FL: Rereredistricting
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jimrtex
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« Reply #375 on: December 18, 2015, 11:45:05 PM »

Cross-Examination of Dr. Liu.

The plaintiff attorney tried to present Dr. Liu as being clueless.
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muon2
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« Reply #376 on: December 19, 2015, 12:14:07 AM »

Cross-Examination of Dr. Liu.

The plaintiff attorney tried to present Dr. Liu as being clueless.

How did that work?
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jimrtex
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« Reply #377 on: December 19, 2015, 06:59:27 PM »

Cross-Examination of Dr. Liu.

The plaintiff attorney tried to present Dr. Liu as being clueless.

How did that work?
We'll see when the decision comes out. I haven't heard redirect yet.

The plaintiff's attorney is a trial lawyer, who has a very annoying style, which might be effective before a jury. Or perhaps it is intended to irritate an opposing witness. I'm quite sure that Dr.Liu does not pronounce his name as Lee-YOU. Before a jury, perhaps, prefacing your use of "endogenous", with a warning of "big word", might be effective. Or pronouncing "scientific" as if to mock the efforts of an expert witness.

Dr. Liu had used various elections to establish that black voters in Florida are cohesive, and typically face white voters who vote as a block in the opposite way. But to demonstrate this, you need elections with candidates of different races. If there is an unopposed candidate, you can't really show anything.

Unfortunately, Dr. Liu had been given the wrong result for one of the elections. So Perry Mason could flash a picture of the website showing the black candidate had won. Dr. Liu was also mocked for not knowing that one candidate was married to another candidate.

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jimrtex
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« Reply #378 on: December 19, 2015, 09:21:41 PM »

After Dr.Liu finished being cross-examined and question on re-direct, the senate rested their case.

The plaintiff's had expected to begin their case on Wednesday, with Senator Galvano. The judge reminded the plaintiff's lawyer, David King, that as experienced trial lawyer (he is likely in his early 70s) that the unexpected sometimes comes up in trial, and he should be prepared to proceed.

So the 3rd segment will consist of reading of depositions from two senators.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #379 on: December 20, 2015, 01:13:55 AM »

The first plaintiff witness was Senator Tom Lee (via reading of selected portions of his deposition).

Lee had formerly been President of the Senate, and been generally high up in the leadership. Florida's term limits restrict service to 8 consecutive years, but permit a restart of service after sitting out an election. He was on the senate reapportionment committee.

Lee said his knowledge of how leadership worked that the plan being voted out (9078) had been chosen by the leadership, and no other plan could be voted out of committee. He said he was unaware that 9078 paired fewer incumbents, or that its metrics were worse than other base maps.

The problem is - are some plans more constitutional than others, or is "constitutional" a true/false answer.

He said he had know knowledge of the senate plan put forward in litigation, which was never considered during the special session.

The reason why the public (or a sample thereof) is the only reasonable body to choose among plans is that they are unbiased. The SCOFLA decision was partisan-aligned. The senators were probably looking out for their own interest. Why would it be expected that a senator would not look at the 6 maps, and figure out which was his, and if the district was significantly different, who else would be in his district.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #380 on: December 20, 2015, 04:23:57 AM »

The second plaintiff witness (by deposition) was Sen. Jack Latvala, from northern Pinellas County.

He had opposed the plan passed by the Senate, and had argued it had weaker metrics. He claimed that changes in the map proposed by the House was in retribution.

Both the two senators were speculating about motives, so I don't see what credence the court can give to it.

That concluded the second day of the trial.  At the end of the session, the two parties agreed to submit their proposed final orders by by Wednesday December, 23; so I expect a decision right about New Years.


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jimrtex
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« Reply #381 on: December 20, 2015, 05:06:32 AM »

Corrine Brown's lawsuit has restarted. It had been stayed pending the SCOFLA's final imposition of an east-west FL-5.

The district court has asked for a status report by December 22, and given Brown until December 29 to file an amended complaint.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #382 on: December 21, 2015, 01:35:36 PM »

The first witness on Wednesday was Senator Bill Galvano, who is the Senate (Republican) Majority Leader, the apparently in line to become Senate President in 2018, former head of the Senate Campaign Committee, and chair of the Senate Reapportionment committee. As a private citizen he is a trial lawyer (it shows in his style of testimony).

