NY with 26 CDs in 2020

[Torie]

Here is my effort for an upstate NY map for 2022 assuming 26 CD’s.  I redrew all the CD’s from NY-16 on up.  My CD, NY-19 disappears as expected, with its remnants (including in particular, Columbia County) after NY-22 and NY-20 suck up most of it, appended to NY-18. Two lean Pub CD’s, NY-22 and NY-23, move to even, and one even CD, NY-21, moves from even to tilt Pub.   As long as Hanna in NY-22 is around, the Pubs have no worries about NY-22 (Hanna will be 71 in 2022), and presumably Reed absent something going wrong, will be able to hold on in NY-23. If Gibson were still around, the battle between him on Maloney in NY-18 would have been awesome, but he won’t be, so Maloney should have the edge, but lots on money will be dumped into that CD election after election.   How exciting for me! Maybe I should run someday.

The single most unhappy person will be Nita Lowey in NY-17, as her districts moves from strong lean Dem to just tilt Dem.  But Nita Lowey will not be around in 2022 presumably (she will be 84). But I would advise the Dems to replace her with a moderate if I were them, in anticipation of the inevitable. The shape of the state sort of dictates the map configuration at the Westchester area choke point, through which all the population changes flow. Almost all of the lost CD is from upstate NY (about 5/6 of a CD).  

Oh Louise Slaughter would not be thrilled either, but fortunately for her, she won’t be running in the new lines next year, and her replacement should be pretty safe in NY-25, absent something very odd going down.

All in all, the Pubs should be reasonably happy with the new map, from an upstate NY standpoint.

[Torie]

Torie- wouldn't the Rochester district want to take Ontario rather than Orleans, if the UCCs stay the same?

I have to feel that 18 could be a little less nicer, somehow, as well.  Perhaps have 17 go up the east side of the Hudson and make 18 mostly a Rockland-Orange district?

Certainly Albany and the North Country are far better than muon's map, that's good at least.

I didn't want to tri-chop Livingston, and if Ontario were chopped, that would make my foray into Livingston by NY-23 a traveling chop, and I disliked the idea of chopping into Allegheny by NY-23 in lieu of Livingston. Your suggestion for NY-17 and NY-18 strikes me as an excellent one. Odd I didn't think of that. Yet another senior moment!

[Torie]

A yes, it’s gorgeous – just gorgeous. Well done, Train!  ☺ Now, Maloney is very happy in NY-18, and reasonably safe, and well, when Lowey retires, finding a moderate Dem to replace to hold NY-17 becomes job one for the Dems. NY-17 is basically the old Gilman seat (a liberal Jewish Pub), that was put on the chopping block when there was a bipartisan gerrymander in 1992 I believe (dumping the liberal Pub who was not much use to the Pubs along with a Dem is what bipartisan gerrymanders are all about).

I didn't realize Ontario was part of the Rochester UCC. I will fix that when I return from having a late lunch. I tend to doubt that Wayne will join the Rochester UCC. It's losing population. If and when it does, adjustments can be made, but NY-24 has nice lines, and adding Ontario to it would be unfortunate, and mess up the map, in particular NY-27 and NY-23 I suspect. The real map drawers are not going to care of course whether Ontario (or Wayne) is part of the UCC of not. It certainly is not obvious on the ground. 



 

[Torie]

UCC issues resolved.  NY-22 looks kind of ugly, but whatever.  The Delaware and Herkimer chops are natural microchops (which is good, because the Delaware chop needs to go away, or we have a traveling chop problem), and with some giggling of the 0.5% population variance elbow room, the Alleghany and Broome chops can go away as well, so there are 6 upstate chops, including Westchester and Rockland, by my count.

Muon2's and my figures don't quite match. NY-18 needs to cross the Hudson into Rockland, if NY-18 is not to cross into Columbia County. It's 18,620 short in population.

