Talk Elections

[these maps weren't legal - deleted]

Is a D PVI district physically possible in WV?  I have been wondering about that.

WV prohibits county splits.

Ah, well so much for the Charleston thing then.

Not entirely sure how relevant this is to Braxton, but most of the larger mines in WV were shut in the 1980s as the industry shifted towards opencast (and I think smaller drift) mines, so the geography of current mining employment doesn't necessarily match up with what used to be. I know that Gassaway (one of the larger towns - though with less than 1,000 people now) used to be a minor railway centre, if that helps.

The prohibition is in the WV Constitution. Article I section 4:

Compactness however is ill defined compared to contiguity. Thus current CD 2 stretching in a single band of counties is ok, since arguably it makes 1 and 3 compact.

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The new map will probably look more like this:

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Shelley Moore Capito lives in Charleston, I think, so that puts her in the 3rd district.

WV does need to figure out what it's going to do with the panhandle. Tough to keep it in the 2nd and keep that link of counties. I wonder if they'd consider linking Charleston and Wheeling in a single district and putting Morgantown in with the panhandle.

That's an interesting thought. McKinley lives in Wheeling, but since Democrats control redistricting, why should they care where the Republicans end up as long as it doesn't threaten Rahall? Something like this could very well happen:

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Capito and McKinley are primaried in the blue district, and the green district may be more competitive than it looks. Oliverio received 55.19% of the two party vote in the portion of the green district currently in the the 1st.

Yeah I know Capito would be put in the same district as Rahall, but I highly doubt the Democrats who control the redistricting would care since Rahall would win. Besides Capito can just "move" anyway.

That's quite a gamble, though. Capito is a moderate, and that part of West Virginia has seen the hardest trends toward the Republicans. While it's clear that Rahall has the advantage on paper, there's a good chance that Capito could knock him out, and then you're left with an all-Republican delegation.

There is a pretty good chance Capito runs for governor or maybe even senate anyways.

Presidential voting patterns in WV aren't a good indicator of anything other than Presidential voting patterns; WV-3 is the most Democratic district of the three at all other levels and will remain so for the foreseeable future, although there has certainly been negative movement around Beckley.

The legislature probably won't have much choice. The map will have to be districts of whole counties that produce the most nearly equal population. Any other map would be subject to challenge.

Worth pointing out that they didn't gerrymander Capito out when they had the chance before 2002.

Are you suggesting that they want her to stay there instead of doing something else (considering she was a freshman up in 2002)?  Or is it because WV Dems have such fond memories of Arch Moore? 

I contend that federal law requires nearly population as nearly equal as practicible. When that is combined with the state constitutional requirement of contiguous whole counties, then there will be an obligation to create a map that makes the three districts most equal, given the population of the counties. That generally takes partisan considerations out of the picture.

If there was no way to get close to equal population and a county split was required, then partisan considerations could take a front seat.

According to DRA, the current WV-02 is over by about 30,000 people, while WV-01 is under by 10,000 and WV-03 by 20,000. The problem, of course, is the whole-county thing, since most of WV-02 is only one county wide.

Here's my best attempt at nearly equal population and no county splits. Capito will not be happy.

WV-01 is +534. WV-02 is -531. WV-03 is -4.

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Presidential voting patterns aren't really my biggest concern. What kind of opposition has Rahall faced in his career? I seriously doubt that he's faced off against anybody as formidable as Capito.

If you look at BRTD's map, WV-2 would also be a Republican stronghold, to the point where the GOP probably wouldn't have to worry about who runs there. Capito would be a top-tier candidate in their efforts to unseat Rahall. She's popular, she has huge name recognition, and her moderate positions will get her crossover support. Not to mention she is already an incumbent. If anyone can unseat Rahall, it's Capito. Of course, she has other options as well. She may explore a Senatorial or Gubernatorial bid if confronted with that map.

Capito is moderate on the wrong issues for that district.

Without looking at partisanship/incumbent locations, here's the map I came up with (no county splits, equal populations). blue district is -633, green is +164, purple is +468. Also tried to make the districts as compact as possible, given the state's odd shape.

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It came out quite similarly to Vazdul's map.

I wonder if she'd want to represent the poorest and most isolated parts of the state (and perhaps country), too.

Drawing Capito in with Rahall is probably the best way to get her to take that risk and run for Senate or Governor.

The question is, would Democrats want that? :P

Any way to swap Huntington and Charleston?  It would make the green seat the Ohio River seat instead of pretending that it is the northwestern seat in a oddly shaped state.  Or would that have to come to far east further north, so it wouldn't really be a river seat.

Doesn't really work; Charleston screws up the no-county-splits thing, since it's the biggest county and is in just the wrong spot.

How about this? I got great population equality out of it, although the green district is slightly less compact.

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I think it has good thematic compactness:

Ohio River
Charleston and Coalfields
Monongahela and Eastern Panhandle

It's probably as balanced as you'll get on these estimates, and despite the issue with Nicholas County it's not horribly noncompact.

It also pits Moore Capito into an uphill battle against Rahall, or perhaps rather into a statewide run, and probably leaves the GOP slight favorites in both north seats, with McKinley running in the green one.

