CA CD Wine Country Map Quest poll

[Torie]

Rome has seven hills, and I have seven maps. Each has its merits and demerits. Which map best balances the competing considerations, from a non partisan good government standpoint? I will add some commentary shortly so don't vote until I have added it, unless your think such commentary would just be annoying gratuitous chatter. [now added ]

Map 1. Map 1 is close to the Commission map with respect to the configuration of CA-05.  It puts the city of Santa Rosa (170,000 people which presents a continual problem with Santa Rosa county chops), plus Napa plus a snake in Contra Costa via a chop of Vallejo in Solano county. It makes CA-01 nice and square, gives CA-03 a nice look, with no offensive chops other than Vallejo, and gives the coast to CA-02 and no more, but the attachment of Marin to the north coast CD, with the Santa Rosa county slide by, offends some.

Map 2. Map 2 was my initial effort. It limits CA-05 to Marin and the most of Santa Rosa with nothing more, which is the most logical for CA-05, but CA-02 takes Shasta county, which is a negative, making CA-02 something other than compact. CA-03 still looks nice (with no chop of Vallejo or Solano County), but CA-01 needs to chop into Yolo County to take Woodlands (which is does barely without a chop of the town).

Map 3. This map modifies Map 2 to eliminate appending Marin to the north coast via the Santa Rosa County slide by. It achieves this by moving the city of Santa Rosa into CA-02.  The city of Santa Rosa almost equals Marin. CA-01 takes Del Norte county, which might offend some, but that county really is disparate socially, politically and every other way, from the balance of the coast. It is a bit of chore road wise for CA-01 to get there however.

Map 4. This map incorporates the Muon2 chop into SF from the north. That is not a popular choice, and now CA-02 marches all the way to the NE corner of the state, but it has advantages from a county chop-less standpoint. San Mateo is basically united, and although the chops into Alameda and Contra Costa from the south are deeper, CA-03 needs to take but Martinez from Contra Costa over its own nice little bridge crossing the Sacramento River into Martinez from Solano county. CA-11 takes everything on SF bay in Contra Costa. CA-03 is more compact to boot since Solano is not chopped, and CA-03 takes all of Vallejo.

Map 5.  This map is similar to Map 4, but it cuts way back on the breadth of CA-02 (except sadly it still needs to take Shasta County) through the simple expedient of CA-05 taking the city of Richmond across yet a third bridge (which I did not know was there before yesterday), and notice that it takes the whole city, and nothing more - nice. CA-03 becomes almost a chop-less uber-compact paradise, taking but one precinct in Lake County. If it took one precinct in West Sacramento city, even that chop could be eliminated.

Map 6. This map is similar to Map 3 (no more maps with SF being chopped from the north), except that CA-05 loses Vallejo, and does not chop into Solano county, using that third bridge I discovered to get over to Contra Costa on the bay. The quid pro quo is that Yuba City and its burbs are squeezed really tight by CA-01, but that metro area is not chopped, and it does leave CA-03 more compact, as CA-01 takes more lightly populated counties and precincts in the north Central Valley.

Map 7. This map is the same as Map 6, except that Santa Rosa city is put in CA-05, so that CA-05 has a rather ugly elongated spike up into Santa Rosa County, losing everything in the county but Santa Rosa city and Rohnert Park immediately to the south (including losing most of Petaluma on the east side of US 101).  It basically turns CA-05 into a purely urban CD.

[Torie]

Map four wins on aesthetic/compactness grounds without including any obvious unfairnesses, but of course that's not the same thing as your question, which I cannot answer.

CA-02 is hardly "compact" is it?  Anyway, my scintillating commentary is now up for your reading "pleasure" Lewis.

[Torie]

I overlooked something when I wrote that anyways. (And I don't mean the thread of gratuituous chatter, even though I overlooked that too. ) So I guess 2 or 3. Or maybe 6. Or maybe 7.

What did you "overlook" about map 4?

[Torie]

Why, the obvious biggie ie divorce of Lake and Napa. Suffice to say it was a very casual glance.

Good thing I haven't voted in the poll yet.