Oh yes, there is a bridge between Columbia and Greene Counties - appropriately named the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. I know, because I drive over it all the time!    Greene is our competitor county. We here in Columbia County, consider it quite an inferior - and backward - place. Lots of inbred gun toting nutters up there in the Catskills.

The Pubs would quite like this plan. Maloney will be hard to jettison anyway (and he's gay, so that's a plus for the "gay mafia" crowd ), and Lowey is getting old, so NY-17 looks like ripe hanging fruit. Meanwhile, NY-22 looks a bit safer in case Hanna retires. I am not in love with the cover rule myself for UCC's, so I would never draw this plan. I like keeping Columbia County in the CD on the east side of the river. In all events, I doubt any court would draw a plan like this in the area of controversy - unless of course transfixed by the amicus brief Muon2 submits, while tossing mine in the trash.  
 


 

[Torie]

Westchester is growing at 0.6% per year so far this decade. Projecting out to 2020 adds 56 K in the county that aren't in DRA. Your CD 18 has Dutchess (295K) and Putnam (99K) leaving 385K from Westchester. 385K/1005K is 38%. 38% of 56K is 21K so with a uniform spread of the growth as I described, DRA should show CD 18 as 21K low with its 2010 data. DRA shows it 18.6K low for a difference of 2.4K. That's within 0.5% so my CD is ok for 2020.

Your chopped Delaware has become a bridge between whole counties which is forbidden under the rules.

Suffolk (projected 1516K) will be underpopulated for 2 CDs in 2020 by 43K, but it looks like you cut into it from Nassau.

You mention microchops, but I thought we abandoned them in part at your request.

I will deal with all this later. I have 365,000 for Westchester, not 385,000. What number do you have for the cut of NY-16 into the Bronx? If your number is correct, the chop into Delaware goes away of course.  I also see that the chop from Monroe has to go into Livingston, not Ontario, to get rid of the Allegheny chop. My NY-23 CD is thus in error. My bad. So if the cover rule obtains, it's a coin toss between where the Monroe County CD chop goes.

[Torie]

When I add up all the projected county pops (20,269K) and divide by 26 I get 779.6K for the quota in 2020. That's the value I use to get the leftover population in Westchester. I get Dutchess+Putnam+Westchester is 159K short of 2 CDs, so that has to come out of the Bronx.

The two Buffalo UCC CDs as we both drew them project to be 9.4K short of the quota based on whole counties. That requires a chop out like mine into Steuben.

The UCC was originally designed to create a cover rule. It is only in the last few months that the notion of a pack requirement was put in to match. A pack rule by itself will tend to be a boon for the Pubs by driving the urban population into as few districts as possible. The cover rule can benefit either party depending on the size of the UCC. Without the cover rule I see no purpose to use UCCs at all.

Below are my numbers FWIW. Did you use April 1, 2010 and April 1, 2020 as the bracket dates for the population change extrapolations?

Regarding your comments on the cover and pack rules for UCC's, sometimes the pack rule helps the Dems, as in Kansas certainly, and perhaps Nebraska. The pack rule would help the Pubs where a metro area as a whole is more Dem than the hinterlands. The Pubs used to chop Rochester and Columbus with regularity, and if that is used as the county chop without penalty, it would not hurt the map score that much. And sometimes the suburbs are just as Pub, if not more so, than the hinterlands, e.g., Indianapolis, and Cincinnati, so the pack rule there does not help the Pubs, and may hurt it. I don't think the cover rule systematically helps either party either in general.

With the pack rule, ignoring the cover rule, can only cause mischief up to about half the population of a UCC. For myself, what is important is the size of the "violation" of the cover rule. Minor violations, like I did when NY-17 took in about 17,500 people in Ulster, I don't think violates the spirit of the rule to the extent it should be borne in mind. That is why I wanted to base the cover rule on macrochop increments, with a chop less than a microchip having no penalty. Anyway, I could also hew to the cover rule, by having NY-18 chop into Greene County, with NY-17 getting out of Ulster by chopping more deeply into Westchester County. But that makes for a much more problematical map, which will never, ever be drawn.