I'd have to question whether someone that risk-adverse when it comes to political ambition is really worth appeasing.   By the time she figures out that the map disfavors her and acts, she won't have as easy of a time clearing the Republican primary for statewide office [and given her moderate profile...] and that route becomes increasingly perilous too.

How likely is it they will stick with a map similar to what they already have? A northern seat, a southern seat, and a seat that stretches though the center across the state.

If you read this thread, not very likely. WV is required by it's state law to not split counties unless absolutely necessary for population equality. The middle district is overpopulated relative to the other two so has to lose territory, but is only a single county wide through most of the state so making it smaller but with the same area isn't really possible.

In any case the current setup was only drawn to screw Staggers in 1992. He's only 59, btw.

Oh hey, actually, you can keep the districts pretty close to the same with only a few minor adjustments:

Gilmer from CD 1 to CD 2.
Lewis from CD 2 to CD 1.

Putnam from CD 2 to CD 3.
Nicholas and Webster from CD 3 to CD 2.

That puts CD 1 at +223, CD 2 at +413, and CD 3 at -637.

Don't know what effect that'd have on the 3rd district, though; Putnam has a lot of GOP votes.

Democrats from the southern mining counties won't want Putnam (Charleston outer suburbia) in their district.

HB 2968 before the WV legislature would provide for a non-binding referendum on the secession of Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson counties to Virginia.  This could cause a loss of a district to the remainder of West Virginia and an additional one Virginia, if the apportionment would be adjusted.

Presumably the apportionment wouldn't be changed, since what matters is the state population at the time of the Census. Would be an intriguing Constitutional question, anyway. Is this being seriously considered?

It was referred to committee.  The proposal was from a representative from Berkeley.  I don't know it was serious, or rhetorical - Charleston pays us no never mind.

This is the best plan I came up with. I tried to keep the shape of the districts similar to their current forms.

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CD1 (OLIVE colored for OLIVErio!)- I designed this district so that Oliverio would win a rematch against McKinley. I added Calhoun county, from CD 2, which seems to be a bellwether county (it went 52-44 for Manchin); it would have probably pushed Oliverio over the top last year.

CD2 (Red) This gets slightly more Democratic. It trades out Putnam county (which voted for Raese) in exchange for Nicholas and Webster, both of which Manchin won easily. Still safe for Capito, but when she steps down, a Dixiecrat would have a good chance here.

CD3 (Purple) This trades out Webster and Nicholas, as I said, and gets Putnam. Safe for Rahall, but another coal-friendly Dixiecrat will likely win here when he retires.

This is the best plan I could get that keeps Putnam in CD2.

It would make CD1 slightly harder for Oliverio to win, so I'd rather go with my first plan.

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Nobody seems to have presented a north/east/southwest type map yet.

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We've seen better balanced seats though, this one is -711/+1502/-792.

I kind of like how Nick Rahall gets the most Republican seat. ;D (58.1 TPP, vs 57.5 for McWhatever and 54.4 for Capito.)

Interesting idea, but I don't think the Legislature would do that to Rahall...

Damn contiguity requirement. >:( >:D

Give Rahall McDowell, Mingo, Wyoming and Logan in comparison to here, shed Grant, Randolph, Barbour, Upshur, Webster and Nicholas to blue, and give Capito Wood, Ritchie and (from purple) Clay, and you have a noticeably more Democratic seat for Rahall in the same basic setup and the lowest population deviation I've seen so far: +29/+2/-32. But no contiguity. Tucker's still in Rahall's district.

This is the bets map I've come up with.
This should satisfy Capito and Rahall while helping Oliverio.

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WV-01: Sheds Mineral county (54-43 Raese) in favor of adding Wirt, Calhoun and Roane (which all went for Manchin by about his statewide 53-43 margin). Oliverio should have an easier time here.

WV-02: 'Gets Mineral from the 1st and gives Mason to the 3rd. Capito should approve.

WV-03: Stays the same but adds Mason (61-36 Manchin) and thus gets marginally more Democratic.


Deviations:

WV-01: +577
WV-02: +946
WV-03: -1524

The dems are on borrowed time in wv-03 so im not sure I'd try to strengthen it much.

Ostensibly, yes. But don't forget that the Democratic bench is very deep in WV; lots of Dixiecrats are still around. The Republicans have nobody.

Dixiecrats? Oh, no, no, no... something else.


No particular reason to assume that; the only part of the district where recent (downballot) voting patterns have been at all ominous is the Beckley area.

Well,  not Dixiecrats, per se. What I meant was their are still a lot of white conservative Democrats in WV.

I get -711/+2702/-1992 (or rather -710.67/+2702.33/-1991.67 the way I calculate it - I'm a mathematical purist).  And I double checked districts 2 and 3.


Upshur and Barbour counties are already in blue in the above map that you seemed to be referring to.  And with the other changes, I get -33323.67/+2.33/+33321.33 .  Moving Tucker to blue and making all three districts contiguous yeilds -26182.67/+2.33/+26180.33 .

You're right about map 1; must have overlooked some tiny precincts and not checked contiguity.

