Do You Agree With The US Census Bureau "Region Classifications" (See Map)

[jimrtex]

Following jimrtex's suggestion of 9 divisions for SCOTUS seats, this division has an average deviation of 3.6% and a maximum of 7.3% from the quota (PR and other territories are with DC).

3 Democratic
3 Swing
3 Republican

Where would the current justices scramble to?  And would the voters in the the three clearly open seats: Southeast, South Central, and West vote for someone who is clearly an outsider.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Following jimrtex's suggestion of 9 divisions for SCOTUS seats, this division has an average deviation of 3.6% and a maximum of 7.3% from the quota (PR and other territories are with DC).

3 Democratic
3 Swing
3 Republican

Where would the current justices scramble to?  And would the voters in the the three clearly open seats: Southeast, South Central, and West vote for someone who is clearly an outsider.

If by 'Southeast' you mean the division containing much of the Deep South and Florida, the obvious answer there is Thomas, who was born and raised in Georgia.

[jimrtex]

Following jimrtex's suggestion of 9 divisions for SCOTUS seats, this division has an average deviation of 3.6% and a maximum of 7.3% from the quota (PR and other territories are with DC).

3 Democratic
3 Swing
3 Republican

Where would the current justices scramble to?  And would the voters in the the three clearly open seats: Southeast, South Central, and West vote for someone who is clearly an outsider.

If by 'Southeast' you mean the division containing much of the Deep South and Florida, the obvious answer there is Thomas, who was born and raised in Georgia.

He was an assistant attorney general in Missouri under then Attorney General John Danforth.  When Danforth became a senator, he became a legislative aide.

[Antonio the Sixth]

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Following jimrtex's suggestion of 9 divisions for SCOTUS seats, this division has an average deviation of 3.6% and a maximum of 7.3% from the quota (PR and other territories are with DC).

3 Democratic
3 Swing
3 Republican

Where would the current justices scramble to?  And would the voters in the the three clearly open seats: Southeast, South Central, and West vote for someone who is clearly an outsider.

If by 'Southeast' you mean the division containing much of the Deep South and Florida, the obvious answer there is Thomas, who was born and raised in Georgia.

He was an assistant attorney general in Missouri under then Attorney General John Danforth.  When Danforth became a senator, he became a legislative aide.

He was appointed to the Supreme Court bench from Georgia. I looked it up.

[jimrtex]

If by 'Southeast' you mean the division containing much of the Deep South and Florida, the obvious answer there is Thomas, who was born and raised in Georgia.

He was an assistant attorney general in Missouri under then Attorney General John Danforth.  When Danforth became a senator, he became a legislative aide.

He was appointed to the Supreme Court bench from Georgia. I looked it up.

He was serving on the DC Court of Appeals when he appointed to the Supreme Court.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If by 'Southeast' you mean the division containing much of the Deep South and Florida, the obvious answer there is Thomas, who was born and raised in Georgia.

He was an assistant attorney general in Missouri under then Attorney General John Danforth.  When Danforth became a senator, he became a legislative aide.

He was appointed to the Supreme Court bench from Georgia. I looked it up.

He was serving on the DC Court of Appeals when he appointed to the Supreme Court.

I know that. His commission still read 'Clarence Thomas, of Georgia, to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, vice Thurgood Marshall, retired.'

[jimrtex]

He was serving on the DC Court of Appeals when he appointed to the Supreme Court.

I know that. His commission still read 'Clarence Thomas, of Georgia, to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, vice Thurgood Marshall, retired.'

Is there a list of these commissions somewhere?  I found this on the US Senate web site.

Supreme Court Nominations, present-1789

For the more recent justices, the nomination links to their nomination hearings.   Where was Scalia from?

Those for Breyer, Kagan, and Roberts gives a state where they were when nominated, rather than raised.

[muon2]

According to the Congressional Record for the confirmation vote, Scalia was described as being of Virginia. He had lived in a number of states as a lawyer and professor, so I cold imagine that a "home state" would be otherwise hard to describe.

Other than Scalia (VA), Thomas (GA), and Kennedy (CA) the justices are all from the two northeastern regions on the map (2 MA, 2 NY, NJ and MD).