This assumes of course that my numbers are accurate, which perhaps they are not. If not, and yours are, I suspect that NY-17 need not chop into Ulster in all events, or it will be very close. This is all projection anyway. Given the 17K is based on what is going on in the state as a whole, and how much upstate is stagnant or losing population vis a vis how much the NYC area is growing, the odds are really about 50-50 at this point either way.

My main purpose in doing this actually, is to submit a 26 and 27 CD map to the local press, because it will be of interest that our CD is slated to undergo massive changes in the next census, due to the unusual shape of the state. Thus I was focusing on what would seem most likely to be drawn, absent the Dems entirely controlling the process, or some weirdo bipartisan gerrymander. What I think is most likely to be drawn, is my map (putting aside the Rochester issue), as amended by Train, to keep NY-18 on the east side of the Hudson River. That is much more likely than NY-18 crossing over into Orange County. NY has a long tradition of keeping Orange and Rockland Counties together, and it makes sense.

[Torie]

Ah, that explains it. What financial function did you use on excel to calculate the annualized percentage rate (which presumably you then compounded for 10 years). I can't remember it now. You method is the correct one. Of course!

Ah, never mind. It's the power function (percentage gain for 4.429 years to the 1/4.429 power). That gives one the annualized rate, which you then take to the 10th power. Aren't you impressed that a lawyer could figure this out? It's used in finance all the time. It appears to magnify the gains and losses a tad, doesn't it? So I think my little Ulster problem goes away. Isn't that grand?

I seem however to come up with a different state population projection and quota number than you did however, and our input numbers match (except for a difference in 4 persons for the current estimate as of 7-1-14). Daily rather than annual compounding does not seem to change the result. Is that because the total number changes when you extrapolate county by county and then sum (since the counties with more population in total are growing faster than the balance of the state)?  Tricky stuff isn't it for non mathematicians.



Yup, that explains it. I get 20,269,149 doing it county by county, which divided by 26 equals 779,582.6398. I always want to know how the black box works, which is why the critical vote mathematics that Jimtex was so helpful (not to mention patient) in walking me though, so endlessly fascinated me. So my mappie will need some tweaking.

[Torie]

And below is the tweaked map. Not much change. If one uses the 0.5% variance rule (this map is drawn to have equal population CD’s), one can eliminate the Broome, Herkimer, Alleghany and Ulster chops (with the last one eliminating the cover and pack problem), and in exchange for the cover penalty for Rochester, one gets the ability in exchange to eliminate the chop of Alleghany, so it is a wash. Some thought perhaps should be given to upping the UCC county test from 40% to 50% perhaps. How was the 40% figure arrived at? Ontario County as Jimtex suggested is kind of an ersatz UCC county.

Anyway, I drew this map, as one a non partisan outfit or court might draw.   Some of the alternatives suggested to win the Muon2 rule contest, assuming this map is not it, are just not going to be drawn. For example, if the cover/pack problem remained for Ulster, a higher scoring map would just cross the river into Greene or Ulster counties from MY-18. That just isn’t going to happen – nor should it.

[Torie]

For some reason, suddenly I can’t type posts anymore, except as  copy and paste. Weird.

[Torie]

I get your motivation now. Political realities are important, and it would be interesting to see how something like this fared on the Pareto test. Could it make the cut to go to the finals where it should fare well?

If the populations are equal then your chop of Ulster should be about 10K. The NYC UCC + Sullivan is only 3K over the population of 18 CDs. That's why it became the basis for my plan. Since Columbia projects to have 13K less than Sullivan, that leaves 10K to come from Ulster.

I still don't see how you chop into Suffolk when it is underpopulated for 2 CDs. The chop should be from Suffolk into Nassau.