The second list seems also to omit Braxton. It also carries the error from the first map, and apparently additional errors. It seems that (unless there's new errors now. Ones the app doesn't find. Which has happened in the past.) it's actually very balanced if you give Tucker to McKinley (is that his name? Good.) at +277 / +2 / -280. (As to the mathematical purism issue... you and the app are both wrong. :P Persons cannot be divided in redistricting, and thus a rounded-down population and a rounded-up population should both be considered ideal populations, and the third district is -279.)

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Interestingly, State Senate Majority Leader John Unger thinks they might have to split counties this time around (http://wvgazette.com/News/politics/201107251344), and also thinks that it won't violate the state constitution.

Just like Arkansas...

Well, Arkansas' prohibition on county-splitting was based on tradition, not the state constitution.

In Arkansas, it is by state tradition. In West Virginia, its a state constitutional provision.

They're probably just trying to pack CD-2 hard.

Here's a map that leaves Rahall in his current district and packs Capito with some more Raese Counties.

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+504/-1062/+557

Rahall adds Randolph County (59% Manchin).
Capito adds the following.

Mineral County (54% Raese)
Grant County (72% Raese)
Tucker County (55% Manchin)
Barbour County (54% Manchin)

McKinley adds the following:

Mason County (61% Manchin)
Jackson County (50% Manchin)
Wirt County (53% Manchin)
Calhoun County (52% Manchin)

The Key issue is that Mineral County is pretty big, and of course this map puts the panhandle together, and I think should help then win CD-1 back.

I know the distinctions. But still.

I agree. They'll likely make WV-02 the GOP votes sink to weaken McKinley.

Looks like they may be putting Capito and McKinley together. (http://www.dailymail.com/News/statehouse/201107261216)

I'm not surprised. The Democrats have nothing to lose by doing so.

This is what I came up with from reading that article:

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I split Harrison, Putnam and Monongalia.

They could still end up with a 2-1 Republican delegation; the panhandle district could fall to a Republican, though Oliverio would live there and he's a good campaigner.

They split Kawanha and put Putnam into CD-3. This CD-2 is pretty strong for a Republican.

http://www.legis.state.wv.us/legisdocs/2011/1x/maps/senate/Senate_Redistricting_Proposed_CongressionalMap.pdf

That's pretty awesome from a Dem point of view. It cuts Capito out of her own district and moves some of the hardcore Republican counties from WV-1 into WV-2. Also, it looks much better.

Here is the Kanawha split. I espy "rat" droppings here. Shocking!  :P

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WV-2 is pretty Republican there, and WV-1 will be an uphill climb.

WV-3 of course grabs a lot of suburban Charleston. Doubt its enough to endanger it though.

Interesting map either way, and probably could be done without splitting counties.

I feel like this is Arkansas all over again.

This could be a dummymander....

I feel like they're screwing themselves just to spite Capito and McKinley.

They should have kept Taylor, Harrison, Barbour and Tucker in the 1st; they all voted for Oliverio last year.  Instead, the 1st reaches down to take in Jackson, Roane, Wirt and Calhoun; all of those counties have been voting for Capito.

Sigh...I hope this isn't the final plan.

One can only hope that deliberately violating the State's Constitution backfires on the then governor whom signs the bill.  When state courts insist on enforcing the Constitution,  Republicans will have a governor to veto the next bill the legislature tries. That would be the dummymander to end all dummymanders.

Putting Putnam into WV-03 is dumb.

Just so that we have a picture of the map on this thread:

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Here are the 2010 Senate numbers:

Manchin/Raese

WV01- 54.5/43.4
WV-02- 50.5/47.7
WV-03- 57.1/40.9

Meh. If the court decides this violates the constitution, then there isn't much the Republicans can do to hurt the Democrats anyway as they will be just as constrained by the constitutional language as the Democrats are. (And you are making a rather grandiose prediction that there will be a Republican governor and state legislature--dubious at best.) I think this does violate the constitution, but the WV Democrats really have nothing to lose by trying.

And BSB doesn't know for a fact that the Governor will be a Republican.

'Another one of his silly conjectures.

Maybe Harley Staggers will try a comeback? That's basically his old district they've drawn. Putnam is a surprise, but I suppose that's balanced out by adding southern Kanawha county.

Charleston legislators are opposing this effort to slash their county in two.

Kinda lame. My map gets the same result without splitting counties and while putting Capito surely in WV-02.

Checking out this map it looks like they split Harrison county also  (a bit to the right of the number 1)

I agree; your map is better.

Perhaps West Virginia should do what Arkansas did in 2001 (although they could have split counties in they're main plan then):  Adopt a map splitting no counties to satisfy the state constitutional requirement, but enact a backup plan moving territory in a couple counties between districts in case of a successful federal court challenge alleging vote dillution.

Really? "Slash"?

Why? Isn't the pay-off for making WV-01 more competitive worth it?

If anything, WV-01 is now less competitive.

Why do you say that? It picked up some Republican areas along the Ohio River, but lost some seriously Republican counties in the east of the state.