He chose the base map that the reapportionment committee reported, and which the senate approved, after an amendment in the Miami-Dade area. After the House drew its own plan, he agreed to take that plan back to the senate from the conference committee. After the Senate rejected the plan, the special session broke down.

He had created a plan that included the north Florida districts from the original Senate map, and merged it with the 12 South Florida districts from another base map (they were designed with that possibility intended). The map had never been presented publicly until litigation began (it was apparently a surprise to the plaintiffs).

In his role as head of the senate campaign committee, he had done been mainly involved (in this off year) in fundraising, rather than candidate recruitment. David King (plaintiff attorney) asked him about this activity, and Galvano admitted that they had done quite well in fund raising.

The chosen map had the fewest candidate pairings. Galvano admitted that senators would know where they personally lived. He also explained that an incumbent would probably be more concerned about retaining their base of support rather than who they might face. King had a table showing the number of paired incumbents, and Galvano would allow the table showed what it showed.

Incidentally, they were using standard deviation in conjunction with most metrics, particularly population equality. For the compactness measures, the senate plan had a higher median (more compact) than a mean, indicating the outliers were on the non-compact side, such as the Hillsborough tail. While for the plaintiff's plan the median was less than the mean, indicating that more compact districts were outliers.

On cross-examination by the senate lawyers, he explained why the original map had been chosen.

Pinellas County could have two senate districts, and Pasco one. But if you create the cross-bay minority district that skips the bridges, one of the districts is pushed out of Pinellas. If it doesn't go into Pasco, it has to go back into Hillsborough. Several of the plans included another cross-bay district to pick up the Interbay peninsula which is mainly white. This had been criticized in the plaintiff's previous complaint (settled by consent decree), and there was concern in the redistricting committee about addressing that complaint.

So Galvano had picked a map without the second bay crossing, and with fewer county splits than the other map without the second crossing.



After Galvano finished, there was a long discussion about whether e-mails from 2011 should be entered into evidence. During the long discovery process over the congressional maps, there was evidence of partisan intent in maps proposed by the plaintiffs, including tidbits such as suggesting  preserving a district for Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and terms like "Dem" and "Rep".

John O'Neill the mapdrawer for the plaintiffs in 2015, was an intern for Strategic Telemetry in 2011 (Strategic Telemetry was also the mapping consultant for the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. Some maps were drawn at Colleen Mathis' house on a weekend. Because, the AIRC is a separately established agency, it is not covered by Arizona Open Meeting laws).

During the congressional trial, the e-mails weren't allowed into evidence.

But in this case, the senate was able to show a connection to John O'Neill's deposition, and the e-mails have been allowed into evidence.
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Nyvin
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« Reply #383 on: December 23, 2015, 09:39:37 PM »

The final court order was issued today for the congressional maps....CP-1 is official -

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http://miami.cbslocal.com/2015/12/23/final-order-issued-in-congressional-redistricting/
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jimrtex
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« Reply #384 on: December 24, 2015, 03:36:23 AM »

The final court order was issued today for the congressional maps....CP-1 is official -

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http://miami.cbslocal.com/2015/12/23/final-order-issued-in-congressional-redistricting/
The stay on Corrine Brown's federal lawsuit has been lifted. She will file an amended complaint by December 29.

The plaintiff's in the state case have filed to intervene in the federal case. I don't see a reason that the senate and house should not be dismissed as defendants, particularly after the SCOFLA has ordered them not to change the districts.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #385 on: December 28, 2015, 05:03:55 AM »

John O'Neill, the plaintiff's map drawer began to testify.

He placed a lot of emphasis on what he called whole county groups. The presentation was interesting in that the whole county groups were exploded, and then the districts within colored like a Risk map (image is a screen capture, from a projected image)



And here is a clearer version.



As you can see it only has 10 regions, and some are quite large.

My map has 18 regions:

7 single-district groups.
7 two-district groups.
2 three-district groups.
1 four-district group.
1 nine-district group.

For comparison the plaintiff map has:

2 single-district groups.
4 two-district groups.
1 three-district group.
1 four-district groups.
1 10-district group.
1 13-district groups.

