Per SCOTUS, initiative created redistricting commissions may be l'histoire
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Torie
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« Reply #125 on: March 08, 2015, 06:55:41 PM »
« edited: March 08, 2015, 06:57:40 PM by Torie »

No, it's actually AZ-02 that becomes safe Pub. But yes, it will make it harder to keep AZ-01 as Dem as it is, although I think the "Dem" AZ Commission found a way to do it, where AZ-01 took in Cochise County, and found some Pubs on its Western side to lose to offset the Pub accretions in the SE corner. But Mathis axed that idea, to make AZ-01 just a tad more Dem (she felt it needed a bit more shoring up, and losing Prescott and taking in Sedona was not quite enough), and AZ-02 a tad more Pub. That didn't turn out too well for her in the end, but I digress.
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Sbane
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« Reply #126 on: March 08, 2015, 09:29:28 PM »
« Edited: March 08, 2015, 09:34:35 PM by Sbane »

In other news, while Train and Bane fantasize about maps on the Cali terrain that will never, ever be drawn (I doubt the Dems will go even go so far as to do what I did, and suspect they will do absolutely nothing actually but enact the existing map (inter alia, Governor Brown not wanting to unduly embarrass himself) for reasons adduced by moi above), here is a "de-gerrymandered" good government map of AZ that the Commission should have drawn, but didn't, due to the Mathis mole machinations. Cheers. Tongue

Oh, in an attempt to be as solicitous and helpful to our Dem friends as possible, and resolve all doubts in their favor without deterioration in map quality, the third map below is an alternative for Phoenix that creates 2% to 3% Pub PVI CD's per 2008 figures (subtracting 5.5 points from the inflated favorite son McCain totals to correct for that distortion in the partisan baseline (5.5 points is my guess; the trend in 2008 was 7.31%, and the trend back to the Dems in 2012 was 1.72%, so it could be anywhere from 7.31% to 1.72, and the average of the two trends would be 4.52%), and the averagewhat AZ trended from 2004 to 2008 in the Pub direction). They get this alternative map in exchange for the CA Dems leaving the existing map alone (other than perhaps strengthening Dem incumbents which they really don't need to do anymore (other than perhaps the Costa CD), but I digress). Tongue

That map is a nasty gerrymander of Tucscon. And what you did with Tempe was cute too. Do you genuinely believe this is not a Republican gerrymander you have drawn?

Oh, did you ever draw a map that kept Tucson and adjacent Hispanic areas (I assume that you don't want to chop up the Hispanic community) all in one CD? You keep talking about chopping Tucson, but all the maps chop. The thing is, is that if you keep Tucson whole, sure it's Dem, but doesn't that make AZ-02 safely Pub in turn (you just turned the second Hispanic CD into a white liberal CD)?

Below is a map that keeps Tucson and adjacent burbs and Hispanics together, in a responsible way. Now what?



Maybe something like this?  You know what, I think the Pubs, if not in a krazen mood, might just cut a deal with you. Smiley  Moral of the story: once you lose from AZ-02 the white liberals in Tucson to unite the city in one CD, AZ-02 becomes safe Pub. That was the last thing the "Dem" AZ Commission wanted to do. They think your idea sucks, actually.
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I don't care what some partisans want. A whole district within Pima county is what makes sense and what a fair map would draw. Keep the metro area and county whole as much as possible.

And yes, I have drawn a map that keep Pima county together and the leftover population are the Hispanic areas which are put in Grijalva's district.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #127 on: March 09, 2015, 01:23:14 AM »

However, I am not sure kraxen's map is legal under the VRA. Creating an ersatz Hispanic CD like that, losing Hispanics on the perimeters in various locations to take in the core in disparate locations, might be viewed as racial gerrymandering ala that NC map, where SCOTUS axed that Watt CD back when. It may have taken erosity a bit too far. The point being that if an Hispanic (black) CD can be created that is compact, is it legal to make one hideously erose, going all over the state? Interesting question. Maybe Muon2 has a thought on it. It's one thing to create a majority minority CD that can only be done by going all over the place (not mandated of course, but legal); quite another when it is unnecessary to do so, to create the requisite majority minority CD.
I think the current VA case touches on that very issue. The lower court, citing other cases, said that VA-3 was drawn with race as the primary factor. The unusual shape including the hopscotch down the river led to that conclusion, and it was recognized that there were other districts that could provide an opportunity for the minority to elect a candidate of choice without the gerrymander.
When VA-3 was first drawn, it had a 60% BVAP.  The court rejected that map, which included fingers into Petersburg, and a swath of rural counties north of the James River (they were not majority black, but were apparently blacker than any areas adjacent to the intricately drawn boundaries in the Richmond and Hampton Roads areas.  If you started with a district consisting of the James River, and started adding precincts based on their BVAP, you might get such a result.  It is sort of like trying to draw the two majority BVAP senate districts in Cuyahoga County, and you end up choosing between Parma and Lakewood based on their blackness.