Really. They seem to agree as they just went with the obvious flip 1 county plan.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WV_XGR_SPECIAL_SESSION_CONGRESS_WVOL-?SITE=WVHUN&SECTION=news&TEMPLATE=hddefault&CTIME=2011-08-04-12-40-24


West Virginia should move Mason County from its 2nd U.S. House District to its 3rd in response to the 2010 Census, a Senate committee decided Thursday, rejecting a more ambitious draft plan that swapped 19 counties among the three congressional districts.

The scuttled draft had also split Kanawha and Harrison counties between two districts for the first time. That and other elements of the draft incurred the wrath of Republicans, who hold the 1st and 2nd District seats.

But lawmakers from both parties had also signaled a reluctance to attempt the substantial changes championed by Senate Majority Leader John Unger, the redistricting committee's chair.

The draft created compact districts that were equal to or within one person of the ideal size of 617,665 residents. Both are key goals of redistricting. Thursday's amendment would result in districts that range within several thousand residents.

Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

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Another trifecta goes to waste...

I would argue that this is better than the original plan.

Since the 1st stayed the same, we're still only 1400 votes away from flipping it...

This was an interesting example of how things often end up working; a less than ideal status quo (the current map was drawn to screw a particular incumbent when the state lost a seat two decades ago and makes no real sense) is kept because any alternative are unpalatable.

cf. Massachusetts 4th district, likely to build on 30 years of insanity with the next remap.

Mike Oliverio had a say in the redistricting process.

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/squawkbox/2011/08/04/oliverio-keeps-eye-on-redistricting-session/

I talked to him a week ago and he didn't tell me any plans about running in 2012.

I do think he'll run again though; McKinley isn't entrenched yet and Oliverio would have stronger Manchin coattails this time around.

I prefer it when WV grudge matches are kept mostly to primaries (Rahall/Hechler was a good one), but that would do as a substitute.

Wasn't Oliverio virtually a teabagger himself?

Yeah, he's fairly conservative, but I'd say he's pretty close to Joe Manchin, ideologically. 

Didn't he [Oliverio] say he wouldn't even have voted for Pelosi?

He said he'd vote for "whomever his party chooses as its leader."

I guess that would be Pelosi, since she won the majority of the Democratic caucus.

http://www.rollcall.com/news/governor_signs_new_west_virginia_map-208223-1.html

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed West Virginia’s Congressional redistricting bill into law Thursday morning, the Democrat’s spokesman told Roll Call.

The new lines leave the state’s three districts, represented by two Republicans and one Democrat, almost identical for another 10 years.

Good, they played it safe.

I still think they should have been more aggressive. This is one of what, three states where Democrats have the trifecta? They already blew it in Arkansas. The Democrats had nothing to lose by reconfiguring the two northern districts in an attempt to unseat McKinley. What a waste.

Oliverio knows he can win WV-01. He had input. If he wanted the district changed, they would have been more 'aggressive.'

Looks like we'll have a new map.  (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/03/us-redistricting-westvirginia-idUSTRE8021LQ20120103) A three-judge panel ruled that the population devation of the enacted map was too great, even though it keeps all counties whole.

:-/

At least they didn't tell'em to split counties.

The judges' order says that the constitution doesn't prohibit splitting counties. I can't copy-paste from it, but it's here (http://www.scribd.com/doc/77049479/WV-Federal-Court-Opinion-Overturning-Congressional-Map), specifically pages 12 and 13. So they may require them to split counties to achieve perfect population equality.

The WV legislature really pushed the courts on their map. The maximum deviation is just over 0.5% (3197) and it's not very compact. Since there are other ways of matching whole counties with a smaller deviation, it's not surprising that the court rejected it.

Here are a couple of alternatives that significantly improve on the passed map. Option A keeps the panhandle attached to Charleston. The maximum deviation is just under 0.2% (1231)

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Option B puts Charleston with the south and the panhandle with Morgantown. That leaves a long district along the Ohio River. The maximum deviation here is 0.15% (930).

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That is quite a stretch for a Federal Judge to tell a state what the meaning of their Constitution is.

Maximum deviation is defined as from the ideal, or from largest to smallest seat? I think this is the most balanced map we've had in the thread, anyhow:

I wish we could get partisan data for West Virginia.  :(

As long as you're not splitting counties... you can fairly easily calculate them yourself.

http://www.dailymail.com/News/201201040033

The Cooper plan looks really solid for McKinley.

It also has the same second district as my map!

Since the maps won't be able to preserve the status quo, it would be good for the WV-DEMS to use this as an excuse to make a more difficult CD for McKinley or Capito, presumably the former. With Rahall's CD intact, they wouldn't have much to lose.

I have to agree with the decision, the population deviancy on the current map is far too high to be sustained and it's entirely possible to get a more equal one without county splits.

Lewis's map above though is pretty weird with the third district which is clearly not a community of interest.

Nah, it's two of them slapped together. Which is still much better than most congressional districts in the US. :P

The Cooper plan splits only one county, Taylor, to achieve nearly mathematical equality. I've looked and I think that Lewis' plan is the minimum deviation with no county splits. I've made a smaller version of the map to compare with my options with greater deviation.