I had not redrawn the Long Island burb CD's until this morning. The map is below. I redrew from my prior good government map CD's 1, 2, 3 and 4, and then reconnected NY-06.  There is no point in going further with the data we have in redrawing the NYC CD's, which are driven by the VRA and cross borough lines all over the place. Interestingly, until I realized Smithtown needed to be appended to NY-01 (to minimize the town chop size), CD's 1,2, 3 and 4 all were just about dead even from a PVI standpoint. With the Smithtown revision, NY-01 moves to about a 2% Pub PVI, but NY-02 is still in the even range, at about a 0.5% Dem PVI. NY-03 is about 0.5% Pub, with NY-04 about a 2.0% Dem PVI. So the four CD's achieve near perfect political symmetry (circa 2008 anyway).

As to NYC come to think of it, one potentially nettlesome issue for the redistrictors assuming the black population in Brooklyn is lagging, is what to do about the two existing black CD's there. Does one create two say 40% BVAP CD's, or maybe even high 30's, or one black CD over 50% BVAP. What will the evidence show on that one, as to what percentage will allow African Americans to elect the candidate of their choice. It tandem with that question, will be just what percentage of Hispanics can be expected to vote by 2022, and over the course of the ensuing decade Since the Hispanics are cheek to towel with the blacks, and in many precincts per the 2010 census, living in the same precincts in high percentages. It potentially is an evidentiary nightmare, and so what is one to do, absent the evidence being researched, and adduced?

[Torie]

Thanks for the elaboration. "Straddle" means the line of the urbanized area is connected at some point (no matter how small) to the county line of the other UCC county?

[Torie]

I added NY-11 and NY-08 to the map, and tweaked the lines in NYC to follow ward boundaries where possible. Around NY-08 that was not possible to do entirely, since the ward boundaries there are so erose between my NY-08 and NY-10. NY-08 does not have the old PVI numbers on the chart, because the court did not draw a south Brooklyn seat in remotely the way that I drew it (the court screwed the Pubs out of a seat in south Brooklyn), so the comparison would be meaningless.

The skew using the 2008 numbers for the CD’s, but the 2012 numbers for the state PVI (10% Dem), is zero. Since NY trended a couple of points Dem in 2012, if the 2008 state PVI were used (about 8% Dem), the skew would be 1 in favor of the Dems.  It’s probably more skewed using the 2012 numbers for everything, given most areas of the state trended Dem, but that is not possible to calculate given Dave’s application uses the 2008 election numbers.  In Democratic states, the skew should typically be lower than a more Pub state, since the exponential rise in Dem seats as the PVI moves their way, would tend to offset the natural Pub geographic advantage that exists in most states when drawing CD lines hewing to jurisdictional boundaries.

To answer Train's question, I think the correct standard is to get up to 50% BVAP (but no more if securing a higher percentage involves racial gerrymandering, because as SCOTUS has just reminded us, that is illegal racial packing), if the minority community is contiguous, unless it costs them a seat within a contiguous area, and then you shave the percentage down to see if the second seat can be preserved. The subject CD probably only has maybe 12% HCVAP, so shaving it down much in a zone where the neighboring areas are not black minority friendly would be problematical anyway. Keeping the CD all in Queens will drop the BVAP percentage circa the 2010 census, down to about 46% FWIW. I suspect the percentage is lower now for the portion of the CD within Queens. My impression is that the black population change there is sluggish or declining. So it may arguably be necessary for the CD to jut more into Nassau which is where the black population is migrating (to the extent it is not decamping from the NYC area entirely). Also FWIW, the court when it drew the map for this CD, saw it my way.

 
 

[Torie]

Towns rule over villages. Cities and Towns have equal status. What did I do wrong in Westchester?  Is there a better way to do it? Something has to be chopped it appears to me.



In other news, my residual CD, that orphan child, NY-06, has too many people in it, and I can’t figure out the source of the error. Help!   Oh, NY-04 does not have enough people. Never mind. I will deal with that tomorrow.



The 3 black CD’s are all a bit over 50% BVAP (well, NY-05 is 49.9%), my NY-12 has about 55.1% HVAP, NY-15 is at 62.4% HVAP, and NY-14 is at 54.2% HVAP.

