Talk Elections

Couldn't find another thread on the subject, but it seems Mississippi is already considering a redistricting plan for the state house, so I though this would be a good place to dump maps and news for all state legislatures.

MS Article: http://www.sunherald.com/2011/03/04/2916771/house-passes-redistricting-plan.html (http://www.sunherald.com/2011/03/04/2916771/house-passes-redistricting-plan.html)
MS Map: Warning large pdf http://www.msjrc.state.ms.us/pdf/proposed_house_2011_high.pdf (http://www.msjrc.state.ms.us/pdf/proposed_house_2011_high.pdf)

Or my MSPaintized version of the above.
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So go hog wild, I guess.

Here's the breakdown of the map:

http://www.msjrc.state.ms.us/pdf/proposed_house_long-report_build1.pdf

It looks like there are 44 majority-black districts, out of 122 total.

Just for reference here are links to South Carolina's current districts.

House (http://www.scstatehouse.gov/man10/26_HseDistrictMap.pdf)

House Inset Maps for Greenville-Spartanburg, Columbia, and Charleston (http://www.scstatehouse.gov/man10/27_HseInsets.pdf)

Senate (http://www.scstatehouse.gov/man10/12_SenDistricts.pdf)

And the MS Proposal colored by % Black.
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The Mississippi Senate rejected the House map:

http://www.sunherald.com/2011/03/08/2926075/miss-house-redistricting-killed.html

Is there really any possibility the two MS chambers will be able to compromise on their maps?

It doesn't sound too good with the senate election committee putting out an alternative to the map proposed by the senate redistricting committee.

I suspect that a lot of representatives might be content with using the current lines for this year's elections.  Every one of them was elected from those districts.  It also gives the Republicans a chance to take control of the House.

There might not be time for a court to draw districts for this year.  You're not going to get a court to usurp legislative authority and draw a map just in case the legislature fails to do so.  They will wait until there is an actual failure.  They might not have time to draw districts in time, and they are unlikely to enjoin the election at all.  So they might draw new districts, but the legislature could have a chance to redraw them.

And a court master might not be as demanding as the USDOJ.

Some of you might be interested in viewing the Minnesota Senate's page on Mississippi Redistricting Cases:  the 1990s (http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/departments/scr/redist/redsum/MSSUM.HTM).  The first legislative election in Mississippi in the 2000s was in 2003 so the state, or the courts had it been necessary, had more time to redraw the states legislative districts.  Mississippi elected Legislators for what was supposed to be a four-year term in 1991 from districts drawn in 1982, but when a plan was enacted and approved by the Justice Department the next year, the U.S. District Court for Southern District of Mississippi federal ordered a legislative election for a three-year term on the regular primary and general election dates in 1992.

This article (http://www.politickernj.com/45742/rosenthal-house) suggests that the map adopted for New Jersey's legislative districts will be the one drawn by the Democrats.

It would appear that the Mississippi legislature put aside their differences and passed their original plans. (http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/mar/15/contentious-debate-precedes-house-passage-mississi/)

Not so fast, as the State Senate Republicans have banded together to throw out the State House plan they regarded as a Democratic gerrymander and decided to Invite to conference (http://majorityinms.com/2011/03/17/good-day-for-bryant-and-the-gop/) over the joint redistricting resolution, where Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant would have a strong say in promoting maps more favorable to the GOP there.

Looks like we're going to get Virginia's maps on the 29th. (http://www.vpap.org/updates/show/701)

Virginia's proposed maps are available here (http://redistricting.dls.virginia.gov/2010/RedistrictingPlans.aspx) (official source, slow but has district numbers on the map) and here (http://hamptonroads.com/2011/03/virginia-redistricting-proposed-maps) (media source, faster but you have to click for district numbers).

Louisiana's Senate map was passed by the Senate and is expected to be passed by the House. Here (http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/streamdocument.asp?did=734648) is a rather large pdf file of the bill, and here (http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/03/louisiana_senate_approves_new.html) is the news article detailing the vote.

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Current draft for the new Louisiana House map.