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One question for the WV legislature is what map a federal panel would impose. I wouldn't rule out Lewis' plan in that case. The state has shown a strong policy interest in keeping counties whole, and Lewis' deviation is well within the acceptable limits when there is other compelling state interest. Also the state hasn't objected to a combination of the Panhandle and Charleston, so I see no reason why there would be an objection to the linking the Panhandle with Beckley instead.

I took a quick look at the PVI's for Lewis' map. They are R+8, R+7, and R+9 respectively. That's probably about as bad as it gets for the Dems. If they are worried about a court imposed map, then this has to be part of their worries.

Compare that to something like my option B that kept the south together in one district; the PVIs are then R+10, R+9 and R+5. Rahall's current district is R+6, and I doubt he'd want to go to R+9 when he could stay the same or do better by his party in the legislature.

The heart of the Southern coal country does stay together in that map, of course (because it was actually purpose-drawn to :D ) and the South would be completely dominant in Dem primaries in that district. While R candidates are more likely to be from the Eastern Panhandle. Rahall wouldn't like it but should actually be fine absent a massive wave.

Yep. Manchin only won that CD1 by 50-46; I think the current CD1 is was about the same as his statewide 53-44.

If you compare the Cooper plan to my map, it's pretty clear that it's intended to protect McKinley and Rahall. It's a map aimed at 1-1-1 with the Republicans having an entrenched incumbent in the wouldbe swing seat, so really 2-1 R.

But I think your map today is at best a 1-0-2 with incumbents to make it 2-1 R, and over the decade it becomes 3-0 R as the GOP develops a bench.

The court did a rather extreme parsing of the WV Constitution.

The constitution says that congressional districts

"For the election of representatives to Congress, the state shall be divided into districts, corresponding in number with the representatives to which it may be entitled; which districts shall be formed of contiguous counties, and be compact. Each district shall contain, as nearly as may be, an equal number of population, to be determined according to the rule prescribed in the constitution of the United States."

For senate districts it says:

"For the election of senators, the state shall be divided into twelve senatorial districts, which number shall not be diminished, but may be increased as hereinafter provided. Every district shall elect two senators, but, where the district is composed of more than one county, both shall not be chosen from the same county. The districts shall be compact, formed of contiguous territory, bounded by county lines, and, as nearly as practicable, equal in population, to be ascertained by the census of the United States. After every such census, the Legislature shall alter the senatorial districts, so far as may be necessary to make them conform to the foregoing provision."

The court decided that because the constitution specified "county lines" for the senate, that the founders intent was to distinguish the rules for the senate from that for Congress.  A simpler explanation is that because of the distribution rules (senators must live in different counties, though there are no subdistricts), that a different construction was specified.

It is truly bizarre to think that a provision that was in the 1863 Constitution and absolutely followed for the past 150 years, is just a custom.

I think the judges simply wanted to quote Bob Dylan in an opinion.

The opinion said that they would likely impose either the "perfect plan" (ie zero deviation plan) or Cooper 4.

The court considered whether the district was compact, but declined to make a decision because they had already decided that there was too much population decision.  Nonetheless, they noted that it was almost 300 miles between Charleston and Martinsburg, the county seats of the (now) two most populous counties.

The original plaintiffs are the Jefferson County board of commissioners; who likely weren't that overly concerned about a 0.5% overpopulation of their district.  The intervenor plaintiff was from Kanawha County, who argued that he had a separate interest from that of the Jefferson County plaintiffs.

http://www.wvmetronews.com/news.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=50351

But on Monday, the state Senate was hard at work on an alternative called "the more perfect plan." The map would put the Eastern Panhandle, the Northern Panhandle and connecting counties into District 1.

District 2 would go from Marion County in the north, Kanawha County in the south and Wood County in the west.

District 3 would encompass southern West Virginia.




Perhaps this, based on the above, if they decide not to split counties. Deviation of 1441.

() (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/337/wv1.png/)


Otherwise, this is being thrown around and splits 2 counties.

http://media.trb.com/media/acrobat/2012-01/289779220-15172344.pdf

Given what the court said, they'll have to split counties if they want a map like this. Both of my maps, and certainly Lewis' map, are whole county plans with smaller deviations. They court cited the ability to draw whole county plans with less deviation as a reason to strike down the passed map.

has anyone made a GOP friendly map? I'm trying to do one. Hard to do it without partisan data...

The most recent map posted on this thread looks pretty damn GOP friendly to me. It's a real shame that a Democratic trifecta is going to be wasted like this.

I hate to say this, but I think WV will be 2-1 R in 2012.

Oh well, other than the House delegation, Republicans don't have anything in WV.

You don't need partisan data if you're not splitting counties.

Miles: Yea, a theres a chance of that. You guys can have Shelley Moore Capito's seat, as long as I can have McKinley :P
BRTD: Good point

It kind of depends how you define a GOP-friendly map. Does McKinley need some moderate shoring up if he's not to remain a fluke (I think he does)? How many Democrats and how much new territory can Moore take (quite a bit, clearly, though there are limits to it)? What would it take to endanger Nick Rahall (is it even theoretically possible to do so as long as the southern coal country remains undivided, and ready to vote as parochially as it did in the gubernatorial election)? All of these are sort-of open questions on which the answer of what a GOP-friendly map is depends. If you think McKinley has settled in very nicely and there are limits to Rahall's capacity even with the southern coal intact, my map is very GOP-friendly. If you think neither of these things, it's very Dem-friendly.