[Torie]

Here is the corrected map. NY-05 is at 50.0% BVAP. I found that it had about 5,000 too many people, and that allowed getting rid of a Nassau County chop.  I jiggled the lines in Westchester a little bit, to get rid of a town chop between NY-17 and NY-18.   FWIW, I drew the lines between NY-04 and NY-06 hewing to ward lines and minimize ward chops (unless too erose, but that did come not into play here because I found the degree of erosity tolerable), except I had to chop one precinct out of NY-04 to connect NY-06 to the Bronx, and then with respect to the other ward that was chopped, I tried to keep as much as possible the Asians in NY-06, unless the lines got too erose, in which event avoiding excessive erosity took precedence.   Nevertheless there was some division of the Asian population, with NY-04 20.1 % AVAP, and NY-06 24.7% AVAP.

NY-06, the way I drew, is probably the most ethnically heterodox CD in the US:  32.4% WVAP, 24.7% AVAP, 23.6% HVAP, and 17.2% BVAP.  ☺ I wonder what it will be like in 2022.  Given the VRA, I suspect something like it will have to be drawn (well the map makers might not care about NY-04 making a traveling chop to the Bronx through Queens, and/or caring whether there is a bridge connection, but I digress).  I did try to draw NY-04 so that it took the entire southern tier of NY-06, and lost its northern Queens salient, so that NY-06 had a better shape, but the population numbers did not work.

NY-03 is the green CD, and NY-02 is the brown CD by the way. That is the way they are currently numbered.

 

[Torie]

NY-06, the way I drew, is probably the most ethnically heterodox CD in the US:  32.4% WVAP, 24.7% AVAP, 23.6% HVAP, and 17.2% BVAP.  ☺ I wonder what it will be like in 2022.  Given the VRA, I suspect something like it will have to be drawn (well the map makers might not care about NY-04 making a traveling chop to the Bronx through Queens, and/or caring whether there is a bridge connection, but I digress).  I did try to draw NY-04 so that it took the entire southern tier of NY-06, and lost its northern Queens salient, so that NY-06 had a better shape, but the population numbers did not work.

Well, the current NY-6 is already 37% Asian (and rising!) and represented by Grace Meng.  I don't think people will take kindly to blowing that up.

Also, I didn't notice this before, but nice work chopping Borough Park to keep NY-11 Pub.  That was slick.  If you're going to draw that Southern Brooklyn Pub district, least you can do is keep all the Hasids together.

COI does not count (except for VRA considerations). I followed ward lines between NY-08 and NY-11. Prior to doing that, I made the line as straight as possible, but my protocol is that following ward lines takes precedence (unless the erosity by doing so becomes too grotesque), so the line became somewhat more jagged. In any event. there is no other place for NY-11 to reasonably go, other than into the NY-08 Pub zone. Finally, the PVI difference, whatever it does, is marginal.  You really don't trust my good faith in drawing these maps do you Train. 

[Torie]

NY-06, the way I drew, is probably the most ethnically heterodox CD in the US:  32.4% WVAP, 24.7% AVAP, 23.6% HVAP, and 17.2% BVAP.  ☺ I wonder what it will be like in 2022.  Given the VRA, I suspect something like it will have to be drawn (well the map makers might not care about NY-04 making a traveling chop to the Bronx through Queens, and/or caring whether there is a bridge connection, but I digress).  I did try to draw NY-04 so that it took the entire southern tier of NY-06, and lost its northern Queens salient, so that NY-06 had a better shape, but the population numbers did not work.

Well, the current NY-6 is already 37% Asian (and rising!) and represented by Grace Meng.  I don't think people will take kindly to blowing that up.

Also, I didn't notice this before, but nice work chopping Borough Park to keep NY-11 Pub.  That was slick.  If you're going to draw that Southern Brooklyn Pub district, least you can do is keep all the Hasids together.