The court also said that they didn't believe the first prong of the Gingles test could be met, even though a 60% BVAP district was obviously possible.   The revised plan removed Portsmouth from the district, and dropped some of the other appendages.  But if you were identifying a compact area with a majority BVAP, you would hardly exclude Portsmouth.

Since Virginia has not been gaining representatives, and the population growth has been highest in NoVA, it has become even less possible to draw a district that meets the first prong, since the districts must be larger - and the black population has likely become somewhat more dispersed.
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Torie
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« Reply #128 on: March 09, 2015, 11:47:36 AM »

However, I am not sure kraxen's map is legal under the VRA. Creating an ersatz Hispanic CD like that, losing Hispanics on the perimeters in various locations to take in the core in disparate locations, might be viewed as racial gerrymandering ala that NC map, where SCOTUS axed that Watt CD back when. It may have taken erosity a bit too far. The point being that if an Hispanic (black) CD can be created that is compact, is it legal to make one hideously erose, going all over the state? Interesting question. Maybe Muon2 has a thought on it. It's one thing to create a majority minority CD that can only be done by going all over the place (not mandated of course, but legal); quite another when it is unnecessary to do so, to create the requisite majority minority CD.

I think the current VA case touches on that very issue. The lower court, citing other cases, said that VA-3 was drawn with race as the primary factor. The unusual shape including the hopscotch down the river led to that conclusion, and it was recognized that there were other districts that could provide an opportunity for the minority to elect a candidate of choice without the gerrymander.

At the other extreme is a district like IL-4. It was originally created in 1991 and the bizarre shape was upheld, since to directly connect the two Hispanic neighborhoods would have bisected a black majority CD. The operating conclusion was that an unusual shape for a VRA district had to be strongly justified by the state - basically that the burden is on the state to show that a strange-shaped district was the only means to comport with section 2. That concept applied in part in LULAC (TX), where the remade Hispanic CD could not be justified and the map was overturned.

I think Krazen's map could be easily attacked and would be hard to defend.

I found this map that I put together in Nov 2011 during the AZ commission debate.


I wasn't using political data when this was designed, only putting in two Hispanic CDs. It ends up with 6 firm R, 1 lean R and 2 firm D districts.

Also, my districts have an average deviation of only 66, an inequality score of 2. Smiley I'm not sure how to calculate erosity in AZ yet. Tongue

Since the second Hispanic CD is not legally mandated, your map and mine violate a ton of the rules that we have evolved and which we agree upon. Tongue  What should be done is to draw a compact Tucson CD that does not chop Tucson. Drawing the second Hispanic CD creates a ton of chops, and massive erosity. It was only done because it had been done before. I doubt either of us would have gone there absent that.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #129 on: March 09, 2015, 03:13:15 PM »

I find your map quite hideous, Train. It may be "fair" in a skew sense, but not in any other sense. JMO. (I did the cross the mountain thing there for AZ-07 on its south end to make the map work elsewhere better, but whatever.)

Care to elaborate on what, exactly, is "hideous" about it?  Honestly curious.

Still curious for an answer to this question.
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Sbane
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« Reply #130 on: March 10, 2015, 12:24:29 AM »
« Edited: March 10, 2015, 12:26:00 AM by Sbane »

Toriie, is the current Hispanic district 50% HVAP? I don't think it is and there is no reason to racially gerrymander to such an extent.

A good government map should have one whole district within Pima county. it would be very hard to convince me otherwise. What argument do you even have, besides inflating Hispanic numbers for no reason.

Your map isn't the worst Republican gerrymander (well, the last one is) but is certainly still a gerrymander. Furthermore, it most certainly is not a "good government" map and you should stop calling it that.

Well we will just have to agree to disagree. AZ-03 is 60% Hispanic (probably just based on population - HVAP might be more like 55%); they really packed it. The "Dem" AZ Commission moved the white liberals in Tucson into AZ-02, and AZ-03 took in lots of Hispanics in the Phoenix area to find the replacement, this time Hispanic, Democrats (which since they tend not to vote in high numbers, is why the Dem Hispanic incumbent's margins tend to be somewhat lackluster now). My little reverse gerrymander just moved the white liberals back out of AZ-02, but instead of going into AZ-03, they went into a Pub vote sink instead.  White liberals (and of course blacks when not leashed by the VRA), are the key groups to move around when gerrymandering.