23 of 40 districts (57.5%) are in the two monster groups. In my map, you need to include two of the two-county groups to accumulate that many districts.

As expected, the large groups cause excessive county chops.

Florida chop calculator

The 10-district group in the Tampa area requires 5 extra chops. The plaintiffs, largely avoid chopping extra counties by putting an extra chop in Hillsborough, Polk, and Pinellas counties, and triple-chopping Pasco (which is a single-county district in my map).

Both the senate and plaintiff missed the whole purpose of identifying groups of counties - which is to reduce the number of chopped counties, and county chops.

It is likely that the judge will miss this as well.

The first part of O'Neill's testimony concentrated on smaller county groups which were common to both the senate and plaintiff plans:

Western Panhandle
Duval-Nassau
Lee-Collier

O'Neill explained how his cuts of Okaloosa and Lee produced higher compactness scores and better population equality.

In a better process that permitted actual public participation, there would have been a separate redistricting process to divide those areas.

He then went on to explain his process for identifying the other who county groupings which were to produce better population equality and compact districts. For example, he rejected the Okaloosa-Martin-St.Lucie single district grouping because it had too much population deviation and was non-compact (the northwest corner of Okaloosa is a bit to the west, and the southeast corner of Martin a bit to east, so it is more like a non-normal angle parallelogram, rather than rectangular.

Because of his emphasis on deviation, the judge might think that 2% deviation is twice as unequal as 1%.

An ordinary person would perceive these 40 circles as having the same size.



At the end of the hearing, O'Neill started explaining his use of HCVAP and BCVAP in south Florida, since the plaintiff's are arguing that there is a 4th Hispanic district in their map.

The senate attorney objected, and O'Neill didn't do a good job of explaining where the data came from. He vaguely knew, but for example did not know whether the 1, 3, or 5 year ACS had been used. Since these estimates were projected to the block level, they likely used the 5-year ACS which would be available for the block group and then project that to census block. Presumably they used the HCVAP/HVAP ratio for the block group, and then multiplied that by the HVAP for each census block.

The judge didn't know what to do, and went back and forth about whether to sustain or overrule the objection. Eventually, it was decided it was a demonstrative, rather than a evidentiary exhibit, and O'Neill was permitted to explain his use of HCVAP.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #386 on: December 29, 2015, 05:33:28 AM »

We are now on to cross-examination of John O'Neill, the plaintiff's mapdrawer from Strategic Telemetry.

Before his cross-examination, the plaintiff's attorney agreed to drop all the questioning about HCVAP and BCVAP.

In his deposition, which was two weeks prior to his testimony, he couldn't recall what was meant on various e-mails from 2011, which used terms like %Dem. At that time, O'Neill was an intern for Strategic Telemetry. (note Florida did not actually redistrict until 2012 - which is specified in the Florida constitution).

Strategic Telemetry had been hired by the "Coalition" to draw maps back in 2011. It is claimed that the intent was to show that a "fair" map would have more Democratic districts, and that it would be proof of a Republican gerrymander.

Since his deposition, O'Neill had time to review the e-mails and understand the context and did have a recollection that political data had been used in 2011. But he doesn't recall when in the 2-week period since his deposition he had the recollection.

He claims that he was now the sole mapdrawer (his internship had been after his sophomore year in college, and he was mainly doing grunt work), and had started from scratch.

But last May when he had first been hired, he was drawing demonstration maps that showed that the 2002 enacted map could be improved. He was asked if he believed his May maps complied with the constitution, and he said that they did. His May maps had much worse metrics than the latest senate map. So it appears that there was an effort to prove that there are more constitutional-er maps.

He was then asked to compare a modification of two districts in the plaintiffs, plan, SD-5 and SD-7 in north central Florida. The legislature mapdrawers had drawn a whole county district that stretched from Sumter to Baker. The legislature lawyers had expressed concern that it was not compact, and had redrawn the map that divided Alachua and split the city of Gainesville. The plaintiff's accused them of doing a partisan gerrymander.

The plaintiff map created a rainbow district, that was somewhat circular, and thus had a pretty good Reock score, kept Alachua whole, but split Marion, and in particular put Gainesville and Ocala in the same district. Ocala is that suspicious bump in central Marion, that looks like a gerrymander, but probably has zero effect on compactness scores.