COI does not count (except for VRA considerations). I followed ward lines between NY-08 and NY-11. Prior to doing that, I made the line as straight as possible, but my protocol is that following ward lines takes precedence (unless the erosity by doing so becomes too grotesque), so the line became somewhat more jagged. In any event. there is no other place for NY-11 to reasonably go, other than into the NY-08 Pub zone. Finally, the PVI difference, whatever it does, is marginal.  You really don't trust my good faith in drawing these maps do you Train.  

Well, which lines are you even using as "wards"?  Looks like it's certainly not the CB districts, which would be the best option (with the caveat that they are large enough that some splits would still be necessary).  They don't even match up with City Council districts or anything– I'm now quite confused as to what it is you're working off of here.

And NY-11 would be better off taking the rest of Dyker Heights.  Yes, it's marginal, but it so obviously makes much more sense for both districts.

Below is a map showing the ward lines.  I see that I did chop four precincts out of Ward 49. Whether I just missed those, or decided to cheat a bit to reduce erosity, I don’t remember. I probably just missed them. It’s erosity city there.  



If I put the four precincts in Ward 49 back into NY-08 where they belong, NY-11 moves 20 basis points to the Dems. My bad.



I originally had clean lines, ignoring ward lines.  That map below is 70 basis points more Dem.



You want to ignore ward lines, and try to move NY-11 into Bensonhurst (I see now you modified you post, and it's now Dyker Heights - whatever)? You can’t get there (to Bensonhurst). But if you go in to direction per the below, it does not change the PVI from the clean line map.



You want to chop another ward rather than Ward 48? The only other candidate is Ward 49, and that means NY-11 has to take heavily Dem Sunset Park (otherwise the map will look insane).  The map below does that. It’s the most Pub of all, 20 basis points more Pub than the map I drew to which you took exception .



Well, I take that back. It's not so horrible. 90 basis points more Dem. But in comparing my map as corrected, and a map chopping Ward 49, I suspect most people would find my map less erose. Your mileage may vary. For some reason, what folks like best, tends to favor their political party oddly enough, however.



Anyway, I went through all this bother, because this is a good object lesson as to why one needs to have objective criteria, and the DRA utility shows ward numbers, so those are useable.  Without objective criteria, one is exposed even when acting in the best of faith, of gaming.  Folks don’t like their motives being questioned. I certainly don’t. It kind of angers me.  So I am going to stick to objective criteria.  Sure, one must pick the ward to chop, but I think the maps above clearly demonstrate that Ward 48 is the best one to chop. The only subjective issue remaining is whether to do more than one chop, where the lines get ludicrously erose. And that is possible in some parts of NYC, because clearly the ward lines have themselves been gerrymandered. But in most places, one can work with them.

[Torie]

the DRA utility shows ward numbers, so those are useable.  

GIGO.  They are profoundly not useable.  NYC doesn't use wards.  You want to go by the community boards instead:



I honestly have no idea what that numbering scheme in DRA is even referring to.  It's not any current lines, not CBs or City Council or anything like that.

EDIT: Oh, wait: it's based on the 2000-2010 Assembly districts.  I hope you can see why they shouldn't be used.  Explains why they're so awful.

OK. I take your word for it. But I certainly am not going to go through the bother of painstakingly comparing a map in my lap to the DRA map, while clicking a mouse. I suppose for this exercise, one just sticks to clean lines.

Just for kicks, I tried to approximate the neighborhood lines in the area of controversy. 80 basis points more Dem. I will use those lines, and use clean lines between NY-04 and NY-06 in Queens, since neighborhoods 3 and 4 need to be chopped anyway, given the VRA and where NY-06 needs to go. Happy now? No, of course not! You're insatiable.

[Torie]

My Dad grew up in Flatbush, until age 12, and his parents both grew up there on Pacific Avenue, and were childhood sweethearts. Somewhere I have a photo of the house his parents bought, in a new subdivision in 1906, with the house mostly surrounded by fields. I am told the house is still standing. My dad went back and knocked on the door and got a tour sometime in the mid 1980's. I have never been to Flatbush. It's on my list, and I too will knock on the door.