I picked the poll option that "allows" folks to change their vote. I always do. 

Why is uniting Lake and Napa such a high priority for you?  Lake is the "resort" county mostly - kind of sui generis. I remember my Dad signing us up to stay for a week at a resort up there in "Hobergs" or something like that - maybe this one. It turned out to be for lower middle class and working class folks, where their teenagers could get laid without much effort, with lots of softball and sports and the like. My Dad checked us out the next day.  If I had been a bit older, I would have refused to leave actually.  Getting laid trumps class solidarity any day of the week.

[Torie]

I voted for 3.  However, is there a way to give Napa to CA-3 in exchange for putting Del Norte + more of Sonoma County (all except maybe Petaluma and Sonoma city) into CA-2, and letting CA-5 take all of Vallejo and maybe Benicia for a complete surround of the north bay? 

Look at map 4.  CA-03 with this map design can't go farther north, without chopping Woodlands, which has 35,000 people or something.

[Torie]

I've started looking at the whole county analysis I did for the Iowa-style states and apply it to my regional approach to CA. One interesting region I found is Colusa, Contra Costa, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, San Francisco, Solano, Sonoma, and Yolo comprise the population of 5 CDs with only 625 extra people. Within that region the core wine counties of Mendocino, Napa, and Sonoma are only 5298 over pop for a district and Colusa, Lake, Solano, and Yolo are only 2628 under population for a district. I'll try to post a wine county region map based later today.

Here is your algorithm map Mike. You commit the "sin" of chopping W. Sacto from Sacto, but get away with it because it gets rid of most of the CA-04 chop into Sacto in return. Its other sin is tri-chopping San Joaquin county, and chopping Tracy a bit to boot, while excising Stockton from most of the county that it hosts. But it does have a lot of merit, except of course for McNerney in CA-09, who would put you on his enemies list. It must be nice to do good and do well at the same time.  

Anyway, I have labeled my DRA drf data file for this map 8 the Muon2 algorithm map in your honor.

After I figure out what dpmapper wants, I will need to redo the poll, and perhaps you can move all of these scintillating posts to that thread.

[Torie]

A Marin and Petaluma based district taking in the Richmond area is a complete no-no. Go ahead and cross the Golden Gate but do NOT cross that bridge Torie just discovered. The differential in median income across that bridge is probably higher than the median income of America. Those two areas just don't belong. Muon's ideas wouldn't work either, judging from the map Torie made in the last post.

So the 1st, 2nd and the 4th maps would be acceptable with the others being unacceptable. The 2nd is the best of those options and what I voted for. Map 4 is actually very good except for the SF chop, but like I said is still preferable to crossing the Richmond-San Rafael bridge. I think the 1st is still more preferable to the 4th due to it not crossing over and taking in Redding and Modoc County. But they are close by and the 2nd is clearly better in my opinion.

Well the Commission took CA-05 into Richmond, so why can't Muon2?  The class warfare thing was really only applied to get rid of the beach cities CD in LA county, so that a second quasi black CD could be created, and they used class warfare as an excuse. They ignored the class warfare theme in the Silicon Valley, as well as in San Diego county, really.  I mean if they had class on their craniums for reasons other than as window dressing, Cupertino would not have been appended to the no-they-haven't-quite-made-it-yet-and-thus-are-constrained-to-live-cheek-to-jowel-with-the-Hispanics  "Asian" CD, and the Bilbray CD would not have eschewed wealthy Villa Park on steroids Rancho Santa Fe in favor of frumpy Poway (oh dear!), now would it? And that unfortunate Antelope Valley CD on its county chopping way to that charmless middle class haven where the overpaid LA cops and firemen live otherwise known as Simi Valley, would not have swallowed en route the chic family values lawyer and MD oriented node of Porter Ranch in Chatsworth either, turning the creature into the most ugly of ducklings, correct?

That really is the main goal here. What rules need to be set up, which make sense for CA, so we don't get another cf map next time?  I mean they are not needed really for a Commission made up of the Sbane, Lewis, Muon2, dpmapper, and Johnny's of this world, since we know all the rules, and will make each other's lives a living hell if we play games, since we know all the games too, but well we aren't on the Commission, and our types never well be. They will put folks on who can be gamed to death, and then some.