Well, Mike Oliverio is a friend of mine, so I kinda wanna see McKinley defeated ;)

I do think the WV-02 on the most recent map could easily flip without Capito though.

Rahall doesn't seem to want to share the wealth. Manchin/Raese shows that the 3rd district has all the straight ticket Democrats. As long as you maintain that district, it won't be easy to win either of the other 2.

Ah I gotcha :)

No surprise there. -_-

The state got its map back.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WV_REDISTRICTING_WVOL-?SITE=WVHUN&SECTION=news&TEMPLATE=hddefault&CTIME=2012-01-20-12-11-19


West Virginia can run its congressional races with the redistricting map recently struck down by a panel of federal judges, after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to stay the ruling.

Stayed? So that means in this case... what, exactly? The Feds will hear the case, but the state map is used for 2012?

That's a shame.  I was hoping they'd have a new map.  The one the legislature passed is just silly looking.

That appears to be the case, as far as I can tell.

It means the federal district court went off the deep end simply because they wanted to quote Bob Dylan in a decision, and the Supreme Court is trying to curb the use of the courts as a weapon in redistricting.

There is no real harm if West Virginia uses districts quite similar to what they have been using for the past 10 years and only have a 0.8% deviation.

The SCOTUS will eventually rule whether "practicable" is a synonym for "devoid of common sense".

They seem to be moving back towards some population latitude when the state makes a case for a neutral consistent factor like county lines. I've found the argument for any precision beyond 0.5% deviation largely meaningless. Analysis of typical mobility shows that 0.5% deviation is consistent wit the change in a congressional district population in April 2010 and November 2012. In science classes we teach that one should not use more precision than the data warrants. After two and a half years the precision of the map drawn to a single person is irrelevant with its first use in a general election.

That being said, I do think the state erred in using a map with the deviation they did when many others with whole counties were available that were within the 0.5% mark. They should at least have had better justification of why they would pass over those other alternatives.

Keeping incumbents in separate districts and keeping the districts the same seems like justification enough.

Many other options kept incumbents separate. The districts were similar, but not the same. The state never really rebutted the objections from the eastern panhandle that they had the most growth, not reflected in the plan.

Well yeah. Frankly anything below 5% is pretty sick imho. Making districts as even as possible was a weapon against reasonably drawn maps and for gerrymandering, and nothing else really.

If you want to address the issue of America's massive and fast population shifts, the answer is redistrict more often...  although you are going against the founder's will to an unusually express degree with that.

How so?  When Congress was considering the first apportionment, they added language that would have resulted in another census.  It didn't make it into the final version.  The every 10 years is a maximum, not a minimum.

And since there is more change within states than among states more frequent districting makes sense.  Many states had provisions in their constitution for mid-decennial censuses in order to have more up to date districts.

They moved one county (which incidentally was the furthest from the Eastern Panhandle) and has about 9 times the population of the deviation (ie they reduced the deviation by 90%).

There is no reason that a federal court should be interpreting a state constitution.

Is it? I didn't know that.
That was not always the case though.

Eh. If it were all up to me, I'd set some target range - say 15% deviation maximum - and redistrict whenever my data suggest a district is in urgent danger of violating it (or when the feds decide to allocate me a new district).
And I'd try to have some very accurate data on what people consider their legal primary residence (with the definition broadly up to them as long as they have only one)... preferrably some form of compulsory registration.
But it's not, so all of this is neither here nor there.

That is the basic approach taken in Australia.  Whenever a state's apportionment changes, there is a redistribution.  Apportionment of divisions (Aussie for "riding") is based on population (estimates), while delineation of the divisions is based on enrollment - which is compulsory.  This of course gives them excellent small scale data.

There is also a redistribution if more than 1/3 of the divisions for a state are out of wack by more than 10%, or if it has been 7 years since the last redistribution.

When they do the redistribution, it is so that 3.5 years out, that divisions will be within 3.5%, so faster growing areas are deliberately underpopulated, and slower growth or declining areas are overpopulated.  If the full redistribution period is used and the projections accurate, the areas spend some times underpopulated and some times overpopulated.

I see that the jurisdictional statement of the appeal to SCOTUS (http://redistricting.lls.edu/files/WV%20tennant%2020120327%20juris.pdf) was filed last week.

That got me looking at the alternatives proposed by plaintiff Cooper. Plan 4 was one cited by the court with a single county split, but plans 1, 2, and 3 were earlier submissions to the Senate redistricting committee. They are all referenced in the table at the end of the linked document, and none have any county splits. Moreover, Cooper 3 has a smaller variance (+113, +2, -116) than even Lewis' plan (+277, +2, -280). Sorry, Lewis. :(

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Woah. That third is hilarious. Nick Rahall ought to like it though.

It looks like a dinosaur.

That 3rd is a great pack I think.