Obviously krazen is more skilled at this than I am (having a Pub vote sink take in the white liberals, and the Dem Phoenix Hispanic vote sink take in the Hispanics, in a tag team effort to chop Tucson to bits). Now AZ-03 has basically mostly moved to Phoenix, except that rather than Hispanic Phoenix, it's now white Pub Phoenix. The only flaw in his map is that he failed to have all the AZ CD's take in some of Maricopa County, but he got closer than I did. Those Mormons in Mesa and environs are just spreading their seed everywhere as it were. Smiley

However, I am not sure kraxen's map is legal under the VRA. Creating an ersatz Hispanic CD like that, losing Hispanics on the perimeters in various locations to take in the core in disparate locations, might be viewed as racial gerrymandering ala that NC map, where SCOTUS axed that Watt CD back when. It may have taken erosity a bit too far. The point being that if an Hispanic (black) CD can be created that is compact, is it legal to make one hideously erose, going all over the state? Interesting question. Maybe Muon2 has a thought on it. It's one thing to create a majority minority CD that can only be done by going all over the place (not mandated of course, but legal); quite another when it is unnecessary to do so, to create the requisite majority minority CD.

Off topic, sbane, but what do you think my signature map is about? Smiley  You still in Nashville by the way?


I drew a district wholly within Pima County and used the excess to pad the Hispanic numbers in AZ-3. AZ-2 is a swing district with Obama and McCain getting almost the same number of votes. AZ-4 is more than 65% Hispanic. So you can have a district that is wholly within Pima County as well as two districts that can elect Hispanics.

Yeah, I am in Nashville until this summer. Plans after that haven't been finalized yet. Stay tuned!

And the mystery of the map was already solved on page 4 of this thread. Smiley
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Sbane
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« Reply #131 on: March 10, 2015, 02:32:43 PM »
« Edited: March 10, 2015, 02:35:28 PM by Sbane »

Here is what I would draw in Pima County and the Hispanic district in the Phoenix area.

AZ-2    Obama: 49.4% McCain:49.5%
AZ-3    Obama: 56.7% McCain: 42.2%   Hispanic: 60.5%
AZ-4    Obama: 63.9% McCain: 34.9%   Hispanic: 65.8%

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muon2
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« Reply #132 on: March 11, 2015, 07:02:13 AM »

However, I am not sure kraxen's map is legal under the VRA. Creating an ersatz Hispanic CD like that, losing Hispanics on the perimeters in various locations to take in the core in disparate locations, might be viewed as racial gerrymandering ala that NC map, where SCOTUS axed that Watt CD back when. It may have taken erosity a bit too far. The point being that if an Hispanic (black) CD can be created that is compact, is it legal to make one hideously erose, going all over the state? Interesting question. Maybe Muon2 has a thought on it. It's one thing to create a majority minority CD that can only be done by going all over the place (not mandated of course, but legal); quite another when it is unnecessary to do so, to create the requisite majority minority CD.

I think the current VA case touches on that very issue. The lower court, citing other cases, said that VA-3 was drawn with race as the primary factor. The unusual shape including the hopscotch down the river led to that conclusion, and it was recognized that there were other districts that could provide an opportunity for the minority to elect a candidate of choice without the gerrymander.

At the other extreme is a district like IL-4. It was originally created in 1991 and the bizarre shape was upheld, since to directly connect the two Hispanic neighborhoods would have bisected a black majority CD. The operating conclusion was that an unusual shape for a VRA district had to be strongly justified by the state - basically that the burden is on the state to show that a strange-shaped district was the only means to comport with section 2. That concept applied in part in LULAC (TX), where the remade Hispanic CD could not be justified and the map was overturned.

I think Krazen's map could be easily attacked and would be hard to defend.

I found this map that I put together in Nov 2011 during the AZ commission debate.


I wasn't using political data when this was designed, only putting in two Hispanic CDs. It ends up with 6 firm R, 1 lean R and 2 firm D districts.

Also, my districts have an average deviation of only 66, an inequality score of 2. Smiley I'm not sure how to calculate erosity in AZ yet. Tongue

Since the second Hispanic CD is not legally mandated, your map and mine violate a ton of the rules that we have evolved and which we agree upon. Tongue  What should be done is to draw a compact Tucson CD that does not chop Tucson. Drawing the second Hispanic CD creates a ton of chops, and massive erosity. It was only done because it had been done before. I doubt either of us would have gone there absent that.