The senate attorney presented a version of the map that redrew SD-5 and SD-7. The plaintiff attorney objected on grounds that they had not produced their map on the deadline for proposing a remedial maps. The senate said this was part of their objections to the plaintiff plan. The judge let them go ahead with their questioning. The senate attorney asked O'Neill for the average compactness scores for the two districts. O'Neill said he needed a calculator. The judge handed him a calculator. O'Neill said he needed a pen. The judge handed him a pen. He calculated a while, and agreed that the alternative configuration was more compact.

I think the senate wants the judge to draw the map. They had made a motion ti that effect before the trial, but Judge Reynolds declined. Had the legislature failed to draw a map in 2002, the SCOFLA would have drawn the map, since that is specified in the constitution for legislative redistricting.

But since the SCOFLA had approved the enacted plan in 2012, the senate map is apparently not subject to direct review by the SCOFLA, who only review it upon appeal.

The senate attorney asked O'Neill whether he had been directed to draw a Gainesville-Ocala district (since the plaintiff attorney objected to a split in senate map).

The plaintiff's map has more Democratic districts than the plans drawn in May, or in 2011 when Strategic Telemetry was deliberately trying to draw more Democratic districts.

On redirect, O'Neill was asked about whether he had any independent recollection about using partisan data on 2011. He said he did not, but it was clear from the e-mails that Strategic Telemetry (who we worked for) was.

There was some additional discussion about Reock scores. The senate attorney suggested that if you drew a donut, that it would have a perfect Reock score, and O'Neill corrected him.

But the Nassau-Duval county district that surrounds the black district in Jacksonville does have a high Reock score in all plans because the Nassau-Duval combination is squarish with somewhat rounded corners. The hole in the middle is a lot less worse than stretching a circle by extreme points. Reock is more sensitive to extent than shape.

Another case of a misleading district is a Broward County coastal district, where the three miles in the ocean is wider than the land portion of the district.

Most of the emphasis has been placed on the number of counties are split, rather than the number of splits.

Florida has 11 counties with the population for more than one whole district. They must be cut 20 times:

Miami-Dade* (5), Broward (3), Palm Beach (2), Hillsborough (2), Orange (2), Pinellas (1), Duval (1), Lee (1), Polk (1), Brevard (1), Volusia (1). The number is also the maximum number of districts within the county, with the exception of Pinellas, which can have two whole districts.

*This treats Monroe as an extension of Miami-Dade.

My plan splits two additional counties (Alachua and Manatee), plus the non-contiguous part of Dixie.

My map splits 13(+Dixie) counties, has 22 cuts, 21 districts wholly within a county (this includes Pasco and the Miami-Dade/Monroe district), and 14 county fragments (portion of a county that do not form a whole district).

The plaintiff's map splits 15 counties, has 31 cuts, 18 districts wholly within a county (including the Miami-Dade/Monroe district), and 28 county fragments.

Excess split counties: 2 vs. 4
Excess cuts: 2 vs 11
Missing whole-county districts: 0 vs. 3
Excess county fragments: 4 vs. 18

They make it seem that their plan seem to respect county boundaries, by concentrating the extra chops in larger counties. Incidentally, they have one additional chop in their Tampa mega region beyond what would be needed based on the surplus population.

They have excess cuts in each county of a contiguous region of Pasco-Pinellas-Hillsborough-Polk-Manatee.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #387 on: December 31, 2015, 12:07:02 PM »

Allen Lichtman was the plaintiff's expert witness.

In the Virginia congressional case, Lichtman was on a list of about a dozen possible special masters, which the parties reviewed. Some were ranked, and others were unknowns. The Republican congressmen, said that Lichtman was totally unacceptable because he was a Democratic hack.

During his testimony in the Florida senate, he mentioned his work in Page v Bartels, and Illinois legislative redistricting cases for 2000 and 2010, where plans that had non-majority minority districts were not violations of Section 2 of the VRA.

It is not clear how these cases apply to Florida. In New Jersey (Page v Bartels), the redistricting commission* greatly reduced the black majority of one district, in order to create another district with a significant minority population. In Illinois, the legislature drew sausage districts that stretched outward from Chicago, to produce districts with a lower BVAP (Illinois also slices its senate districts length-wise so that both representative districts are similar demographically).