(here's the old map for comparison (http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/images/LA_House_2003.JPG)

-New Orleans delegation reduced from 25 members to 19
-Three new black-majority districts added by the redistricting committee (to a total of 30), but one was later taken out in a partisan vote on the House floor; Legislative Black Caucus Chair has promised to sue over it.
-the pairs of Democratic incumbents will be running against each other
-recent party switcher Bubba Chaney was saved from being cut out of his district by the House GOP leadership's intervention

The Democrats win in New Jersey: the tiebreaker dude picked their map for the legislature. (http://www.politickernj.com/46423/breaking-rosenthal-chooses-democratic-map#)

Didn't this happen last time too?

Here's an article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/politics/va-redistricting-deal-protects-incumbents-and-punishes-challengers-critics-say/2011/03/31/AFYE4pQC_story.html) with a little background on the Virginia plans. Sen. George Barker used DRA to draw the preliminary Senate map.


I believe so.

Well, here's the New Jersey map (https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=1HqWyrGP_B7wHPqaWJO9NEpTfMMcpx8uviAg-3ViuzKQX-lwiU6cEGo_P42AK&hl=en&pli=1) and here's the racial breakdown. (https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ApHe4tpRD8jEdEhobXlNMlcwemdFb1JrOW5GZ2pQSnc&hl=en#gid=0) (Cribbed from Blue Jersey.)

Yep, with a different tiebreaker.

They sliced Somerset County between what looks like 6 different districts. And amazingly, they didn't even dissolve an Essex County district as should have been done, although they did push SD-27 into a Morris based district.

I'm not sure what the point of some of these districts are. They sort of went out of their way to screw with the Republican Northwest counties.

I don't know New Jersey geography very well, but, those changes might have been necessary to put in the new minority districts?

Nope, because the Democratic map didn't actually create any new minority districts. Those are in any case in the Essex/Hudson corner of the state, which is the actual northeast, forgive my brainfart earlier.

It was the GOP map that increased black/hispanic districts to 2 each, up from 1.


If you look at the map, districts 23, 24, 16, and 15 could have all been drawn to not split counties like that.

Why on earth does that 16th span across 4 counties? Move Princeton and South Brunswick back into the 15th/17th and you'd have a much cleaner map. The Democrats though were trying to screw over some Democratic legislator they didn't like, and obviously Codey as well which is why they fed him to the Morris County GOP.


The population variance was sort of abused (GA 2000 style). Almost all the South Jersey districts are over population and all the Northeast Essex/Bergen based ones are under.

The 16th spans four counties to sink Republicans in Hunterdon and Somerset into a Democratic district.

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They didn't screw over Codey either, just some Morris County Republicans.

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Some of their choices are slightly bizarre. They could definitely have created a totally new Democratic district in Morris County by combining Morristown, Morris Plains, Parsippany and Dover (plus the areas near each that are also Democratic) in one seat, but they chose not to do so for whatever reason, instead stranding all of those areas in R seats.

They also stranded some Democrats in LD39 unnecessarily in Closter, Haworth, Demarest, etc. Same with Bound Brook and South Bound Brook in LD23. Meanwhile, LD38 seems to have been made unnecessarily vulnerable; not sure why they didn't put Closter etc. in LD37 and Hackensack in LD38 to shore it up (then Paramus or something in LD39 to balance it out). Loretta Weinberg would have nothing to worry about with Englewood, Teaneck AND Tenafly still in her seat.

LD16 makes more sense than it looks as the parts of Somerset in the seat are marginal to D-leaning.

On the successful-gerrymandering side, they have successfully created a D or at least more likely to flip seat in Monmouth County in LD11 while at the same time pitting star incumbents Jennifer Beck and Sean Kean against each other there.

Diane Allen may lose LD07 now as it has dropped some of the less-D parts. (She really has no business holding it; it's something like 65% Obama.)

Good information, but a lot of these areas in that 16th are more Republican at the local level than they are at the Presidential. Off-year turnout has a bit to do with it. I'll gather the 2005/2009 data for those districts. But I guess I see the logic.