No doubt we have evolved in thoughts about mapmaking. To apply our current metrics to AZ would require a bit of work to identify county subdivisions and determine how to treat reservations and connections between counties and subdivisions.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #133 on: March 11, 2015, 05:01:51 PM »

No doubt we have evolved in thoughts about mapmaking. To apply our current metrics to AZ would require a bit of work to identify county subdivisions and determine how to treat reservations and connections between counties and subdivisions.
90% of Arizona's population is urban (in urbanized areas and urban clusters).   Would a better approach in Arizona be to ignore counties and focus on the highway connections between urban areas?   The connection between Pima and Maricopa is particularly tenuous.

Perhaps the entire population of a census tract (or tribal census tract) could be associated with the largest urban area in the tract.  The Phoenix area could use the cities.
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Torie
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« Reply #134 on: March 14, 2015, 05:06:39 PM »
« Edited: March 14, 2015, 05:37:20 PM by Torie »

Here is what I would draw in Pima County and the Hispanic district in the Phoenix area.

AZ-2    Obama: 49.4% McCain:49.5%
AZ-3    Obama: 56.7% McCain: 42.2%   Hispanic: 60.5%
AZ-4    Obama: 63.9% McCain: 34.9%   Hispanic: 65.8%




That convolution in the Tucson area, aka a racial gerrymandering, which carefully puts the white liberals all into AZ-02, is arguably even more “hideous” sbane than Train’s effort. Tongue

Well, “hideous” is too strong a word for Train’s modest Dem gerrymander. My objections to his map (he requested elaboration, and I apologize in being tardy in providing it) are mostly aesthetic.  I note them on his map below



The real problem of course, is this non legally mandated ersatz second Hispanic CD, that violates just about every rule in the book per Muon2’s little “rules.” And yes, Tucson is a Dem town, and needs and deserves a Dem CD. It just should not be gerrymandered to create a Dem CD, and a tilt Dem CD. In fact, if one abandons that unfortunate frolic and detour, suddenly one is able to create a map which I suspect would score very high (might be hard indeed to score higher) per Muon2’s metrics. This assumes that chops to accommodate and keep together Indian Reservations don’t count as chops or anything else, and one pretends that they are just not there (which I think is appropriate). Given that exception, the map below I think can hardly be described as  a Pub gerrymander, and would score very high in a map contest, using the rules that we have evolved. The chop by AZ-02 into Apache County is a microchop by the way, so it does not count.
 
 

Oh, for desert, I offer up a legal 8-1 Pub gerrymander (in Pima, AZ-03 takes the Hispanics, and AZ-02 and AZ-05 split up the more troublesome psephologically speaking for Pubs, white liberal zone), that I think masks the mischief reasonably well. It cuts down AZ-05 to 53.7% McCain, which is a tad tight, but it should hold and be just beyond dummymander territory. AZ-02 is 53.5% McCain, so it moves about 3 points in the Pub direction, and the former Hispanic CD, AZ-03 is now 52.9% McCain. The current incumbent will not be able to win there, and it would be in play, but should have a Pub tilt. One really cannot do much better I think, without a ridiculously looking map ala sbane’s most creative efforts at Dem gerrymandering in CA. The problem is that it is next to impossible to do a quad-chop of Pima County, which is needed for a safer 8-1 map (absent krazen’s probably illegal effort to create an erose Hispanic CD, that packs all the Dems in), given the huge precincts in area over the empty desert, and the Indian Reservation blockage issue. One does not want to mess with Native Americans in AZ. That is a bridge too far, as both parties acknowledge.

Anyway, the AZ Pubs can send this sort of map to the CA Dems as a bargaining chip perhaps, if SCOTUS axes the AZ commission’s map. It would be far preferable to just use the higher scoring map per Muon2’s metrics instead however, which I think would be hard to characterize as any sort of gerrymander at all, much less a slash and burn one. Thus if the CA Dems go there, it would hardly be a symmetrical retaliation.


