts is in the Central Valley. What are the racial stats for the 20th, 21st and the 22nd?

Good luck with that Sbane. CA-20 is the Hispanic CD, drawn to the max (about 60% VAP Hispanic). The other two are lower, but I don't know the exact figures, because my software crashed again.  Geography is a cruel mistress. I would be amazed if you can find an alternative which might actually be required by the VRA, and/or, is otherwise remotely desirable. Hispanics don't vote much in the Central Valley by the way. That is why Kern is 60% McCain, even though it is about 45% Hispanic or something. Tulare is the same story.

You can draw a more Hispanic district I think. You certainly are stranding Bakersfield Hispanics and they are being outvoted. What you need to do is have CA-19 get rid of Merced County (or at least the Hispanic parts) and put that in the 20th, freeing up more Hispanic precincts in Fresno County for another Hispanic district. Say we use CA-21 for that purpose, we can add the rural Hispanics in Fresno, Kings and Tulare with Bakersfield to create another Hispanic district. The map will get uglier, but if there is one area in California where the VRA actually serves a purpose, it's the central valley.

[Torie]

I see you still have precincts in Antioch in the 10th. I would exchange them for the extreme western parts of the 11th. Did you do it because those precincts are relatively white for the area? Does this help you make a Hispanic influence district. What are the racial stats for the 11th?

Otherwise where you really need more robust Hispanic districts is in the Central Valley. What are the racial stats for the 20th, 21st and the 22nd?

Good luck with that Sbane. CA-20 is the Hispanic CD, drawn to the max (about 60% VAP Hispanic). The other two are lower, but I don't know the exact figures, because my software crashed again.  Geography is a cruel mistress. I would be amazed if you can find an alternative which might actually be required by the VRA, and/or, is otherwise remotely desirable. Hispanics don't vote much in the Central Valley by the way. That is why Kern is 60% McCain, even though it is about 45% Hispanic or something. Tulare is the same story.

You can draw a more Hispanic district I think. You certainly are stranding Bakersfield Hispanics and they are being outvoted. What you need to do is have CA-19 get rid of Merced County (or at least the Hispanic parts) and put that in the 20th, freeing up more Hispanic precincts in Fresno County for another Hispanic district. Say we use CA-21 for that purpose, we can add the rural Hispanics in Fresno, Kings and Tulare with Bakersfield to create another Hispanic district. The map will get uglier, but if there is one area in California where the VRA actually serves a purpose, it's the central valley.

Go ahead and draw the map Sbane, exchanging precincts between  CA-22 and CA-21.  We will see what it looks like. If the VRA does not require it however, because it will be an erose mess, it won't be in my map. The VRA in my view, should be limited to what a court would actually require, when it otherwise trashes communities of interest. All the Hispanics in Fresno ( I racially chopped Fresno) have been used (Hispanics in Fresno actually vote more of course) to create the 60% Hispanic CA-20 CD. So they are not available for your little plan. They can't vote twice.   I might add that my modest little Tulare chop into Fresno in the Coalinga area is not all that Hispanic. That was deliberate, as part of my draw of Hispanic CA-20. Add that area to CA-20, and the Hispanic percentage will go down there.

And when you cut the Hispanics in Bakersfield out of CA-22, where will CA-22 get its precincts in exchange I wonder? Are you going to chop Tulare to shreds too? Draw the map, so that I can trash it!  

[muon2]

I'm not sbane, but with Kings and Merced on the section 5 list I put together my version of a split. It turns out there are some very nice county groupings in the southern Central Valley that each equal 2 CDs. I've even used your Kern SE split.

I recognize that there is an ugly bit at the northern part of Tulare into Visalia. I figure you have to shift lines northward anyway to compensate for the cut into LA county from Ventura which I did not assume in my map.

[minionofmidas]

Much better, I think. This is an area where not drawing two Hispanic-electing districts again is going to be considered illegal. And yes, drawing them does require quite a bit of seeming erosity. The communities of interest are clear anyways.

Agree with sbane on Antioch.