Thanks for the apology. I appreciate it. Damn the DRA! I just used what was available. In Chicago, Muon2 and I use ward lines, which the DRA has, and they tend sometimes to be gerrymandered too, although not as grotesque typically as Mr. Silver's handiwork. One uses what is available. But with the DRA not using NYC neighborhoods, obviously they are cumbersome to hew to when drawing lines. One saving grace, is that the precinct lines sometimes tend to follow the hood lines more it seems in NYC, so that helps. I was able to draw pretty clean lines between NY-06 and NY-04, in lieu of the more erose ones. No partisan or change in the Asian percentage by doing so.

Train, this map has a clear Dem skew now (and probably considerably worse given the Dem trend since 2008. Oh, the horror, the horror!  NY-11 bounced up another 10 basis points Dem, when I checked my spreadsheet, and NY-11 needed to drop a precinct by the way.

[Torie]

FTR, I'm with train that the community board boundaries are the most accepted, though one could also use the neighborhood tabulation areas as a smaller division, and are built from census areas consistent with the 55 PUMAs in NYC.

Anyway, Given Torie's work I thought I would post my estimates of how big a 2020 CD in the NYC area should appear using the DRA 2010 data. To get the number I use 780K as the 2020 CD quota, then assume uniform growth within the county. This is the average target number one goes for with 26 CD plan for a CD entirely in that county. For a CD that spans counties the DRA size would be the weighted average.

Bronx 714K
Kings 701K
Nassau 755K
New York 725K
Queens 710K
(Richmond 762K)
Suffolk 768K
Westchester 737K

For example the Staten Island CD in 2020 has 480K in Richmond and 300K in Kings (2020 population). Averaging (480*762+300*701)/780 = 739. So that CD should be about 739K in population as seen on DRA.

Mine is at 737,536, and the "perfect" number per my spreadsheet is 238,215, FWIW.

[Torie]

No surprises there, and that is the way I drew the map. In fact, it is the way the map should have been drawn by the court last time, in my view. That jut of the Hispanic CD down to the docks in Brooklyn was ridiculous. I guess the court was reluctant to upset the apple cart too much in NYC, after junking the south Brooklyn CD unjustifiably. As NY-05 juts more into Nassau, that makes NY-02 more Pub, and NY-04 more Dem, assuming a map is drawn that is intended to follow reasonable guidelines. One cannot be that optimistic in NY about anything that has much nexus with good government however. The court drawing the map last time was quite a surprising accident.

[Torie]

A new NYC concept. The key was discerning that  NY-06 could be linked on its north end if it no longer was going to the Bronx, thus creating the Queen's donut CD. It always bothered me that Queens did not have at least one CD that it could call its own. It gets up the Hispanic percentage of NY-12, along with the Asian percentage in NY-06, and loses two chops. Life is beautiful.  




Depiction of the map spoliation precincts. NY in NYC, which has a bad habit of doing that in a few places. Sometimes they a long narrow lines in on top of a highway for a mile or more, with no people living there. Maybe the census bureau was looking for homeless people living in the highway median or something.

[Torie]

It should be possible to get both Brooklyn CD's up to 52% BVAP, with some jiggling of the lines, particularly if one is willing to allow the Hispanic percentage to erode a bit in NY-12. All this is rather wild speculation, and I suspect a slightly sub 50% BVAP CD would work, given the Hispanic percentages. Moreover, there is no law that one must draw an erose CD to get up to 50% BVAP, unless the black area perhaps is erosely contiguous. It certainly would not be legally required to make NY-05 erose, since the entire black area that is contiguous is contained therein.