For example, in that LD-16, Corzine only got 47% of the vote in 2005, and he would have gotten utterly drenched here in 2009.

Cody still has a shot of surviving in his new district just because of his name recognition and residual good will from when he was acting governor.

That's true, Christie broke 60% of the two-party vote in that 16th, and Forrester carried it as well. But the fact remains that they've turned a solid GOP district into a marginal one.

Possibly. I'm not sure who exactly has residual good will for the early 2000s here, which sourced a lot of the problems that showed up in the late 2000s, but the name recognition at least is valid.

If he does hold on, Essex County will continue to have representation well beyond its actual population, but that's nothing new.

Anything though is an improvement from the current map. At least the 4th is still winnable, and I could see the GOP winning in that 14th and 27th. I'm not seeing any sort of other pickup opportunity elsewhere, though, barring personal problems like Whelan in the 2nd.

I would expect someone to move. The 12th I believe would be vacant and Republican leaning.

It's actually Kean and Singer paired in the 30th, since Kean (apparently) lives in Wall and Singer in Lakewood. I expect Singer to move to the 12th since it contains much of his old district.

BTW, I see what you mean about overpopulated districts in South Jersey. The 10th is overpopulated by at least 20,000! How far can the deviation be, legally?

IIRC the absolute legal maximum deviation for state legislature districts is considered to be a 10% difference a district's population and the population of an "ideal" district, but court cases have been successful in challenging district plans with less of a deviation than that, especially when there's a systematic bias in favor of a specific racial group or some such.

Looking at Johnny's link above, it seems your numbers aren't correct. The 10th is overpopulated by only 4602, which is 2.1% above average. For the record, the maximum deviation present is 2.5% over (in the 9th and 28th) and -2.7% under (in the 40th). This isn't really anything out of the ordinary.

After taking a closer look at the map, I notice what I did wrong. It seems Point Pleasant is actually in the 30th.

I know you know this and also we agree this map is quite the Dem gerrymander in places... do you think it matters if they split counties or not, since county government is relatively weak? It could be even more democratic this way because it keeps the county organizations in competition with each other rather than have a single county party anoint its representative for the race, as happens so often.

The counties in this case share some types of municipal services between them, such as road cleaning,  athletic facilities, libraries, and tax authorities. And you're right in the sense that county parties hold more power, but in that 16th, South Brunswick is really part of the NYC/Turnpike/Route 1 metro. It's just kind of an oddball attached to Hunterdon county like that which aren't; even ignoring county lines it could be made much cleaner than it is. The 11th is at least a bit more consistent; it just happened to pluck all the Dem leaning areas in Monmouth and shove them into 1 district rather than spread them across 4.

Rosenthal has some good points; in order for the GOP to get a majority, they'd have to really gerrymander up Essex/Hudson/Passaic to create a 3rd seat up there. So I can sort of see why they didn't get that But based on that 16th and 11th, the Democrats were able to cherry pick towns in the deep GOP areas and create a pair of more marginal districts (while bleaching and packing the neighboring 30th and 12th); this really is inconsistent with Rosenthal's 'continuity of representation' line, which only seems to have applied in the northeast counties.

Neither the 11th or 16th had to be changed much at all. The fact that they're allowed gerrymander the Republican areas of the state, but not the Democratic areas, kind of stings. I know its sour grapes and all, but it makes you wonder what on earth the point of this commission setup is. I'd much rather have legislators drawing maps which would be much more acceptable.


Oh well, if we get a favorable congressional map (3-6-3), like we got last time, I won't complain.

I won't disagree with the assessment that attaching South Brunswick to Hunterdon County is a gerrymander. (I picked my current avatar a few weeks ago for a reason...)

The commission set-up does appear to be a game theory test case for how not to get the results you seek. The optimum strategy is to design the maximal gerrymander you can achieve that is still less gerrymandered than the other party's, not to achieve a compromise map.

Probably true. I would love to actually see the competing map; I have to figure its something like this, which creates a GOP leaning 27th (sea green?), 2 black districts (28th and 29th), and the at least within reach 35th (other green) where Christie did pretty well.