Why on earth would SCOTUS take this case, particularly since it would not be heard and decided this year, which means a redraw for the next election, and all over basically nothing (there is hardly a pressing need to find if a population deviation of more than a few people but less than 1% is Constitutional)?  I don't think so.

Because they need to take it if they want to overrule the lower court (which did find a pressing need, for whatever bizarro reasons)? They can't just stay the lower court's decision indefinitely, can they?

Oh SCOTUS stayed the appellate court decision?

Yes, indeed it did (http://westvirginia.watchdog.org/4029/u-s-supreme-court-approves-stay-in-west-virginia-congressional-redistricting-case/). So I guess that is the equivalent of granting cert. I very much doubt SCOTUS is going to fly speck the state law, or try to decide if a lower population deviance is appropriate given the alternatives, etc. They may just hold that deviations of less than 0.5% or whatever are Constitutional if there is some reasonable reason for it under state law, like not splitting counties, or precincts, or whatever, and defer to the state courts as to whether the map comported with state law. I just can't see them evaluating a bunch of maps.  So I suspect the map the legislature drew will be upheld, since the grounds it was bounced was only based on the equality of population issue. My guess is that SCOTUS will hardly even look at the maps.

The WV Supreme Court itself deferred to the state legislature on the legislative districts, refusing (http://www.courtswv.gov/supreme-court/docs/spring2012/11-1405and11-1447.pdf) to involve itself as to whether other maps better implemented the state law.

One question they may engage in is whether a whole county plan with a range of 0.79% should stand when there are many alternative plans with whole counties and significantly less deviation (like 0.04% in Cooper 3). The state will argue that their plan also preserved the maximum number of counties because it shifted only one county. Does that state interest justify the larger deviation?

Who knows, but I really doubt SCOTUS wants to micromanage that way. If it were me, I would just set a bright line limit of 1.0% deviation, or 0.5% (maybe using your statistical approach of say what is the one or two standard deviation variance in population change between the census date and the election date in 95% of the cases, as to what that percentage is).  It is next to pointless to do case by case litigation over such small percentage variations. The Courts have better things to do, and SCOTUS doesn't like Courts being involved in redistricting anyway if it can reasonably be avoided. Somehow I suspect 1.0% might be it because it 1) is a whole integer, and 2) saves the WV map.

If they do it will be a departure from precedent. They have been willing to say how much is too much, but never how little is close enough. I'd like it if they did, but for now I'm a skeptic. I think they will have to find that the additional state goals justified the additional deviation, since it seems like they would rather leave the map in place.

Doesn't a 1.0% deviation save the map?

The SCOTUS was irritated that the lower court quoted Dylan, and used absolutely absurd logic regarding the splitting of counties.  And population equality had nothing to do with the original complaint, which was filed by Jefferson County, which is the easternmost county in the eastern panhandle, which was tired of being in a district with Charleston.

Justice Harlan in his dissent in the OMOV cases warned that the courts would forever be stuck adjudicating redistricting cases, and he was right.  The Supreme Court has tried to to stop the use of the courts as a weapon in redistricting, which was what happened here.

If that were the de minimis standard it would, but the deviation in Maine (the difference in population between the largest and smallest existing congressional district in Maine as a percentage of the ideal Maine congressional district population) was only 0.65% (8,669 people) and the three-judge court trashed the Democrats in their opinion when the Democrats argued that the existing districts could be used for the 2012 elections.

What is the absolute and percentage deviations in the congressional plan the West Virginia state government adopted again?

The range from largest to smallest is 0.79% of the ideal population. That's the number argued about in this case. There were at least 7 other plans with no county splits presented during legislative hearings before the map was adopted. Those plans ranged from 0.44% down to 0.04%.

Maine did not combine whole counties.

since DRA has Obama/McCain numbers.. a Dem gerrymander with some county splitting

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CD1: 617570 (McCain 54.1, Obama 44.3) [was 57/42 McCain]

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CD2: 617606 (McCain 60.7, Obama 37.6) [was 55/44 McCain]

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CD3: 617818 (McCain 51.9, Obama 46.3) [was 56/42 McCain]

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the split in Harrison county

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the split in Kanawha county

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Out of curiosity, what would a Republican gerrymander look like? 

The 2008 numbers are nice to have for WV, though I think Manchin/Raese would have been more useful.


Probably actually similar to RBH's Democratic map.

For a solid 2-1, I'd probably pack Democrats tighter into CD3 while splitting Marion and Monongalia counties between CD1 and CD2. CDs 1 and 2 would each need to be at least 57% McCain, IMO.

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CD1- 58.5/39.9 McCain
CD2- 57.3/41.1 McCain
CD3- 51.0/47.2 McCain

For 3-0, I'd guess some kind of vertical baconmander could work for the GOP.

if you're doing 3-0 and having all 3 districts near the statewide Pres numbers, then the current map with some modifications seems like a capable R-friendly map. If you wanna get rid of Rahall, then do the same premise while slicing Southern WV. Drop Rahall in a district with North/Central WV. Dilute the Coal Counties between the 3 districts.

The Supreme Court has unanimously approved the population deviation present in the WV remapping plan.