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Sol
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« Reply #135 on: March 14, 2015, 07:07:23 PM »

I'm pretty sure dissolving Grijalva's district is not something on the table. And, IMO, gerrymandering AZ latin@s out of two congressional districts is unfair, even if it isn't necessarily a VRA violation. Minority rights come before all others; that's just the way the cookie crumbles. In AZ protecting minority voting rights means helping the Dems by splitting Tucson; in LA doing the same keeps the GOP's 5 districts.
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muon2
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« Reply #136 on: March 14, 2015, 09:15:42 PM »


The real problem of course, is this non legally mandated ersatz second Hispanic CD, that violates just about every rule in the book per Muon2’s little “rules.” And yes, Tucson is a Dem town, and needs and deserves a Dem CD. It just should not be gerrymandered to create a Dem CD, and a tilt Dem CD. In fact, if one abandons that unfortunate frolic and detour, suddenly one is able to create a map which I suspect would score very high (might be hard indeed to score higher) per Muon2’s metrics. This assumes that chops to accommodate and keep together Indian Reservations don’t count as chops or anything else, and one pretends that they are just not there (which I think is appropriate). Given that exception, the map below I think can hardly be described as  a Pub gerrymander, and would score very high in a map contest, using the rules that we have evolved. The chop by AZ-02 into Apache County is a microchop by the way, so it does not count.
 
 

Oh, for desert, I offer up a legal 8-1 Pub gerrymander (in Pima, AZ-03 takes the Hispanics, and AZ-02 and AZ-05 split up the more troublesome psephologically speaking for Pubs, white liberal zone), that I think masks the mischief reasonably well. It cuts down AZ-05 to 53.7% McCain, which is a tad tight, but it should hold and be just beyond dummymander territory. AZ-02 is 53.5% McCain, so it moves about 3 points in the Pub direction, and the former Hispanic CD, AZ-03 is now 52.9% McCain. The current incumbent will not be able to win there, and it would be in play, but should have a Pub tilt. One really cannot do much better I think, without a ridiculously looking map ala sbane’s most creative efforts at Dem gerrymandering in CA. The problem is that it is next to impossible to do a quad-chop of Pima County, which is needed for a safer 8-1 map (absent krazen’s probably illegal effort to create an erose Hispanic CD, that packs all the Dems in), given the huge precincts in area over the empty desert, and the Indian Reservation blockage issue. One does not want to mess with Native Americans in AZ. That is a bridge too far, as both parties acknowledge.

Anyway, the AZ Pubs can send this sort of map to the CA Dems as a bargaining chip perhaps, if SCOTUS axes the AZ commission’s map. It would be far preferable to just use the higher scoring map per Muon2’s metrics instead however, which I think would be hard to characterize as any sort of gerrymander at all, much less a slash and burn one. Thus if the CA Dems go there, it would hardly be a symmetrical retaliation.




Here are a couple of tidbits about the application of muon2 rules to AZ.

Yuma and Pima aren't connected, so the first plan above would be disallowed.

There are lots of UCCs in AZ. The big one is Phoenix with Maricopa and Pinal. Together they make up 5.9 CDs. The cover is 6 and the pack is 5, making the first plan above a great candidate since it incurs no penalty there, except for the connection problem. Sad

The Tucson UCC is a single county one, but it is larger than a CD so there must be a whole CD nested within the county to avoid a UCC pack penalty. When we discussed dropping the penalty for single county UCCs, I don't think that we intended to avoid a large single county UCC like Pima.

Yavapai, Movave, Yuma, Coconino, and Cochise are all small single county UCCs. Torie hasn't commented on the first round of scoring in the MI thread, but I'm leaning towards not penalizing single county UCCs with less than a macrochop. If so macrochops should be specifically avoided except in Maricopa and Pima where they must exist. Of course they probably should be avoided for erosity reasons, too.

I like the idea of Torie's reservation exemption, which I might describe as reservations acting as extra counties independent of the statutory counties. They are connected if there are local connections to the counties that the reservations overlap.

With all that the best way to avoid macrochops and UCC penalties is to link Maricopa, Pinal, and Gila extended to the reservations that overlap Gila and fill that with 6 CDs. That leaves a donut around the state with 3 CDs and Yuma and Pima can't connect.



I'm think that some UCC penalties might be preferable to this CD 3. Tongue
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Torie
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« Reply #137 on: March 14, 2015, 10:49:48 PM »

I don't agree with a rule that you cannot connect counties connected by land mass with no state highway connection I don't think. Yes, if you sever them, it helps with the erosity score, since nothing is severed, but I think that is about it. It can be fixed by doing another county chop, but why? At worst, you could count it as another chop, but to me, it just seems wrong. Keeping counties together is a good thing, not something to be thwarted by some hard and fast rule, that just says no.
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muon2
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« Reply #138 on: March 15, 2015, 07:05:12 AM »
« Edited: March 15, 2015, 07:54:59 AM by muon2 »

I don't agree with a rule that you cannot connect counties connected by land mass with no state highway connection I don't think. Yes, if you sever them, it helps with the erosity score, since nothing is severed, but I think that is about it. It can be fixed by doing another county chop, but why? At worst, you could count it as another chop, but to me, it just seems wrong. Keeping counties together is a good thing, not something to be thwarted by some hard and fast rule, that just says no.