*In New Jersey, the 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans on the commission could not agree on a plan. According to the New Jersey constitution, the Supreme Court appointed a 13th member, Larry Bartels. It sounds like the adopted plan was based on the Democratic proposal, with changes by Bartels, and he was the named defendant.

But in these cases the map drawers voluntarily reduced the minority population, and it was not found to be vote dilution. But would it have been vote dilution (through packing) if they had not?

There are really only four districts at issue. One is the black district in Broward County. The senate plan has a higher black population, but splits more cities. I'm pretty sure it is necessary to split Fort Lauderdale. I did not split cities in south Florida, and my black Broward district has a lower BVAP than theirs. But the plaintiffs plan split fewer other cities.

The others are Hispanic districts in Miami-Dade. Because of low citizenship and participation rates, there has to be a really significant supermajority for a Hispanic district to perform. I think the 4th district is the district that comes up from the Keys. The plaintiff's plan has a finger that comes in further north. I think that this makes a couple of other districts more "compact", and has little impact on the Reock score of a district that takes in the Dry Tortugas. The plaintiffs may argue that their plan is more Tier 2 compliant, and does not dilute the Hispanic vote.

Lichtman's style of testifying is interesting. He turns around and faces the judge. In this case the judge started engaging in a conversation with Litchtman. After a few minutes, the judge will apologize to the plaintiff's lawyer for interrupting his examination of the witness. The lawyer will say it is OK, ask a question, and the same pattern ensues.

Lichtman in discussing his methodology says that it was the same as used by Bernard Grofman, who was the expert for the prevailing side in Thornburgh v Gingles. Grofman is the special master in the Virginia congressional redistricting case.

He testified that for the black Broward district in the plaintiff plan that is 47% BVAP, that the Democratic candidate averages 78%, and blacks comprise 62% of the Democratic vote. The judge asked him whether a BVAP of 47% might constitute packing. Lichtman suggested that it might, if the effect was to waste black votes.

He also looked at all congressional, senate, and house races where the BVAP was between 34% and 47%, and found that every instance a black Democrat had been elected.

The question then is, should there even be a concern about cracking or packing, if good government rules are followed? That is, is my 36% BVAP better than the alternatives because it does not split cities. Almost all of Broward County is in cities (I think it 97% in cities).

After covering one of the Hispanic districts with an HVAP of 72%, the judge got into a discussion with Lichtman and the plaintiff's attorney about why you had to look at political data when dealing with minority districts and couldn't look at political data when looking at other districts. The judge apologized for the digression, but said he thought he should ask the expert why he was there. The senate judges kept looking at each other, and trying to figure out whether they should object, and on what grounds.
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Nyvin
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« Reply #388 on: December 31, 2015, 12:54:34 PM »

The judge picked map CPS4a....which was pretty favorable to the plaintiffs.   It has 21 districts that Obama won in 2012, although a number of those are marginal wins.   

It creates a competitive district in SD-7 around Alachua county,   which is an open seat in 2016.

Pretty good map,  but still disappointed they are still crossing the tampa bay with the AA district.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #389 on: December 31, 2015, 11:16:45 PM »

The judge picked map CPS4a....which was pretty favorable to the plaintiffs. 
What do you mean by being favorable to the plaintiffs?
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jimrtex
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« Reply #390 on: January 01, 2016, 09:08:48 AM »

The two parties submitted a proposed order, and it appears that Judge Reynolds cribbed major portions from the plaintiffs. The judge found Tier 1 violations in most of the districts, because they had poorer Tier 2 metrics, and therefore must have been chosen to favor Republicans. He said he didn't understand why political data wasn't used for all districts since he believed that would help determine whether plans were chosen based on partisan data.

He was gulled by the plaintiff's presentation of whole county groups. He probably thinks that 10 groups was a large number, when at least 18 could be created and achieve practicable population equality.

He only considered number of counties split as relevant. In the large Tampa Bay "whole county group" where there were necessarily 5 extra chops, and the mapdrawer drew six, three were extra chops in Pinellas, Hillsborough, and Polk. He also made two cuts in Pasco which could be its own senate district.

