Soouth Florida to become its own state?

[muon2]

The whereas clauses in the South Miami resolution consider tax implications and water management as the main drivers for their support of a split. The tax implication seem like a wash since 67% of the population and 69% of the sales and documentary tax is from the advocated South Florida. The water issues include reference to the South Florida Water Management District, a number of national parks and preserves, Lake Okeechobee, and the relative elevation of the north and south parts of FL.

Here's a map of the FL Water Management districts.


If you look at it none of the Tampa Bay counties are in the SFWMD, yet the major portion of the Tampa metro is in the SF resolution. Similarly the Space Coast counties of Brevard and Indian River aren't in the SFWMD either. Other than the upper reaches of the Kissimmee river there's not much of Polk and Orange is evenly split in the SFWMD. Furthermore, all of the specific natural features are in the SFWMD, so I can find no rationale in the resolution for the inclusion of counties largely outside the SFWMD in South Florida.

States don't usually get built solely on water, and that includes less than perfect control of the water resources going into and out of a state. That puts Orange and, if one considers economic connections, Osceola out as well. Highlands is a borderline call since it looks like most of the population is outside the SFWMD. Charlotte has only some small amount of swamp in the east, and is otherwise economically tied to Sarasota to the north.

Given all that, I can only find justification in the resolution for a much reduced version of South Florida. That would include only 11 counties including Lee, Glades, Okeechobee, St. Lucie, and those to the south. That amounts to only 38% of the current population of FL, compared to 67% in the resolution.

nb, if a mod wants to move this thread to Political Geography, I have no objections.

[muon2]

With a little searching I found that this was an issue in May, 2008 as well. The city of North Lauderdale had a resolution advocating a state of South FL with an accompanying press release. South FL legislators in session in Tallahassee referenced that resolution at the same time. A page on causes.com was set up for the purpose. However, unlike the current discussion, the North Lauderdale resolution only included the counties of Palm Beach, Broward, Dade, and Monroe.

Here are my questions for the Floridian posters. Has there ever been an effort to separate Central FL (esp. Tampa and Orlando) with South FL before this? Is there any clamor in CF for separation like there has been in SF?

[muon2]

South Florida presidential voting
2012: Obama 54.1%, Romney 44.9%
2008: Obama 54.7%, Romney 44.4%
2004: Kerry 50.3%, Bush 48.9%
2000: Gore 51.8%, Bush 45.9%
1996: Clinton 50.6%, Dole 40.2%
1992: Clinton 40.3%, Bush 39.9%
1988: Bush 59.8%, Dukakis 39.6%
1984: Reagan 64.9%, Mondale 35.1%
1980: Reagan 56.3%, Carter 36.9%
1976: Carter 50.9%, Ford 47.7%
1972: Nixon 70.6%, McGovern 29.1%
1968: Nixon 45.7%, Humphrey 32.7%, Wallace 21.7%
1964: Johnson 53.0%, Goldwater 47.0%

North Florida presidential voting
2012: Romney 57.1%, Obama 41.6%
2008: McCain 55.2%, Obama 43.7%
2004: Bush 58.4%, Kerry 40.7%
2000: Bush 54.9%, Gore 42.6%
1996: Dole 46.7%, Clinton 42.7%
1992: Bush 43.0%, Clinton 36.2%
1988: Bush 63.3%, Dukakis 36.0%
1984: Reagan 66.3%, Mondale 33.7%
1980: Reagan 53.6%, Carter 42.2%
1976: Carter 54.5%, Ford 44.1%
1972: Nixon 75.0%, McGovern 24.7%
1968: Wallace 43.8%, Nixon 29.1%, Humphrey 27.1%
1964: Goldwater 52.8%, Johnson 47.2%

That tends to confirm that the split described in the resolution has little to do with water resources or taxes or common interests and is primarily drafted to maximize the Dem share with the largest possible population without bizarre boundaries. Hence an E-W line that just includes Orange and Hillsborough, but nothing to the north which become more Pub. The resolution should be honest about its real intent.

Does no one appreciate swing states with competitive statewide elections or should all be locked into one party or the other?

[muon2]

Does no one appreciate swing states with competitive statewide elections or should all be locked into one party or the other?