You were a proponent of that rule when it came to mountains. It made sense in CA and WA. We use that rule to avoid connecting counties in the Midwest that adjoin by only a small segment with no highway, and that seemed fine in MI, your maps included. It also prevents leaping bodies of water with no bridge or ferry within a state to connect counties. In VA it allows one to determine where one can cross the James and Chesapeake, and distance across the water doesn't always help given the long bridge that links the Delmarva.

You can't ditch the rule just because it forces a UCC penalty in AZ to avoid an erose mess. It's just another example of local geography constraining the map.

edit: One of the tools in the gerrymanderers kit is to connect areas with no road connections. Some states even have language requiring that it be convenient to travel between areas in a district to block that type of district. One map expert I spoke to thought it would be one of the most useful anti-gerrymandering rules one could have. That's why I use it here.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #139 on: March 15, 2015, 08:46:54 AM »
« Edited: March 15, 2015, 01:03:00 PM by traininthedistance »

Well, “hideous” is too strong a word for Train’s modest Dem gerrymander. My objections to his map (he requested elaboration, and I apologize in being tardy in providing it) are mostly aesthetic.  I note them on his map below

That little hook between 6 and 9 is unfortunate; I'd like to fix it.  I don't think there's anything wrong with my District 1, though: it's more of an east-west line (modulo drawing around reservations and such) and Cochise doesn't really fit any better with Tucson IMO.  I'd argue it's nicer-looking and better-connected than your District 2, as well.

Your way of dealing with reservations is of course correct, I think we can be unanimous on that point.

And, yes, everything depends on whether Grijalva's district is protected/encouraged/mandated or not. I suspect that we are better off keeping it.
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muon2
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« Reply #140 on: March 15, 2015, 02:10:05 PM »

Well, “hideous” is too strong a word for Train’s modest Dem gerrymander. My objections to his map (he requested elaboration, and I apologize in being tardy in providing it) are mostly aesthetic.  I note them on his map below

That little hook between 6 and 9 is unfortunate; I'd like to fix it.  I don't think there's anything wrong with my District 1, though: it's more of an east-west line (modulo drawing around reservations and such) and Cochise doesn't really fit any better with Tucson IMO.  I'd argue it's nicer-looking and better-connected than your District 2, as well.

Your way of dealing with reservations is of course correct, I think we can be unanimous on that point.

And, yes, everything depends on whether Grijalva's district is protected/encouraged/mandated or not. I suspect that we are better off keeping it.

Is keeping it a state choice, like in Bartlett where NC would be permitted to draw a non-mandated district? Do you think there's some mandate given the 24% Latino CVAP in AZ? It would be hard to make the case that Yuma and Tucson are close enough for Gingles. If the state eliminated it I assume there would be a suit to preserve it, but could the suit prevail?
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Torie
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« Reply #141 on: March 15, 2015, 02:13:23 PM »

Well, “hideous” is too strong a word for Train’s modest Dem gerrymander. My objections to his map (he requested elaboration, and I apologize in being tardy in providing it) are mostly aesthetic.  I note them on his map below

That little hook between 6 and 9 is unfortunate; I'd like to fix it.  I don't think there's anything wrong with my District 1, though: it's more of an east-west line (modulo drawing around reservations and such) and Cochise doesn't really fit any better with Tucson IMO.  I'd argue it's nicer-looking and better-connected than your District 2, as well.

Your way of dealing with reservations is of course correct, I think we can be unanimous on that point.

And, yes, everything depends on whether Grijalva's district is protected/encouraged/mandated or not. I suspect that we are better off keeping it.

Is keeping it a state choice, like in Bartlett where NC would be permitted to draw a non-mandated district? Do you think there's some mandate given the 24% Latino CVAP in AZ? It would be hard to make the case that Yuma and Tucson are close enough for Gingles. If the state eliminated it I assume there would be a suit to preserve it, but could the suit prevail?


Not in a trillion years is my opinion. Plus to get to 50% CHVAP, the CD needs to snake into Phoenix as well.
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Torie
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« Reply #142 on: March 15, 2015, 04:29:49 PM »

I don't agree with a rule that you cannot connect counties connected by land mass with no state highway connection I don't think. Yes, if you sever them, it helps with the erosity score, since nothing is severed, but I think that is about it. It can be fixed by doing another county chop, but why? At worst, you could count it as another chop, but to me, it just seems wrong. Keeping counties together is a good thing, not something to be thwarted by some hard and fast rule, that just says no.