() (http://img219.imageshack.us/i/nj3.png/)

The new 38th will be a toss-up as well.

I wonder if people who consider Obama's visit to the IOC a massive failure will say the same about Chris Christie's attempt to personally lobby Rosenthal into choosing the R gerrymander over the D gerrymander.

There's no doubt in my mind that such is true. Christie himself would probably admit it; he's going to be paying the price for it most likely.

Here's the revised Virginia Senate map:

http://redistricting.dls.virginia.gov/2010/RedistrictingPlans.aspx#26

Basically caps the Democrats at 22 seats (the Republican-held 10th would be competitive if it were open, but not as long as the incumbent remains in it), so they can afford to lose one seat at most. Good job, Senate Dems. The major changes: the second seat in Virginia Beach is restored, a new district is created east of Lynchburg (the 22nd), and there's a new district in Loudoun (the 13th).

Minnesota maps

http://www.gis.leg.mn/redist2010/plans.php?plname=L1101_0



I don't know enough about the area, but clearly seems GOP favored, and going nowhere.

I noticed that they included KML files.  Can these be used directly with Google Maps?

Yeah Dayton's not going to sign that. But it's much closer to a dummymander than a gerrymander and could easily backfire in many places.

Take my old home of Mankato in district 20. They split it in half in House seats, probably figuring that'll make the current 23B more winnable by removing heavily DFL parts of downtown Mankato and replacing them with rural areas. But it's still not much more than a fool's gold seat, and that's at the expense of turning a true swing seat in the current 23A into another fool's gold type seat. But that's a district where the DFL already holds all the seats anyway. But also look at Mower and Freeborn counties. It splits them, but Mower is still DFL enough to carry the new district 26 (the two other counties are swing anyway). So you just end up with a currently GOP seat getting heavily DFL Freeborn county attached. And they split the DFL town of Faribault down the middle which does make sense, but not attaching the eastern half to heavily DFL Northfield and adding that to the seat of teabagger extremist Sen. Mike Parry. It's easy to see what they were doing with the west (creating a GOP seat by extending it up to the exurbs), but it could cost them in the east. And I can't make heads or tails what they were doing in Rochester. Or St. Cloud for that matter.

There are some pretty logical choices here (targeting Denise Dittrich by attaching her hometown of Champlin to some uber-GOP areas in NW Hennepin County and chopping up the rest of the district, they also shored up that new GOP incumbent in Cottage Grove as well as they could), but a lot of this just strikes me as "We don't know exactly what to do with this town so we'll just chop it up in a weird way and hope things work out." Honestly it wouldn't shock me if this map is voted down if every Democrat votes against it as well as more endangered Republicans.

doesn't the current Minnesota map favor wild swings? I believe at one point earlier in the decade, the Republicans had a 60% majority in the state house and by 2010, only had 35% of the seats. The after 2010, they regained a majority (albeit less than 60%).

Yes, there are a lot of swing districts in the current map.  Its likely that the current map or something similar will stay in place for next decade.  I would be surprised if there wasnt another big swing in 2012. 

I just plugged some numbers into Dave's Redistricting App, and I doubt Mike Parry, a hardline Tea Party type is going to be too happy with an almost 53% Obama district. Or that Julie Rosen is going to like going from a McCain by 7 to Obama by 4 seat.

And I have no clue what they were doing in Mankato. They changed the core Mankato seat from 58% Obama to 55% Obama, and changed the North Mankato-St. Peter seat (now also with a large chunk of Mankato proper, and the most Democratic chunk too), from a 51% Obama seat to a 58% Obama seat. Uh...

The state looks to be kind of like that. The Democrats have a bunch of strong districts in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and the Iron Range, and the GOP has a few in the exurbs, but the suburban areas look inherently swingy.

I think the GOP tried to pack the Dem suburbs and hold the rest of them. They probably have to gamble a bit to hold a majority.