What would it look like to get Redding in the second and that district's southwestern parts into the first instead? Sounds like that might be better, but also might not, depending on just how far you need to go. (Or you go into the populated parts of Yolo again and redraw the 7th, 5th, 3rd and 4th as a result. That is also an option.)

Santa Barbara and western Ventura is nowhere to be seen in your screens. Is the district line the county line all the way through?

Little as I know about the finer points of LA County geography, that 33rd is butt ugly. What would be the consequences of exchanging its northwestern part with the southern part of the 35th?

I remain deeply unconvinced of the whole SD map. If it's fine with muon and sbane then it shall stand, of course, but to me the pairing of SD's Hispanic southern suburbs with Imperial, while better than all the alternatives, is bad enough and the Hispanic parts of central SD don't belong in the district unless that were necessary to make a solid HCVAP majority district. Which I'm quite confident it is not, Bob Filner's race notwithstanding. I'd put Coronado and the rest of Chula Vista and the empty parts of SD County in there instead, probably desert Riverside (and its huge penitentiary...) as well even though that is an additional county split. And yeah, I'm aware this has partisan consequences.

Everything else, I'd vote to approve right now as a backbench commission member from the Democratic pool.

I tried loading California an hour ago to resolve those questions of mine... it froze on me.

[muon2]

I remain deeply unconvinced of the whole SD map. If it's fine with muon and sbane then it shall stand, of course, but to me the pairing of SD's Hispanic southern suburbs with Imperial, while better than all the alternatives, is bad enough and the Hispanic parts of central SD don't belong in the district unless that were necessary to make a solid HCVAP majority district. Which I'm quite confident it is not, Bob Filner's race notwithstanding. I'd put Coronado and the rest of Chula Vista and the empty parts of SD County in there instead, probably desert Riverside (and its huge penitentiary...) as well even though that is an additional county split. And yeah, I'm aware this has partisan consequences.

I've been thinking about this same issue for a while. I would think that the Imperial Valley and Coachella Valley are a natural pair (minus Palm Springs) and by following I-10 west and then cutting south to Perris one should get a solid Hispanic majority district. That leaves the Chula Vista area as a coalition district with less than 50% HCVAP but less than 20% white.

I'll defer to Torie's expertise on SoCal as to why this wouldn't work to fix the ugly CA-51.

[minionofmidas]

Coachella and (only to an extent) Indio do fit, but I'm not convinced of anything further west. I'd really need the app to load here.

[Torie]

Thank you for your comments Gentlemen.

1. CA-33 is an Hispanic CD (61% Hispanic), and has to drawn that way to get that Hispanic percentage.

2.  I way back when resisted tying Imperial to Hispanic San Diego, but if you excise it, 1) the San Diego Hispanic CD is only 56%-57% Hispanic (not enough really), and 2) the second Coachella Valley-Moreno Valley CD is butt ugly, and only 60% Hispanic, also not enough in that part of the world just packed with illegals to elect an Hispanic. So, I accepted what the Commission did here (I know more about what the commission did in this part of the state, and was wondering just how much the Pubbie pocket was picked, and thus this exercise).

Moreover, by going the way of the Commission on this, the remaining options become more similar. If you do a 150,000 person clockwise twist of the map, it is a whole new ballgame, and will make it harder to compare the choices made between "our" map, and the Commission's map.  We want to see just where the Dem operatives got their pound of flesh, through their front person shills, and just how egregious it was, if at all. Doing that big twist, will make that more difficult to assess, defeating the point of the exercise.

3. My shape of the South central valley CD's collectively is just about exactly the same as Muon2's. What Muon2 did is effect Sbane's desire to exchange precincts between Tulare and Kern to create another "Hispanic" CD. I will draw it, and we can further discuss if the VRA really requires it. If it doesn't, I just don't see why it should be done myself. It is not as if, one is cherry picking precincts to get the Hispanic percentage up was within a county or something also Fresno, but rather splitting two otherwise basically whole counties, taking on a lot of miles. I don't like it, and then the issue is if the Hispanic percentage is enough to elect a candidate of "their" choice, whatever that means. With Fresno, and a higher Hispanic voting incidence there, plus getting up to 60% Hispanic, that probably is enough to elect a candidate of their choice.