[Torie]

There is nothing illegal in refusing to gerrymander to get a CD up to 50% BVAP, if the evidence is there that a lower percentage without gerrymandering will elect a candidate of the minority's choice. It is not even clear that any gerrymandering is required to keep a CD at 50%, given that it is totally clear that it is a gerrymander in a way not otherwise standard in the plan. As to the third Hispanic CD, to reach the percentage that is needed to elect a minority's candidate of choice bearing in mind the low voter turnout of Hispanics, that entails a twisted shape to take in a quite contiguous area of Hispanics, albeit an erose one, might well be required, but again even that is uncertain. Anyway, it is really not possible to get the BVAP up much no matter what one does with erosity, so no court on this planet is going to demand something grotesque over a percentage point or two, particularly when the evidence will be so weak that a 50%b BVAP percentage is needed, while say 48% or 49% will greatly imperial it.

Anyway, I can get to 52% for both CD's without too much sweat, so it's a moot point in Brooklyn (assuming your assumptions/speculations prove out as to where the percentages will end up). There is zero chance that any court will demand the Queens CD to do something grotesque to reach out to a non contiguous area, all over less than a percentage point. We are in the surreal zone now.

[Torie]

My understanding of Gingles is that if you don't have 50% in an area, no VRA district is required. So presumably if a black VRA district is required in Queens in addition to the two in Brooklyn, then there is a finding that a suitably "compact" area exists with the population of a CD that is at least 50% for a single minority (compact often loosely construed). My observation is that once there is that finding, 50% BVAP becomes something of a safe harbor. When a map goes below 50% BVAP and is challenged in court then the parties trot out their dueling experts to determine whether or not the sub-50% district can in fact perform for the minority. When courts are called upon to draw the map and a VRA district is required, they tend to go for the safe harbor and avoid that type of expert analysis.

I'm not saying that either of us would like such a district. I am saying that the track record of court-drawn VRA district tends towards meeting the population goals of the Gingles test. I am also saying that if you want to show your plan to NY bloggers (or other interested parties), then it is easiest to justify a district that is at 50%, since we haven't actually done the ecological inference or other techniques needed to demonstrate minority performance. I also think that if one is showing the plan to other parties, then there is utility in pointing out that if one wants to maintain 50% it will require a CD more strangely shaped than the area is used to.

I think your statement is basically right, but 1) as Train says, it is safe to say that say a 48% BVAP CD in this area will be over a 50% BCVAP CD, and that is what matters, and 2) there is no VRA requirement to gerrymander NY-05 so that it reaches way out to South Hempstead to pick up the black community there which is non-contiguous. It is not illegal to do so obviously, but it certainly is not legally required. If the two black areas hook up by 2022, then it becomes a closer issue, but I doubt that will happen. The terrain in-between (Franklin Square) I think is pretty high income, and solidly white, with very few blacks.

Anyway, the best policy is to try to get up to 50% BVAP, but no more if it entails gerrymandering, and if one falls short, only gerrymander (crossing boundaries or getting more erose), if necessary to get to a percentage so a candidate of choice is electable, and then only if the area to be gerrymandered is reasonably contiguous. Thus to me, even if a 48% BVAP CD were not going to elect a candidate of choice, it simply is not justifiable to cross over white areas deep into Nassau County to get there. I do think however that crossing the line into Nassau to pick up the blacks there that are contiguous, with no erosity other than crossing the county line, might well be required however, particularly if the evidence is rather murky, or the trends show a secular decline in the black population, so over the course of the decade, the black incumbent might go the way of Rangel, or certainly a non incumbent might have some trouble. Thus I think picking up minority contiguous areas, particularly with no little or no erosty involved, is the prudent thing to do.

I think I have a pretty good sense of where SCOTUS is at on this issue, having rather closely read the cases.

Anyway, per the below, NY-10 is now at 52% BVAP, and NY-09 is at 52.7% BVAP. That was easy. Also by jiggling the lines between NY-12 and NY-06, NY-06 gets up to 31.6% AVAP, and NY-12 moves up 40 basis points to 56.7% HVAP.

[Torie]

How is the commission appointed? Has this all been enacted in law now? Is it just for CD's?