But they're taking the gambles in the wrong places. They did some pretty clever and downright evil things in northern and western Minnesota (Putting Bemidji in a McCain House seat is the most notable example), but the way they drew southern Minnesota gives the impression that they seem to expect every election to have the same turnout figures as 2010. A lot of it seems like attempts to target certain incumbents by basically carving up the district, without taking into account that they haven't exactly eliminated any friendly district. They seem to have targeted Kory Kath in this manner without realizing that the two new seats split from his old are both MORE Democratic than his current seat.

The most obvious example is 22A. It's clear they're trying to target current 26B incumbent Patti Fritz who barely held on in 2010 by cutting her hometown of Faribault in half. This makes sense, as does running the western half up to the exurbs. But the eastern half is ran up to the college town of Northfield, resulting in a seat that gave Obama about 10 points more than Fritz's current seat. And this seat is also more Democratic than the current 25B which narrowly elected a Republican in 2010 and includes Northfield now. Now I can understand the GOP realizing they can't really shore that guy up and have to just let the chips falls where they are for a Republican from Northfield, but the result is a Dem pack district for no real reason. And they've added this seat to Mike Parry's Senate district as stated before. Kath could easily get elected in 22B, 22A is the most Democratic seat south of the Twin Cities and together the Senate seat is Dem-leaning. So you probably end up with a DFL trifecta in a region where that really shouldn't happen under a GOP gerrymander all because of a very clumsy half-assed attempt to eliminate two DFL incumbents who'll both probably survive anyway AND flip the Senate seat to boot.

Then there's 21B. This is an obvious attempt to shore up the Republican in the current 27A, who narrowly won only because certain types didn't turn out in Freeborn county and the DFL foolishly nominated someone from Mower County to run in that seat. The seat has gone from about 57% to about 54% Obama which is probably the best that can be done for a district containing all of Freeborn County. But for some reason they separated it from Mower County, putting the latter in a Senate district with those two other counties that should easily re-elect Dan Sparks, and giving Freeborn to what's basically Julie Rosen's current seat, flipping it to an Obama district. So they're endangering Rosen without making Sparks really all that vulnerable. I think they're also trying to shore up State Senator Jerry Miller by removing those two south eastern counties and giving him more conservative territory to the north and east of Winona. But that's not a guarantee as that's still not enough to full cancel out Winona especially in an election where the college kids actually turn out, which 2010 was not. So they could go from 2 out of 3 State Senators among those 3 seats to 0 quite easily. Dumb dumb dumb.

Why exactly, should I assume that you are more intelligent than the consensus of the Republican caucus was?

The Alaska Maps are out, with two official alternatives.  (Alternative 1 (http://www.akredistricting.org/boardoption1.html), Alternative 2 (http://www.akredistricting.org/boardoption2.html))  Let's just say that because of attempts to keep Senate District C a minority-majority district and incumbents in their seats, the results are... interesting.    Ketchikan will end up in a Senate District A with either Kodiak Island and Seward or a huge swath of the railbelt stretching from Valdez to Cordova to Delta Junction and even Talkeetna.  Neither alternative creates a contiguous Senate District A.  And due to relative population loss in the Bush, one or more of the HD37-40 bush HDs intrude on part of the railbelt.

There are also links to plans proposed by others.

You seriously think gerrymanderers are always intelligent then? LOL. I'm just plugging the numbers and reporting on the results. It's all moot though because Dayton's not going to sign t that.

Well, no surprise; the Redistricting Committee was chaired by my ex-Representative, Sarah Anderson, who is the Queen of Generic Suburban R.

No, you simply have not done that. You have seized upon a talking point, namely, this is a dummymander, and have shaded the map to reenforce your talking point.


If this really were a dummymander you would be encouraging Dayton to sign the bill.
You are not. What is an objective observer to make of these facts?

Somehow I don't think the main factor in which Dayton will sign it or not is what I tell him.

Dayton won't sign it because it screws over some individual Democrats who'll be lobbying him not to. As I said, it does target some areas well, but some of the other moves are just dumb and I could see it failing if all Democrats vote against it along with endangered Republicans.