[Torie]

Ca-5 does not take in Richmond or Marin County nor Petaluma. Santa Rosa isn't really that wealthy (nor is it working class of course). That being said I don't like that much. I prefer the 2nd map with Richmond and the rest of working class COCO county with Vallejo and Fairfield. Also Marin County gets put with Santa Rosa which works fine. Redding with the coast doesn't work as well, admittedly, but that county isn't actually that attached to the valley. If you go up there, you will see that most of the county, including Redding and a few areas to the south are not that agricultural. I don't really have a huge problem with putting it in the wilderness district, though it's not ideal. Better than putting Marin County with Richmond. Just because Tupac was from Marin county doesn't give it street cred!

OK so you put a high premium on the class warfare theme. That is a factor to me, but not as a dispositive one as for you, I guess. Pity that the Commission applied the theme inconsistently, just like most of the other themes. The Commission's map come to think of it had so many mix and match themes that it ended it kind of cacophonous - sort of like a 12 tone symphony. Now granted, some folks like 12 tone music, but it is an acquired taste. One does not fall in love with it the first time one hears it.

[Torie]

Yeah, the commission map is all over the place. Still, I don't know if they did anything as bad as putting Richmond with Marin County. I mean, Marin County has a median income approaching 100k and Richmond is right around 50k. And it's not as if Marin county is only 20 or 30,000 people or something, and the same with Richmond and surroundings.

Yes, yes, but it mitigates the CA-03 chop in CCC. It is all a balancing test, which is why I wanted input. Once I get the dpmapper map done, the new poll will have nine maps in it.

[Torie]

I voted for 3.  However, is there a way to give Napa to CA-3 in exchange for putting Del Norte + more of Sonoma County (all except maybe Petaluma and Sonoma city) into CA-2, and letting CA-5 take all of Vallejo and maybe Benicia for a complete surround of the north bay? 

Look at map 4.  CA-03 with this map design can't go farther north, without chopping Woodlands, which has 35,000 people or something.

It wouldn't need to go north if it's taking Napa County.  It would actually come south, since Del Norte slides from CD-1 to CD-2, so CD-1 takes some of CD-3's northern reaches.  CD-3 gains Napa, loses a bit in the north + the remainder of Vallejo. 

Here you go. CA-05 gets uncomfortably close to Fairfield, but not there, so not bad - at all. The alternative which would push CA-05 away from Fairfield would be for CA-02 to take Siskiyou County, and the cost of CA-02 crossing I-5 causes that pawn move to be too expensive. '

[Torie]

Here's my offering for wine country showing how it fits into the northern half of the state. All CDs are within 100 of the ideal population. All counties with enough population have a district entirely within, and Sacto and Alameda have two CDs entirely within. No county has part of more than two CDs not counting those entirely within. County splits are organized to split off only a small part where possible leaving most of the county intact. For example these are the populations of the fragments split:

Butte: 7.8K
Colusa: 0.6K
Napa: 3.3K
Placer: 0.5K
Sonoma: 2.0K

Ah, well I already knew that you were smarter than me, Mike.  Given the walls (see below), I thought it was impossible, but then I thought it was a crime to chop Section 5 protected Merced (which to do your twist, you chopped). I guess it is OK to remove white people from it, is that were its at? And didn't you while losing a San Joaquin chop, pick up two others (Madera and Merced)? Did you avoid a chop somewhere else?  I assume your map is based on the Ridgecrest based chop. And didn't you reduce the Hispanic percentage in the Monterey based CD (not that that is dispositive of anything of course)?

Oh, I think you did that extra chop for VRA reasons, even though the Commission didn't care much about the Hispanic percentage in CA-16.  So you took CA-08 farther north?  You didn't do the Ridgecrest chop, but chopped Placer County instead. Taking empty Alpine is OK I guess, but not San Andreas. And that picked up about half of the population that you needed, and you got the other half from the extra CA-16 area county chop, excusing it with the VRA?  I am just wondering where you picked up the population is all.