[jimrtex]

According to the Congressional Record for the confirmation vote, Scalia was described as being of Virginia. He had lived in a number of states as a lawyer and professor, so I cold imagine that a "home state" would be otherwise hard to describe.

Other than Scalia (VA), Thomas (GA), and Kennedy (CA) the justices are all from the two northeastern regions on the map (2 MA, 2 NY, NJ and MD).

So we have 18-year terms, with one election every two years.  The districts are grouped into 3 superdistricts: West, South, and East to ensure the rotation is geographically balanced.

2016: South/Mid South (Incumbent Scalia)
2018: West/California (Incumbent Kennedy)
2020: East/Great Lakes (Incumbent Ginsburg)
2022: South/Deep South (Incumbent Thomas)
2024: East/Northeast (Incumbent Breyer)
2026: West/West (Incumbent Roberts)
2028: East/Mid Atlantic (Incumbent Alito)
2030: South/South Central (Incumbent Sotomayor)
2032: West/Midwest (Incumbent Kagan)

2016: West/West (Incumbent Scalia)
2018: South/Midsouth (Incumbent Kennedy)
2020: East/Great Lakes (Incumbent Thomas)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Crossing the Mississippi below Cairo (i.e. Illinois) is probably a mistake at subregional level, for anyone trying their own hand at this.

[jimrtex]

Following jimrtex's suggestion of 9 divisions for SCOTUS seats, this division has an average deviation of 3.6% and a maximum of 7.3% from the quota (PR and other territories are with DC).

Other than Illinois, and the likelihood these would change from decade to decade, these would not make unreasonable statistical divisions.

[pbrower2a]

Census divisions are not based on political or cultural orientation. Salt Lake City is closer to the great population centers of the West Coast than to those of the Midwest or Texas. Denver has never been seen as Midwestern. Missouri may be politically more like Georgia than like Illinois, but it is all closer to Chicago than to Georgia. Sticking Indiana in the South because it votes more often with Alabama than with Michigan would be arbitrary in the extreme. The Midwest used to be very R and the South used to be D.

[jimrtex]

Census divisions are not based on political or cultural orientation. Salt Lake City is closer to the great population centers of the West Coast than to those of the Midwest or Texas. Denver has never been seen as Midwestern. Missouri may be politically more like Georgia than like Illinois, but it is all closer to Chicago than to Georgia. Sticking Indiana in the South because it votes more often with Alabama than with Michigan would be arbitrary in the extreme. The Midwest used to be very R and the South used to be D.

Denver at one time was very much a Midwestern city, particularly when most of the inhabitants were from Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I do by and large, but I wouldn't use Mid-Atlantic as a classification.  This is more what my map would look like:

[TDAS04]

I would include Maryland, Delaware, and DC in the Northeast.  I a bit ambivalent about Missouri, it seems like arguments could be made for the placing it in either the Midwest or South.  The rest of the states seem right, though.

[Del Tachi]

Census divisions are not based on political or cultural orientation. Salt Lake City is closer to the great population centers of the West Coast than to those of the Midwest or Texas. Denver has never been seen as Midwestern. Missouri may be politically more like Georgia than like Illinois, but it is all closer to Chicago than to Georgia. Sticking Indiana in the South because it votes more often with Alabama than with Michigan would be arbitrary in the extreme. The Midwest used to be very R and the South used to be D.

Yeah I've never understood why so many people on this site think that census regions/divisions should be devised based on how similar they are politically or culturally.

Maryland is Southern because the U.S. Census Bureau calls it Southern.  Sticking in the Northeast doesn't really solve the problem, as I could think of thousands of ways how Maryland would be unsuited to being in the same census region as Vermont or Maine.

If the U.S. Census Bureau's goal was to split the nation up in a way that allowed for the most similar places to be in the same region, then we would probably see non-contiguous and state-splitting regions.  Obviously, its not the U.S. Census Bureau's goal to do such. 

So, the question y'all should be so adamant about fighting over should be:  "What are the benefits of having the the most similar places placed within the same arbitrarily-defined 'regions'?" and "Should the Census Bureau collect and collate statistical information this way?"