Clearly not the Florida GOP, considering their use of gerrymandering to lock up their hold on the legislature.

As did the IL Dems, but I don't support the resolution that would split Cook from the rest of IL. Anyway, my comment was about the statewide elections, not control of the legislature. I recognize that internal demographics can skew a legislative body compared to statewide results, and sometimes even neutral redistricting will not create a legislature that reflects the overall state vote.

[muon2]

Does no one appreciate swing states with competitive statewide elections or should all be locked into one party or the other?

Clearly not the Florida GOP, considering their use of gerrymandering to lock up their hold on the legislature.

As did the IL Dems, but I don't support the resolution that would split Cook from the rest of IL. Anyway, my comment was about the statewide elections, not control of the legislature. I recognize that internal demographics can skew a legislative body compared to statewide results, and sometimes even neutral redistricting will not create a legislature that reflects the overall state vote.

I would argue that a redistricting process that spits out a legislature whose composition is unreflective of the overall state vote cannot truly be called "neutral".  

I do agree that this proposal seems to be taking partisan advantage into account when drawing the lines; I don't know that it's much worse than 6 Californias on that front, but 6 Californias was pretty bad so that's not much of a compliment.

I was thinking of the 6 CAs myself, which is also a blatant political move under the guise of better representation. As laudable as a fair legislature is in redistricting, the demographics really can prevent it. If a minority population is uniformly spread in every precinct, they will hold a majority in no district.

Consider MA. It voted 61% in 2012 for Obama or 62% of the two-party vote. Mathematical analysis of districts predicts that the Dems should hold 74% of the seats based on their 2012 results (2% advantage for every 1% above 50%). The legislative boundaries largely follow town lines, yet the legislature is divided 36-4 in the Senate and 128-32 in the House. That is 82% Dem. Likewise all 9 CDs went to Dems, and there is some gerrymandering, but generally the best a Pub map can do is one CD that merely leans Dem, with hope in strong GOP years. That is not consistent with their voting share in the state. The demographic problem for the Pubs is that they are too dispersed in MA to form a majority in a CD, and then in only a fraction of the smaller legislative seats.

[muon2]

I decided to test FL to see how much the geography skews the opportunity for a fair map. To test this I drew a 40 seat Senate map starting with the UCCs for FL and putting no more than the minimum number of SDs in each UCC (ie no UCC chops). I avoided county chops except within UCCs, and tried to minimize the number of excess chops. Within chopped counties muni chops were avoided.

All the districts are within 5% of the quota, and they were drawn with an eye towards minimizing erosity, though no specific measure was used. In Miami-Dade there is one BVAP majority SD and 5 HVAP majority SDs (2R, 3D), and two additional BVAP opportunity SDs (37-38%).



I use 5 categories for assessing the political tendency of a district. Uppercase (R, D) are uncompetitive PVI 6 or greater. Lower case (r, d) are competitive PVI 2 to 5. Even (e) is PVI 0 or 1. This map rates as 16R, 7r, 1e, 3d, 13D. That puts 11 of 40 SDs in the competitive range.

The state overall is R+2 so there should be a structural advantage of 3 seats. The seven SD R-D advantage means a skew number of 4 for the map. Presumably some concentrated effort could reduce that at the cost of some chops.

My curiosity centered on the split proposal, and the political ramifications are pretty clear. NF would have all or most of 13 of the SDs, with a split of 8R, 3r, 1d, 1D. That leaves SF with 8R, 4r, 1e, 2d, 12D or a D-R advantage of 2. My proposed version that only involves the water resources in the resolution is 4R, 1r, 1d, 9D. I still wonder why they didn't just go that direction?

[muon2]

Since the purpose of this proposal is to create a state that would be in the best position to deal with global warming, rising sea levels and hurricanes, I think this would be the best way to divide the state:

I think we are in agreement as to what the resolution calls for in content, though not in map. My preceding post gives an idea of the political breakdown of the area you suggest.

Given all that, I can only find justification in the resolution for a much reduced version of South Florida. That would include only 11 counties including Lee, Glades, Okeechobee, St. Lucie, and those to the south. That amounts to only 38% of the current population of FL, compared to 67% in the resolution.

nb, if a mod wants to move this thread to Political Geography, I have no objections.