The Placer affair of course illustrates the conundrum here. The issue with your algorithm, is when to allow it to be violated.  Sometimes the geographic barriers or communities of interest, or issues of compactness, or protecting cross county metro areas from being chopped (e.g. West Sacramento from Sacramento, although the Sacto area needed to be chopped anyway), are just too compelling. Or you need an extra county chop to avoid an ugly chop of some town with some population. For example, I don't think it acceptable to chop Woodlands in half, and considered that a constraint. So how do we allow for human judgement while still being sufficiently leashed to avoid going where this Commission went?

[Torie]

There doesn't appear to be a road between Alpine and Placer.

[Torie]

There doesn't appear to be a road between Alpine and Placer.

There is through South Lake Tahoe. My Stockton CD would have 39K too many people including all of the usual Sierra Nevada counties (40K with Alpine). Something needed to go with the Owens Valley so I chopped off South Lake Tahoe from El Dorado for that population. It then provides the link to my one Placer precinct along the lake.

I will look for the road again. That Monterey, SLO wall makes a cf of Ventura County. That is the problem with a strict algorithm.  You get a nasty mess in a county, or you do something that will never sell, like appending Placer to a Victorville CD.  But we have been over this before. I wonder if there is any way to get some discipline, but allow exceptions.

[Torie]

My initial thoughts on Ventura starts with SLO+SB which is 9K short of a district and can be completed like the commission did. In Ventura there is a ridge the separates Santa Paula from the south, and south of that ridge extended across Ventura to the ocean is a population equal to a district. Next Ventura+Kern+Tulare is only 4K short of 3 CDs. A VRA district can be constructed from Tulare going into Bakersfield. That leaves the rest of Kern linking to Santa Paula. There is almost the right amount of population west of I-5 in LAC to make a link that doesn't rely only on the windy road in north Ventura.



The districts are accurate to within 100 persons and the I've added some color to show the inclusion of Hungry Valley SVRA split from its block group.

Well we do have a fundamental disagreement here. I don't think it acceptable to append Victorville (oh it is  Bakersfield, which is even worse) to Santa Paula and bits of Ventura city and Ojai - unless demanded by the VRA (which of course it isn't). If you are going to go this route, you need to append to Ventura County the suburbs west of Woodland Hills in LA City. You have CA-25 in three counties to boot, so it chops twice, just so you have your little road connection.

I want some workable balancing test between respecting obvious communities of interest,  jurisdictional boundaries, metro areas, and compactness and geographical barriers. For example, I would rather chop a county, than chop a sizable town in half - unless there is a compelling reason like the Vallejo thing (one reason the dpmapper map has some attraction is that it avoids chopping Vallejo, which is less acceptable really than chopping Solano). And I might chop another county chop going my version of your route, to unite Tracy. Nabbing Tracy to me is a lot more attractive than Victorville nabbing South Lake Tahoe, which has no ties to the rest of the district (yes, I found the road that I did not know exists over the Sierras via "Luther Pass"  (which I did not know existed either:)). Sure it is easier to have to hew to just one loadstar, but among other things, I don't think the public will accept it if presented to them, and they thought about it. The trick is to find a methodology that will effectively leash abuse and partisan/incumbent/aspiring incumbent games.

I might add that in general, counties have less psychological importance in CA than most places - perhaps in part due to geography and ethnic diversity, and perhaps  in part due anomie and rootlessness, which characterizes CA in a way not as present elsewhere perhaps. But counties are useful, because of course they have some importance, and it is a good leashing mechanism. Splitting cities is less acceptable.

And isn't class a communities of interest factor? Sure it should not trump more important considerations, but at the margins, it is certainly an appropriate metric no? I guess where I am going is some kind of hierarchy of "needs" as it were. In the Silicon Valley, after respecting town boundaries, either going Asian, or going by class seems OK with me. I see no reason why one should trump the other.

And for you uber class warriors, you know the "slums" need to go somewhere. Since Oakland has its own CD, Richmond needs to be appended to middle class areas, or tied to more rural Solano. The SF metro area is rather light on slums - it is just too expensive.