Given the number of cuts that were necessary simply to handle the 11 largest counties, each with a population greater than a senate district, the better measure of conformance with county boundaries would be the excess number of cuts.

It turns out that districts made of whole counties can score rather poorly on compactness measures:

Pasco County is less "compact" than the Polk-Pasco-Hillsborough hash of SD-18 in this map.



In the panhandle, my Escambia-Santa Rosa district is less compact than the plaintiff map with its artificial breast extending into Okaloosa County. And at the same time, my second district scores lower, because it includes Gulf on the east rather than Jackson.

A simple district made up of Clay, St.Johns, and Flagler is clearly not "compact", nor is a district comprised of most of Volusia (with a tiny area added to Seminole, to equalize the population of two counties that are quite near to being single-county districts.

Extending into Orange County from the southern portion of Lake County is not non-compact because of that extension, but because of the ice-cream cone on top of Lake. It is possible that adding Disneyworld to the district actually improves the compactness.

Pasco County, within 1.1% of the ideal population, is clearly to be avoided as non-compact.

And if you happen to have a district that stretches from the Dry Tortugas to Miami, you can't do anything about its compactness. But you can draw crop circles in Dade County that are quite compact.

Would you characterize these circles as about the same size, or significantly unequal.


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Virginiá
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« Reply #391 on: January 01, 2016, 12:29:27 PM »
« Edited: January 01, 2016, 12:31:49 PM by Virginia »

If anyone doesn't mind, I have a question about these maps and others. What are the chances Democrats will be able to obtain a majority in the State Senate with these new maps? Because the way this reads, it almost seems like the base composition could now be 18 (D) / 22 (R) or 19 (D) / 21 (R). Sort of how the Virginia State Senate is. Given this, a bare majority on a good year does indeed at least seem possible.

Also, how come the State House maps were never challenged? If the State Senate maps were gerrymandered, I would think the State House maps would at least be vulnerable to a challenge (only because to me, it would seem too unrealistic for one chamber to rig their maps and the other to not). I mean, Republicans have a pretty large majority in the State House but now with the State Senate, it looks very close. How can there be such a large discrepancy?
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Nyvin
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« Reply #392 on: January 01, 2016, 07:57:02 PM »
« Edited: January 01, 2016, 08:03:29 PM by Nyvin »

If anyone doesn't mind, I have a question about these maps and others. What are the chances Democrats will be able to obtain a majority in the State Senate with these new maps? Because the way this reads, it almost seems like the base composition could now be 18 (D) / 22 (R) or 19 (D) / 21 (R). Sort of how the Virginia State Senate is. Given this, a bare majority on a good year does indeed at least seem possible.

Also, how come the State House maps were never challenged? If the State Senate maps were gerrymandered, I would think the State House maps would at least be vulnerable to a challenge (only because to me, it would seem too unrealistic for one chamber to rig their maps and the other to not). I mean, Republicans have a pretty large majority in the State House but now with the State Senate, it looks very close. How can there be such a large discrepancy?

It's hard to imagine the Democrats not winning at least 17 seats with the new map.    Getting the last 4 will probably be tricky though.    

The open seats Obama won marginally in 2012 will obviously be top targets,  SD-7 and SD-17.     Also it looks like a lot of the seats in the southern half of Miami-Dade will be key too,   relying on the continuing trend of Hispanic's shift leftward there.    

There's definitely a possibility of a Dem majority,  if not in 2016, then certainly by 2020.

The good news is that none of the Democrat's areas are trending Republican except maybe SD-7.     And a lot of the marginal seats in the Miami and Central Florida area actually shifted leftward from 2008 to 2012.
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« Reply #393 on: January 02, 2016, 12:05:22 AM »

There's definitely a possibility of a Dem majority,  if not in 2016, then certainly by 2020.

Thanks! I was really curious of their chances, as after spending time on outreach for Amendment 1 (Env/conservation funding - in Florida) and it passing by a landslide, the legislature then goes on to basically act as if it didn't pass and tries not to fund it. Basically exactly what they did with the Fair Maps amendment - Ignore it until literally forced by the State Supreme Court. As if the state/US Constitution only matters when it's their issues at stake.