You were a proponent of that rule when it came to mountains. It made sense in CA and WA. We use that rule to avoid connecting counties in the Midwest that adjoin by only a small segment with no highway, and that seemed fine in MI, your maps included. It also prevents leaping bodies of water with no bridge or ferry within a state to connect counties. In VA it allows one to determine where one can cross the James and Chesapeake, and distance across the water doesn't always help given the long bridge that links the Delmarva.

You can't ditch the rule just because it forces a UCC penalty in AZ to avoid an erose mess. It's just another example of local geography constraining the map.

edit: One of the tools in the gerrymanderers kit is to connect areas with no road connections. Some states even have language requiring that it be convenient to travel between areas in a district to block that type of district. One map expert I spoke to thought it would be one of the most useful anti-gerrymandering rules one could have. That's why I use it here.

The highway connection thing back then was in the context of the now defunct COI regime. I think it is a bad idea to have an outright ban, where there is a land mass connection, and don't think that will be accepted by states. One gets a lower erosity score without a highway connection, if the two appended counties are put into separate CD's. That is enough for me. There are some counties in Michigan that don't have highway connections just be coincidence.  I mentioned one of them with discussing Jimtex's map. He got one less erosity point than would ordinarily be the case.  AZ is an odd case, because vast swaths of desert have very few roads. Yet having a CD running along the Mexican border makes lot of sense. Forcing a chop into Maricopa to secure a road connection, assuming that does not count as a traveling chop, just makes no sense to me, and would inconvenience the election authorities, having to print special ballots. It forces a more crappy map, to accommodate a rule that is Draconian.  I don't think that is good public policy.
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muon2
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« Reply #143 on: March 15, 2015, 04:59:10 PM »
« Edited: March 15, 2015, 05:03:24 PM by muon2 »

We will disagree on the highway business. I think it is about far more than CoI as I noted in my comment. Connectivity is a vital notion that goes beyond contiguity and the erosity measure was a bonus for me. I will will stick to the principle that one should be able to conveniently travel between significant populations within a district without going through other districts. I have heard it espoused enough in other venues that I remain confident that it can be sold to policy makers.

Anyway here's a version of AZ that only keeps one HVAP-majority CD (56.8%). There is only one extra cover in the Phoenix UCC and no pack penalties. I had a choice between an extra chop into Pinal or a chop into one of the large suburbs, so I went with the Pinal chop. It turns out that Phoenix has 15 recognized "villages" within the city limits. My CD 7 chops none of those to the extent that precincts allow, and only one of the 15 is chopped between CD 8 and 9. I could have avoided that chop but the erosity would suffer.




Would you really describe this as a "crappy" map?
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Torie
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« Reply #144 on: March 20, 2015, 04:33:35 PM »
« Edited: March 20, 2015, 04:35:53 PM by Torie »

No, Muon2, I don't find your map crappy, it's just inferior to mine. Smiley  It chops up Pinal County, and is somewhat more erose. All due to a rule that I don't think serves much purpose, other than to affect the erosity score. Does the map below, generating a micro chop, "fix" the problem since there is now a highway link, or is that a traveling chop? At most, one could perhaps levy a chop penalty, so one is indifferent between a gratuitous chop to get a highway link, versus not doing so. But I really don't favor even that, because chops cause administrative inconvenience with election authorities, and that matters. One should be sensitive to that. Your hard and fast rule with never sell in the public square in my opinion. It will be hard enough to sell your excellent ideas about highway links in general, without this one poison pill, with the ancillary collateral damage that folks  stop listening to the good arguments for using your proxy for erosity. JMO. I know your stubborn and prideful (probably an exercise in projection by me), but perhaps you might seriously consider throwing this minor little bone being tossed my way. It not like I am a wolf chasing that sleigh in War and Peace, where it required huge chunks of red meat being tossed out to deflect the wolves from chasing their live human prey. In contrast, all I ask for is one minor little dissected bone. Give it to me!  Tongue


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muon2
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« Reply #145 on: March 20, 2015, 05:25:54 PM »
« Edited: March 20, 2015, 05:41:23 PM by muon2 »

I concede that my map chops up Pinal, and as I said in my comment on that map I could trade the Pinal chop for chops of the large burbs around Phoenix and I opted for the former, but I'm not wedded to it. For example your offering without the bridge has a pretty nasty chop of Glendale. I'm not sure my map's really that much more erose than yours, and if I chopped some burbs it might well match or betters yours in erosity. We'd have to agree on county subdivisions within the large counties to make a definitive determination.