BRTD, presidential results are not a good example when determining who will win a legislative race. Most of the time a gubernatorial result makes more sense.

The IP doesn't run as strong in state legislative races in Minnesota so that doesn't work very well. Also Southern Minnesota is pretty polarized, races tend to be the same all the way downballot.

This is far more true in some states than others (and, even within states, in some specific regions/demographic groups than in others). Minnesota does not have much difference between its state and federal voting patterns.

I'm not commenting on whether, or not, Dayton, will support the map, though if it truly is a dummymander he ought sign the bill. I am commenting on your position. Again, if you truly believe that this is a dummymander, why aren't you supporting the passage of this bill?


The par assumption to make is that you are opposing this bill precisely because it does benefit the Republicans.

It does in some areas. But there are some where the moves are just puzzling and obviously won't benefit.

No, even if it's a semi-dummymander, Dayton should try to force a neutral or even lean-dem map.  It's Minnesota for God sakes, there's no reason to accept an even semi-pro Republican map.  Btw, who controls the State Supreme Court there, btw?

Two Democrats (well one was appointed by Arne Carlson so he's probably more of a Souter.), one appointed by Ventura, and the remaining four are Pawlenty appointees. The Chief Justice though, while a Pawlenty appointee has a history of working with and being appointed by both parties as well as Ventura. She was known for sounding openly annoyed and hostile to Coleman during the recount hearings. Of the other three though two are obviously right wing and one there isn't a lot of information on.

So neither party would really want this to go the courts (but perhaps the Democrats a little less than the Republicans)?

I'd guess the opposite. The Minnesota GOP looks like its on borrowed time; a court won't draw the Great White North Congressional district or some of the 4 way cracks on the legislative map.

Minnesota isn't like the rest of the midwest though. The GOP administered shellackings in places like Michigan, but I think its been a while since any Republican hit 50% in any statewide MN election.

I don't think either side fears a court drawn map, our last four maps have been that way. The current map doesn't really favor either side that much either, the Republicans had a bigger House majority in the first election under this map than they do now. But they probably know there's a lot of seats they aren't holding if they remain the same population shifts might benefit them a little, but considering they lost the popular vote for the legislature even in 2010 and had a ton of close seats, there are simply many who know that they are done if radical changes aren't made in their favor. A couple might survive on a fluke, but most wouldn't.

And the last Republican to get 50% in Minnesota was Arne Carlson in 1994.

Here's the map of the Illinois House proposal. (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=http:%2F%2Filhousedems.com%2Fredistricting%2F2011-maps%2FHouse_Bill_3760%2Fab9Plan0518.kmz&aq=&sll=39.797399,-89.664939&sspn=0.013222,0.025084&ie=UTF8&z=7) It's quite a masterwork of spaghetti-strand districts.

Yikes. The south side of Chicago is surely the worst we've seen yet.

Here's another example of Democratic hypocrisy in action.  Due to split control the map went to the coin flip in 1980, 1990, and 2000.  The Democrats won the flip in 1980 and 2000. In 1990, the Republicans won the coin flip, and proceeded to draw a map that favored the Republicans.

The Democratically controlled State Supreme Court found that legislative districts must be compact, and ordered the districts redrawn. The Republicans were forced to square up the districts to their detriment.


These districts are less compact that the Illinois Supreme Court struck down as unacceptable.


In a raw exercise of partisan hypocrisy, that same Court will let this map through without comment.


On the upside, the districts, effectively, won't last ten years. When Illinois inevitably goes into receivership,  Court appointed overseers, not legislators, will run the show.

Aside from anything else, lease cite the lawe that would allow this to happen (that is that courts may appoint overseers instead of state legislators and that such legislators would have the power to draw districts) :))))

You missed my point. After the overseers take charge, it won't matter whether tweedle-dee or tweedle-are wins any particular seat. Voters will choice legislators, and the overseer will set policy.