4. As I noted above, if CA-01 does not take Redding, it must go into the Central Valley, and that is a no-no. In fact, in 10 more years, there will probably be a great northern CA CD just like there will be in Minnesota. The population growth up in the far north is tepid. As it was, CA-01 needed to take all of Napa, to avoid going all the way to Lake Tahoe.

5. Muon2 didn't vote, but I will do the Antioch thing that you guys want. I really am ambivalent myself.

6.  CA-23 takes the northwest quadrant of Ventura County (Ventura and Ojai basically, all of SB County, and the southern half of SLO County). I will put up a zoom of it, along with Fresno (I meant to do the latter, but screwed up, and then my software crashed; to get it back up I have to reboot my whole computer, reload the DRA software for some reason, and then wait 10 minutes at least for my data to load if it does not freeze during the process, all of which takes time).

7. Lewis, if you ever get the map up, I urge you, like myself, not to look at the partisan numbers, until you have already made a firm decision as to where the lines should be. We both are just too partisan really to be "trusted" with such data as it were, and too clever not to think up rationalizations furthering our little partisan agendas, yes we are.

[minionofmidas]

Thank you for your comments Gentlemen.

1. CA-33 is an Hispanic CD (61% Hispanic), and has to drawn that way to get that Hispanic percentage.

There is of course the question whether black vs latino block voting is anywhere as prevalent as white vs latino block voting in the Central Valley - where it is very much an issue, and no, there is no question that it should take prevalence over county lines (if necessary, and as long as you're staying in the Valley).
The 2007 by-election in the current 37th was won by the Black candidate over the initially favored Hispanic candidate (talking of the primary of course) thanks in part to low turnout... but the relevant bit is she wasn't challenged again. Richardson's two primary challengers in 2008 not only were both jokes that didn't get any votes, but were also both Black as well. (Yeah, I dug back into the thread to see that the 35th is a Black Pack.)

I notice you only comment on Muon's map, not on my suggestion.

[Torie]

What suggestion of yours did I fail to comment upon Lewis?  I didn't mean to ignore you. 

[minionofmidas]

What suggestion of yours did I fail to comment upon Lewis?  I didn't mean to ignore you. 

You edited that post while I was replying to it. Not that your reply on that point is particularly helpful.

Why is it a big no-no that the Napa Valley be in the same CD as the areas to its immediate east? I don't get it. Obviously getting the district go all the way to say Yuba City would be a lot worse than drawing Redding into it (this is from the point of view of Yuba City or Redding, really) - hence the question of how far it would have to go. I guess I could probably answer that myself without the DRA... and yeah, the big northern district, with Napa and Lake placed with Solano, might also be an alternative.

[Torie]

What suggestion of yours did I fail to comment upon Lewis?  I didn't mean to ignore you.  

You edited that post while I was replying to it. Not that your reply on that point is particularly helpful.

Why is it a big no-no that the Napa Valley be in the same CD as the areas to its immediate east? I don't get it. Obviously getting the district go all the way to say Yuba City would be a lot worse than drawing Redding into it (this is from the point of view of Yuba City or Redding, really) - hence the question of how far it would have to go. I guess I could probably answer that myself without the DRA... and yeah, the big northern district, with Napa and Lake placed with Solano, might also be an alternative.

Because without Napa being in CA-01, then CA-01 has to go into the Central Valley, or go all the way to Lake Tahoe. I wanted to avoid that. You can call the southern salient of CA-01 the wine and cannabis CD if you like. Both the grapes and the bud up there are just excellent.

[minionofmidas]

Having looked it up, Shasta County is not all that much smaller than Yolo, and obviously Solano also needs to pick up population. So, you know what? I drop that objection.

[Torie]

Here is the Antioch fix.



And here are zooms of CA-23 and CA-20.

[jimrtex]

This is the opinion of the DC district court in the Texas preclearance trial as to what the standard for measuring retrogression under Section 5 is:

http://tinyurl.com/74ppdvv

This is a section 5 decision and would be applicable to districts that impact Kings, Merced, Monterey, and Yuba.