[Torie]

Well here are maps 10 and 11. Muon2's map with its Bakersfield to Ojai plus a bit of the City of Ventura via a micro-chop of LA County west of I-5 so he has his little connecting highway to heaven, and Victorville to South Lake Tahoe map over Luther Pass, will complete the dirty dozen when he gets finished), and we will get a chance to rank them all.  


I lost the Tracy cut, and replaced it will a good old partial Vallejo cut. CA-03 to make up for the lost population picks up picks up Colusa and either  all of Sutter and Yuba City is cut off with its Marysville suburb in Yuba County (confusing that Yuba City is not in Yuba County), but loses West Sacto pus two Davis precincts in Map 10, or in Map 11, all of Sutter except for Yuba City where it nips 3 precincts.  I was unable to avoid the 2 precinct nip of Davis in Map 10, and the 3 precinct nip of Yuba City in Map 11.  I tend to prefer Map 10 because it seems more important to me to keep West Sacto with the Sacto Metro area, then Marysville with Yuba City, perhaps because that metro area is less important. What do you think?

It seems clear to me now that CA-09 should move into Sacto County to gets its additional population and nowhere else. Sacto County needs to be tri-chopped in all events. In this one the third chop is from the south rather than the north.  Going anywhere else is just silly really.
 

[Torie]

If I stick to my Ventura subregion, here's the chance for human intervention. This is the other rotation that keeps splits of Ventura to one but splits SLO instead. Like the other plan this needs 13 K from LAC for pop balance.

That won't sell/work either Mike. Sorry. But by all means finish your algorithm map. I have decided to get more rigorous about this myself, and I will try to delete Chino Hills from the LA County Asian CD, unless the VRA precludes it, because it dilutes too much the Hispanic CD in SB County. SD County should have put one chop out of it, by the way.  Extra county chops beyond the VRA require another very good reason, like keeping a metro area together, or due to compelling geographic barriers, like between Kern and SLO or Ventura County for example.

[Torie]

That map's not bad if you just follow my fix to put CCC in the 3rd and most of the rest of Central Valley in the 3rd with the 5th picking up as much of Sonoma County as needed to get up to full population. That also basically resolves the issue dpmapper has of areas around the Bay Area being diluted by Bay Area votes.

That was my original map more or less, sbane. It causes CA-02 to suck up Shasta County. CA-02 crossing I-5 is a negative, and it gives CA-02 a non compact and wandering look to boot.  I-5 is a good connector highway to join together a lightly populated CD zone. So that is the cost for giving the class warfare theme a high priority. Is it worth it to you?  

By the way, not all of what CA-05 takes in CCC is that down market. It takes in a lot more than just Richmond, and I think Pinole is quite middle class. Perhaps only about half of the population in CA-05 in CCC is really sub-middle class. That is because it takes in more of CCC than my original map, because I kicked out CA-09 from CCC. Do you agree? I ask because that area is in your former neck of the woods.

[Torie]

That map's not bad if you just follow my fix to put CCC in the 3rd and most of the rest of Central Valley in the 3rd with the 5th picking up as much of Sonoma County as needed to get up to full population. That also basically resolves the issue dpmapper has of areas around the Bay Area being diluted by Bay Area votes.

That was my original map more or less, sbane. It causes CA-02 to suck up Shasta County. CA-02 crossing I-5 is a negative, and it gives CA-02 a non compact and wandering look to boot.  I-5 is a good connector highway to join together a lightly populated CD zone. So that is the cost for giving the class warfare theme a high priority. Is it worth it to you? 

By the way, not all of what CA-05 takes in CCC is that down market. It takes in a lot more than just Richmond, and I think Pinole is quite middle class. Perhaps only about half of the population in CA-05 in CCC is really sub-middle class. That is because it takes in more of CCC than my original map, because I kicked out CA-09 from CCC. Do you agree? I ask because that area is in your former neck of the woods.