What is the absolute variation the Supreme Court has permitted state legislative elections, and federal Congressional elections?

The Supreme Court, I suggest, set the higher variation for state legislatures because it did not want to strike down whole-county provisions in a number of states. West Virginia has a whole-county provision for federal Congressional districts. I doubt it wants to either strike down whole-county provisions, or demand bizarre shuffling of counties to form non-compact districts just to acheive marginal increases in population equality.

Here's the text of the decision (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-1184c1d3.pdf). This is a big win for states that wish to apply neutral criteria and avoid arbitrary splits or groupings solely to minimize population deviation. It reverses the trend towards the need for computers to minimize population deviations. In principle, a commission like in CA could have avoided a number of municipal splits that were needed for exact equality.

So, for you (Muon2) and also others (chiefly jimrtex), has the Supreme Court "departed from precedent" at all in this case.  There's still no defined always acceptable range of deviation (or a range within which the burden of proof would be 100% on the plaintiffs; the so-called de minimis range or something like that), right?  Was this a broader decision than you expected?  How much guidance that wasn't already there do district courts now have in malapportionment lawsuits?  I know this was a per curiam opinion, which sometimes are kind of like "duh" when one considers Supreme Court opinions that have already been given (like the recent Montana "mini-Citizens United" case, maybe).

It seems that SCOTUS has not so much departed from precedent but instead rolled back to their views at the time of Karcher. Karcher placed a burden on the plaintiffs to show that deviations could be avoided, then if they did the ball was in the State's court to show that there was a necessary objective requiring them. Since Karcher the window for the state seemed to get increasingly narrow with each decision. Now that window has widened again.

As I read it, once the the state creates its goals, a plaintiff would now have to show that their alternative redistricting plan meets the same goals but with a smaller population deviation. I think future cases will explore what goals are legitimate, but political goals (cores of existing districts) can now be included alongside purely geographic goals.

This is the key part of the decision where the Court quotes from Karcher v Daggett:


Most States are going to have difficulty demonstrating that they have consistently reflected those interests, both over time and within a plan.

That's why I think the decision may lend itself to use by commissions such as CA. They had a number of principles that were consistently applied and had to violate them to achieve exact population equality. If the population deviations were small otherwise the burden would shift to the plaintiffs to show that there was another viable plan that met the principles, but reduced the deviation.

As the WV case shows the plaintiff's burden requires meeting all of the state's valid criteria, which in their case included minimal population shifts between districts. Meeting only the historically consistent goal to keep counties intact was not sufficient to overturn the WV map.

The California Constitution itself makes a distinction between congressional and legislative districts.


It is plausible that a California court would read the distinction as having a specific purpose.

I think the simplest solution would be for Congress to establish limits:

(1) Maximum 1% deviation;
(2) Maximum standard deviation 0.5%;

Neutral criteria approved by the legislature 5 years before the Census.

I assume the CA SC would read the language as SCOTUS has, which is that there is a distinction, but as just decided practicable must take into account other neutral factors used to make the map. The use of practicable is now taken to mean that another plan that meets the criteria but achieves lower deviation should be considered instead.

I like the suggestion for Congress to set some guidelines to constrain redistricting for that body. By deviation, I assume you mean the total deviation from largest to smallest. You might substitute average deviation for standard deviation since that has been the practice in those states that explicitly use that criteria. I would also add a fallback provision in the law outlining neutral criteria to be used if that state failed to meet its timely obligation.

California senate districts are larger than congressional districts, and assembly districts are over 50% as large.   If "practicable" means more exact than "reasonable", then congressional districts would be expected to be more precisely equal in size than legislative districts.

When the California constitution was amended, "practicable" was understood to mean almost exactly equal, even if that understanding was based on an erroneous reading of Karcher v Daggett - or alternatively a poorly articulated standard by by the SCOTUS.

So a California court could go either way - determining that authors had a particular standard in mind, or they intended to recognize an ever-evolving standard.

I think that error should be measured from the mean (I would permit ±1%, rather 1% maximum minus minimum).   Use of standard deviation rewards aiming for the mean, while permitting deviation for more exceptional cases.   Use of average deviation says that +max deviation is just as good as zero deviation.  It suggests that one really wasn't shooting for the center of the target.

A State would not be obligated to define a neutral criteria.  They would be given the opportunity to define a neutral criteria, which would permit them greater flexibility.

Very interesting to read this now. Many posters seriously believed Democrats could average 2 seats or more during this decade. Instead, they're on track on average .2 unless something very weird happens in 2020. Oliverio, the hope of northern WV Democrats, meanwhile, just ran for his old State Senate seat as a Republican.

I wonder if a Mingo-Monongalia seat splitting Kanawha would have voted R this decade?

If you put ojeda and mooney together in like a r plus 13 seat I think ojeda wins

It's almost as if Atlas posters are incapable of spotting blatantly obvious trends!

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538's Atlas of Redistricting indicates that in WV, even the most pro-Democratic gerrymander would give the Democrats a less than 4% chance of winning one of its congressional seats (and this particular gerrymander would have that district be in the shape of a snake/worm and cut across the middle of the state).

Ojeda would have won that easily