A big part of the decision distinguishes between ability districts under section 5 and opportunity districts under section 2. I read this as saying coalitions and crossover voting can be considered in preclearance jurisdictions, though they are not generally applicable for section 2. It also implies that if there is evidence of polarized voting there, one would need a host of statistics to determine if the existing district is an ability district and to determine if the new district retrogresses it in any way.

The more significant part appears to be the DOJ rejecting any sort of percentage test, and instead demanding districts based on the election outcomes.  In Texas, this may mean that you add more Blacks to Hispanic districts since they are more likely to vote for the Hispanic candidate of choice (ie Democrat) than Hispanic voters, so long as there are not so many Blacks as to control the primary.

[muon2]

This is the opinion of the DC district court in the Texas preclearance trial as to what the standard for measuring retrogression under Section 5 is:

http://tinyurl.com/74ppdvv

This is a section 5 decision and would be applicable to districts that impact Kings, Merced, Monterey, and Yuba.

A big part of the decision distinguishes between ability districts under section 5 and opportunity districts under section 2. I read this as saying coalitions and crossover voting can be considered in preclearance jurisdictions, though they are not generally applicable for section 2. It also implies that if there is evidence of polarized voting there, one would need a host of statistics to determine if the existing district is an ability district and to determine if the new district retrogresses it in any way.

The more significant part appears to be the DOJ rejecting any sort of percentage test, and instead demanding districts based on the election outcomes.  In Texas, this may mean that you add more Blacks to Hispanic districts since they are more likely to vote for the Hispanic candidate of choice (ie Democrat) than Hispanic voters, so long as there are not so many Blacks as to control the primary.

However, they weren't rejecting it for section 2 cases, only section 5. A percentage test could be OK in and of itself for establishing a section2 district. Even for section 5 the court said that a percentage test was a starting point for considering the outcome, but other factors must be included as well.

That distinction makes a state like CA more complicated since there are only four counties with section 5 coverage, but all with section 2.

[Torie]

Section 5 is the pre clearance, and Section 2 is what the courts go by, is that correct?  Suppose per Section 5, the DOJ demands a minority CD, but it is not required under Section 2, where it is a percentage rather than an outcomes game apparently. Will the court reverse the DOJ, or does Section 5 take precedence over Section 2, and what we have are two different legal standards, with potentially different final legal outcomes?  Can someone help me with this? What are the 4 Section 5 counties in CA?

Can someone help a confused old man me with this?

[krazen1211]

Section 5 is the pre clearance, and Section 2 is what the courts go by, is that correct?  Suppose per Section 5, the DOJ demands a minority CD, but it is not required under Section 2, where it is a percentage rather than an outcomes game apparently. Will the court reverse the DOJ, or does Section 5 take precedence over Section 2, and what we have are two different legal standards, with potentially different final legal outcomes?  Can someone help me with this? What are the 4 Section 5 counties in CA?

Can someone help a confused old man me with this?

This exact issue will be resolved today.

Travis County plaintiffs acknowledge that TX-25 is not a S2 district. Yet they are still claiming that it is a S5 district, thus making S5 a stronger standard than S2.


John Roberts will certainly be irate with that interpretation.

[Torie]

Section 5 is the pre clearance, and Section 2 is what the courts go by, is that correct?  Suppose per Section 5, the DOJ demands a minority CD, but it is not required under Section 2, where it is a percentage rather than an outcomes game apparently. Will the court reverse the DOJ, or does Section 5 take precedence over Section 2, and what we have are two different legal standards, with potentially different final legal outcomes?  Can someone help me with this? What are the 4 Section 5 counties in CA?

Can someone help a confused old man me with this?

This exact issue will be resolved today.

Travis County plaintiffs acknowledge that TX-25 is not a S2 district. Yet they are still claiming that it is a S5 district, thus making S5 a stronger standard than S2.


John Roberts will certainly be irate with that interpretation.

Here is a pretty good summary of what SCOTUS is facing in the Perez case. I don't see anything though about the differing legal standards between Section 2 and Section 5,and what the end game is. It seems more to involve procedural stuff.

[Napoleon]

Kings
Merced
Yuba
Monterey