Yeah, not all of that area is working class of course. But it doesn't really have any place with a median income above 80k, which is just above the median income of the Bay Area. And it really goes well with Fairfield and Vacaville in any case (or Concord, Pleasant Hill and Martinez within CCC). It just makes so much more sense than jumping the bay and putting it with upper class Marin which might care more about trees, global warming and buying fair trade whole foods for their vegan diet than "kitchen table" issues.

And all of that is worth appending Shasta to CA-02 I take it?  Mittens by the way gave a kick ass speech tonight. If you listen to it, some of it will sound like some of my posts.

[Torie]

That map's not bad if you just follow my fix to put CCC in the 3rd and most of the rest of Central Valley in the 3rd with the 5th picking up as much of Sonoma County as needed to get up to full population. That also basically resolves the issue dpmapper has of areas around the Bay Area being diluted by Bay Area votes.

That was my original map more or less, sbane. It causes CA-02 to suck up Shasta County. CA-02 crossing I-5 is a negative, and it gives CA-02 a non compact and wandering look to boot.  I-5 is a good connector highway to join together a lightly populated CD zone. So that is the cost for giving the class warfare theme a high priority. Is it worth it to you? 

By the way, not all of what CA-05 takes in CCC is that down market. It takes in a lot more than just Richmond, and I think Pinole is quite middle class. Perhaps only about half of the population in CA-05 in CCC is really sub-middle class. That is because it takes in more of CCC than my original map, because I kicked out CA-09 from CCC. Do you agree? I ask because that area is in your former neck of the woods.

Yeah, not all of that area is working class of course. But it doesn't really have any place with a median income above 80k, which is just above the median income of the Bay Area. And it really goes well with Fairfield and Vacaville in any case (or Concord, Pleasant Hill and Martinez within CCC). It just makes so much more sense than jumping the bay and putting it with upper class Marin which might care more about trees, global warming and buying fair trade whole foods for their vegan diet than "kitchen table" issues.

And all of that is worth appending Shasta to CA-02 I take it?  Mittens by the way gave a kick ass speech tonight. If you listen to it, some of it will sound like some of my posts.

Well, like I said most of Shasta County has a mountain feel to it, yes including Redding. Most of the agricultural areas start from Tehama County. It's not ideal but it will have to do in my mind. Maybe some ranchers from that area will be pissed off and want to shoot me in the face. I dunno.

A good Mitt speech, eh? So he went beyond saying he believes in America and that it is the greatest nation created since the big bang? Not saying that it isn't a bold statement, but did he go into more specifics than pointing out Obama might have once worked as a community organizer? I will check it out. Maybe not soon as I am studying for finals, and to procrastinate, redistricting. I'm still pissed at him (and Santorum I guess) for denying me the chance to analyze meaningful California results.

The best part of Mittens speech was asking just how it is "fair" that the "Richmond" folks are consigned to crap schools, with no realistic alternatives, government workers paid more than private sector workers doing the same job, union members against their will having their dues in part diverted to politicians and causes they don't support, running up the debt that future generations will have to pay off degrading their standard of living, regulations that make near zero economic sense, if you do a reasonable balancing test of the cost and the benefits (Mittens didn't say this, but some huge development was stopped in mid stream over some fox or something, while it is all studied some more), and so forth. It was prose poetry, and damn it, he's right!  Period.

Mittens in short threw Obama's "fairness" rhetoric right back in his face, in a nice way. It was a very carefully crafted speech, and Mittens delivered it extremely well. His speech coach obviously has worked with him, and he worked on it. The man has discipline. Discipline is a virtue in my little universe.

[Torie]

Reasonable questions Mike, of which I am fully aware, and have been, and will continue to ponder. It helps to draw a zillion maps to refine one's thinking on this. The goal is to write a paper, so we offer up that thinking to the public square, tough agonizing thinking which if one is susceptible, would bring on migraine headaches. But just like porn, which you know it when you see it, you know it when you see a map like your past couple of maps, in my little arrogant opinion. No rules should force anyone to do that sort of thing - ever. Sure it is a tough task, but we need and must do better.  We are not there - yet. Maybe there needs to be California specific rules, in recognition of its rather unique complexity. Maybe, I don't know that either - yet.