I look forward to one day not being jerked around by an asshole Republican majority.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #394 on: January 03, 2016, 08:02:53 AM »

Also, how come the State House maps were never challenged? If the State Senate maps were gerrymandered, I would think the State House maps would at least be vulnerable to a challenge (only because to me, it would seem too unrealistic for one chamber to rig their maps and the other to not). I mean, Republicans have a pretty large majority in the State House but now with the State Senate, it looks very close. How can there be such a large discrepancy?
The senate and house drew their own maps in 2002. This is fairly ordinary for legislatures. In Texas, when the respective chambers vote on the other chamber's redistricting bill, pages are stationed at the doors where they can see the chamber at the opposite end of the capital so that it can be ensured the two bills are gaveled simultaneously.

Under the Florida Constitution (predating the redistricting standards), the legislature is required to perform legislative redistricting. Once they do, the Florida Supreme Court (SCOFLA) is required to review the maps, and may reject them, or order the legislature to draw new maps. If the legislature fails to draw a map, the SCOFLA draws the map. There were minimal standards in the constitution (the districts had to be contiguous, overlapping, or identical).

The intent was to ensure that the legislature redistricted, or provided a resolution if they failed to do so. So prior to this round, the SCOFLA could look at a map and say that there were the right number of districts, and that they were contiguous, and approve the plan. Challenges based on other provisions of the constitution, such as partisanship, equal population, etc. were too nebulous to base a decision on, even though there had been court challenges.

This round, the SCOFLA could interpret and apply the new standards when reviewing the maps. The SCOFLA rejected the senate map and approved the house map. The senate then submitted a new map which the SCOFLA approved.

The new redistricting standards are vague and subjective. This may because the League of Women Voters was involved, or because it was the intent to get the case into a court, where involvement from the public could be excluded.

The original senate plan had split the western panhandle on a east-west line that sliced five counties. It had followed highways, creeks, city boundaries to do so. It also avoided pairing incumbents. The legislature had conducted hearings throughout the state in 2001. In Pensacola, some farmers from the northern part of the panhandle requested a district separate from the beach communities along the Gulf. This might or might not be orchestrated. In Britain and Canada, the political parties make representations before their boundary commissions. But they can't say, "this map would be bad for Labour (or the Conservatives, etc.)". They have to cast it as "this would split Upper and Lower Wobbly", etc. Perhaps you can get someone from the two Wobbly's to intervene. And maybe Labour was genuinely concerned with the welfare of Wobbly.

But in Florida, with an explicit ban on "partisan intent", the Okaloosa Republican Party would be suspect if they suggested keeping Crestview separate from Fort Walton Beach. Better to have a farmer make the case.

In Apportionment I, the SCOFLA interpreted the new provisions of the Constitution, and said that the Senate did not follow them, and the House did.

It is easier to gerrymander larger districts, particularly if you don't (or can't) follow county lines. When gerrymandering, you want to use "your" voters efficiently, and pack "their" voters in fewer districts. Imagine that districts had 1000 people. That is a large apartment complex, or maybe a couple dozen blocks of single family residential. You are going to have areas that size that are 90% Democratic or 80% Republican. If you have an 80% Republican area, that you want to drop down to 60%, you have to bypass the 70% and 60% Republican areas, and grab some areas that are 40% or 30% Republican. On such a small scale, these grabs are pretty obvious.

But as the the population increases, larger areas become more balanced politically. You can more cleverly disguise your gerrymandering.

Florida has 120 House districts. It is only natural to decompose the redistricting into smaller areas, by apportioning districts out to groups of counties. For example, Escambia, Santa Rosa, and Okaloosa, the western end of the panhandle that is equivalent to 4 districts (with a 0.5% error). Okaloosa gets one district,  and Escambia almost gets two. Draw the two districts in Escambia, with a small bit of Santa Rosa, and the district in Okaloosa. The 4th district is the part of Okaloosa that you didn't use, plus most of Santa Rosa. There simply aren't that many options.

With fewer senate districts, it is harder to apportion districts out among counties, you end up slicing counties, and using different combinations.

Congressional redistricting doesn't have the same procedure as legislative redistricting. So there was no automatic review by the SCOFLA.

Instead, someone had to sue to show that it had not followed the constitution. Discovery took a really long time, as there were claims of attorney-client privilege and legislative privilege, and free speech rights of private citizens.