I gave you the end of free microchops and start of penalties for UCC underpacks, so I think have been eminently reasonable when I comes to good ideas that have demonstrable value. However on this one there is public value to disallow any districts where you can't drive from one part of the district to another without passing through other districts. The only exception I consider is when a county is disconnected internally due to water, deserts or mountains and the plan keeps the county whole. As to the public acceptance I will simply cite the Washington state statute on redistricting (RCW 44.05.090), "Areas separated by geographical boundaries or artificial barriers that prevent transportation within a district should not be deemed contiguous." That is very good public policy IMO and has been recommended at many panels I have attended as a strong tool to fight gerrymandering.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #146 on: March 20, 2015, 08:46:37 PM »

I gave you the end of free microchops and start of penalties for UCC underpacks, so I think have been eminently reasonable when I comes to good ideas that have demonstrable value. However on this one there is public value to disallow any districts where you can't drive from one part of the district to another without passing through other districts. The only exception I consider is when a county is disconnected internally due to water, deserts or mountains and the plan keeps the county whole. As to the public acceptance I will simply cite the Washington state statute on redistricting (RCW 44.05.090), "Areas separated by geographical boundaries or artificial barriers that prevent transportation within a district should not be deemed contiguous." That is very good public policy IMO and has been recommended at many panels I have attended as a strong tool to fight gerrymandering.
What is an example of either a geographical boundary or artificial barrier that prevents transportation within a district?
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muon2
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« Reply #147 on: March 20, 2015, 10:17:45 PM »

I gave you the end of free microchops and start of penalties for UCC underpacks, so I think have been eminently reasonable when I comes to good ideas that have demonstrable value. However on this one there is public value to disallow any districts where you can't drive from one part of the district to another without passing through other districts. The only exception I consider is when a county is disconnected internally due to water, deserts or mountains and the plan keeps the county whole. As to the public acceptance I will simply cite the Washington state statute on redistricting (RCW 44.05.090), "Areas separated by geographical boundaries or artificial barriers that prevent transportation within a district should not be deemed contiguous." That is very good public policy IMO and has been recommended at many panels I have attended as a strong tool to fight gerrymandering.
What is an example of either a geographical boundary or artificial barrier that prevents transportation within a district?

In WA it is primarily the Cascades where major highways are needed to justify a link, and Puget Sound where only ferries and bridges count as connections. In principle it can apply to any other part of geography that interrupts transportation.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #148 on: March 21, 2015, 04:16:19 AM »

I gave you the end of free microchops and start of penalties for UCC underpacks, so I think have been eminently reasonable when I comes to good ideas that have demonstrable value. However on this one there is public value to disallow any districts where you can't drive from one part of the district to another without passing through other districts. The only exception I consider is when a county is disconnected internally due to water, deserts or mountains and the plan keeps the county whole. As to the public acceptance I will simply cite the Washington state statute on redistricting (RCW 44.05.090), "Areas separated by geographical boundaries or artificial barriers that prevent transportation within a district should not be deemed contiguous." That is very good public policy IMO and has been recommended at many panels I have attended as a strong tool to fight gerrymandering.
What is an example of either a geographical boundary or artificial barrier that prevents transportation within a district?

In WA it is primarily the Cascades where major highways are needed to justify a link, and Puget Sound where only ferries and bridges count as connections. In principle it can apply to any other part of geography that interrupts transportation.
The Cascades and Puget Sound are not artificial barriers.
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muon2
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« Reply #149 on: March 21, 2015, 11:46:44 AM »

I gave you the end of free microchops and start of penalties for UCC underpacks, so I think have been eminently reasonable when I comes to good ideas that have demonstrable value. However on this one there is public value to disallow any districts where you can't drive from one part of the district to another without passing through other districts. The only exception I consider is when a county is disconnected internally due to water, deserts or mountains and the plan keeps the county whole. As to the public acceptance I will simply cite the Washington state statute on redistricting (RCW 44.05.090), "Areas separated by geographical boundaries or artificial barriers that prevent transportation within a district should not be deemed contiguous." That is very good public policy IMO and has been recommended at many panels I have attended as a strong tool to fight gerrymandering.
What is an example of either a geographical boundary or artificial barrier that prevents transportation within a district?

In WA it is primarily the Cascades where major highways are needed to justify a link, and Puget Sound where only ferries and bridges count as connections. In principle it can apply to any other part of geography that interrupts transportation.
The Cascades and Puget Sound are not artificial barriers.

The two I listed are geographical. I believe that an example of an artificial barrier would be a road along a boundary between two areas without a road that separately connects into each of those areas.
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