And maybe after rules are written, they could be violated with a supra majority, just as an escape hatch. There already is that in the statute, but obviously it failed. So maybe the process part requires having more out of the closet politically savvy members involved. Maybe the politicians should pick a couple of members from each party (so if the three non hack members from each party are not persuaded by the hacks, they will be outvoted, but will still have input), out of the 5 from each party, or 4 out of the 14 Commission members. That way, more of the games will be called out by one set of political "hacks" or the other. So we should address process as well. And maybe the process should call for a written explanation in some detail, when the "rules," whatever they are, are violated, with the statute clear that it requires clear and convincing evidence. Maybe.

Hopefully you agree. If not, you are even more stubborn than I am, which is pretty frightening.

[Torie]

Meh, Torie's map in his sig (and iirc I had a similar map) is much preferable to that. And between the two options you posted, I would say they are equally flawed (or good).

Quite, but with the SLO/Monterey wall, your map is the best one can do I think. That chop of Lancaster is a killer though.  But then that it is what the Commission did; that act by it will be one of the sharpest "j'accuses in the White Paper (a Brit term for you there )

I have been meaning to ask my "source" about just how it came about that the SLO/Monterey wall was decided upon, which makes such a hash out of everything.

[Torie]

Meh, Torie's map in his sig (and iirc I had a similar map) is much preferable to that. And between the two options you posted, I would say they are equally flawed (or good).

Quite, but with the SLO/Monterey wall, your map is the best one can do I think.

By that do you mean my first one with the Kern-Ventura link? That's the one most consistent with the algorithm.

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That's why I avoided it until my first two maps with links to northern Ventura were treated so unkindly.

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I assumed that it was the easiest path to meet section 5, keeping the district largely as is. I'm curious to see what you find out.

If the Hispanic percentage were upped in a CD in which Monterey is wholly contained from what it was, how could adding a slice of SLO to it raise a section 5 issue?  My new Monterey County CD clocks in at a 46.3% Hispanic VAP population. The previous CD was at 44.3% per the DRA utility's numbers.

[Torie]

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The map below, which I thought sbane drew in a degraded state, but you did I see, Mike. If you are going to cross the River Styx by using the the SLO/Monterey wall, that is the best one can do I think. But those who place the wall there will not be going to heaven. The best they can hope for is limbo.

We need wall placement rules. Put that on the list.

[Torie]

Yes, but if a wall location ends up creating a nasty Lancaster chop, or forces stuff to go where it should not go, that is a problem.  And there may be crossings that should be "disfavored."  Having some statistical limits like you suggested might work, which can be violated under certain circumstances. Or maybe we have defined regions, in which there may be only one chop out unless the VRA demands otherwise, or to unite a city that is already mostly in one CD. And Sacto taking W. Sacto, or uniting Yuba City and Marysville, perhaps should not count as a chop for example. 

[Torie]

I am thinking we should go with the Michigan rules, with wall placement up to the Commission unless it ends up chopping a metro area. If it does, that wall has to go. I think that horrible SLO /Monterey wall forces a chop of the Santa Cruz metro area. Now that I got rid of the Chino Hills chop, I think my map now has the minimum chops of counties other than two chops forced by the VRA, and after I massaged the black CD, there should be a minimum of city chops (other than as forced by the VRA).  I shaved CA-35 down to a minimum 50% CVAP to minimize the chop into San Bernardino City (I only had to take about 10 precincts or something).

If you think I have an extra county chop, let me know. The idea is that each CD generates two chops, except one CD with which you start (CA-01 here), unless a county can hold at least three CD's, and then at least one most be wholly contained in that county. Interior walls that make one CD a one chopper, forces another CD to be a three chopper (e.g., in my map, CA-04). At least that is my way to try to break through the fog of chop counts, which itself gives one a headache. Let me know your thoughts.

I am still unclear why your map itself uses the SLO/Monterey wall btw. Surely you don't find favor with it do you? Not if it produces maps that are well, like the Commission's - or yours.