Eventually, it was discovered that there was a process where some Republicans obtained drafts of maps, and then would rework them into different maps, and submit them as public plans. Then the proposed plan would get worked into the map being drawn by the senate. During the presentation, there would be a common that FL-28 was changed so that it didn't split some city or county, or some other plausible reason, and it would be noted that the district was included in a submission by John Q Public. This process was also used for the Senate map, which is why the case was being tried now. Last summer, the Senate conceded their had been partisan intent, and agreed to draw a new map which they failed to do in the special session.

The east-west configuration of FL-5 was drawn by the Democratic National Campaign Committee, and in 2011 the plaintiffs had used Strategic Telemetry to draw maps. There was e-mail going back and forth about having drawn another Democratic district, and making sure there was a district for Debbie Wasserman Schultz. John O'Neill was an intern at the time. He claims that he was unaware that partisan data was being used at that time. He is now working as independent contractor for Strategic Telemetry, and you can bet that no e-mail was used.

Nyvin says it is "pretty favorable to the plaintiffs" where he seems to be assuming that "plaintiffs" and "Democrats" are the same thing.
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Virginiá
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« Reply #395 on: January 03, 2016, 01:28:52 PM »

Thanks for the very detailed response!
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« Reply #396 on: January 03, 2016, 01:58:01 PM »

The Florida court picked the Dem friendly map? I'm shocked! Tongue After Muon2's model code (after we get it right) is adopted in Illinois, its first stop, the next stop is Florida.
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« Reply #397 on: January 03, 2016, 02:25:55 PM »

The Florida court picked the Dem friendly map? I'm shocked! Tongue After Muon2's model code (after we get it right) is adopted in Illinois, its first stop, the next stop is Florida.

Wouldn't almost any other map be Democrat-friendly, though? I'm not a map drawer but I've seen mock attempts at the Congressional districts for a Democratic gerrymander that netted a lot more seats than the map they adopted. I feel like the same could be done for the Senate one, too. It just seems like a fair map. Hell, if the GOP wasn't doing so terribly with non-white voters, it wouldn't be so skewed.

Then again, I think unless we completely took it out of people's hands and let computers draw the maps, there is always going to be a discussion like this on any map.
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« Reply #398 on: January 03, 2016, 02:30:48 PM »

The Florida court picked the Dem friendly map? I'm shocked! Tongue After Muon2's model code (after we get it right) is adopted in Illinois, its first stop, the next stop is Florida.

Wouldn't almost any other map be Democrat-friendly, though? I'm not a map drawer but I've seen mock attempts at the Congressional districts for a Democratic gerrymander that netted a lot more seats than the map they adopted. I feel like the same could be done for the Senate one, too. It just seems like a fair map. Hell, if the GOP wasn't doing so terribly with non-white voters, it wouldn't be so skewed.

Then again, I think unless we completely took it out of people's hands and let computers draw the maps, there is always going to be a discussion like this on any map.

I have no idea what a Muon2 metric map would do, but Jimrtex would. My guess, is that the map would be less Dem friendly, but of course more Dem friendly than the current map. But that is just a guess. And as to your second paragraph, the only answer is of course. When you introduce human subjectivity, you at once open the door to charges of bias, and in general, controversy.
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« Reply #399 on: January 04, 2016, 02:08:35 PM »

Looking over the map a bit better,  it looks like I'd call it somewhere in the range of 15 safe D,  2 likely D (7 and 38), and probably 5 tossups?   The incumbent situation in SD-38 is kinda unknown at this point though.     The tossups would probably be SD-17, SD-35, SD-37, SD-18(maybe...) and then an outside chance with SD-22.

SD-7, SD-17, SD-18, and maybe SD-38 will all be open seats.   I guess with SD-22 there's a chance Charlie Crist's popularity in the area will knock out Brandes, but meh, maybe not.

SD-35 and SD-37 would have to rely on the continued trend of Cubans and Hispanics in Miami-Dade to the Democrats. 

I suppose the Democrats could make a play at SD-15 (Stargel-R) and SD-20 (Latvala-R),  but it's Florida Democrats we're talking about here, so they won't beat any semi-popular incumbents outside of the Miami Area....so forget it.
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