Here's a pretty map from the Chicago Tribune of the proposed Illinois Senate districts. (http://media.apps.chicagotribune.com/legdistricts/senate_proposed.html)

And now find a law that would allow appointment of such an overseer. It's not a municipality - it's a state. It can go bankrupt, but it is still a state - it's sovereign. You may lock it out of the financial markets, but you can't strip the legislature and the governor of their constitutional powers.

Anyway, any reason to believe Illinois goes bankrupt before, say Texas? Arguably, IL is more willing to tax to pay it off - and that's, in the end, what determines whether state debts get paid. Honestly, I'd be more scared if I held TX debt these days.

MALDEF is attacking the Illinois house map.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/5568895-418/latino-group-says-dem-redistricting-plan-violates-election-law.html



I give them credit for being nonpartisan.

If it was the congressional map, they would be complaining that it was too compact.

  The Illinois GOP put out its own competing map today--called 'Fair map'
Probably wont get voted on, but kudos for offering an alternative.

http://news.ilhousegop.org/themap/

Ill Ind

  That wierd strip north of Waukegan is most likely an attempt to boost the Hispanic  population of the Waukegan District.  That district, along with the Elgin-Carpentersville District, the Franklin Park District near O'hare with the two funny hooks going west from it, the Aurora District, the 3 Hispanic Districts on the North Side, and 4 of the 6 on the South Side appear to verbatim duplicate those originally proposed by MALDEF.  The other two on the South Side appear to to have some modifications from MLADEF's proposal.
 
  They split Rockford and that would put the one Dem representative there in danger, while the Dems map consolidated 2 representative districts (1 Senate District) which puts the sitting GOP state senator in danger.

  "Fair" --it all depends on what the definition of 'is' is.

Ill Ind

The Illinois maps are on their way to the Governor's desk. (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2011/05/house-democrats-send-new-legislative-map-to-senate.html)

Bankruptcy is a federal matter, so talk about "state sovereignty" is irrelevent inasmuch as the Federal Constitution grants federal bankruptcy courts powers that don't answer to any state's Constitution.

If you think being locked out the credit markets are their only concern, may I suggest that a bankruptcy judge may seize  any, or all, tax revenues and/or assets of the state of Illinois for some undetermined length of time. Sure, elected representatives will retain the power to rename highways, or outlaw spitting on the street. But, the power of the purse, will rest elsewhere.

P.S. Illinois has consistently been rated the state with the worse finanacial condition, even worse than California.

Any Federal Judge stupid enough to try to enforce that would find themselves smacked down by the Supreme Court. Any attempt to enforce a legal receivership against a state would run smack into a Constitutional Crisis on a scale not seen since the civil war, especially if the state ordered employees not to comply with instructions from the court.

If the overseer tried to fire them you would end up with thousands of lawsuits many targeted at the overseer personally, including ones filed in a sure to be highly hostile state courts.

Even assuming the overseer won out, as soon as the state passed out of receivership you would end up with a collosal mess as the voters would promptly send in a state government of the opinion that the whole exercise had been illegal and everything implemented void.

Basically no sane Judge would ever order it, and no sane individual would ever take the job of overseer. This is not to say that someone motivated out of ambition or sheer malevolence would not, but I suspect you would end up with a poorly qualified ideologue since no one else would take the job. And that would further guarantee disaster.

Here is a reality check: bankruptcy exists to balance the needs of debtors and creditors in a way that is considered  fair and just. Claiming "state sovereignty" aren't going to go very far. Creditors have the right to recovery, and that is especially true of the pleged collateral, which for a general obligation bond is the future stream of tax revenue.

So, yes, a federal bankruptcy judge will take the case because it is his job.

US Judicial Theory recognizes the concept of "Political Questions" which can not be resolved through a simple appeal to the legal basis of the situation but must take into account the political nature of a case as well. A state declaring bankruptcy would be a "Political Question" because while a federal bankruptcy judge could try and claim that it was simply an issue issue of finances and bankruptcy laws, it really wouldn't be.

Federals laws don't trump the constitution or requirement that all states have a "republican form of government" for instance. And again, I ask, how would a federal bankruptcy judge enforce any of his decisions if the state courts and the executive branch both declined to enforce any of his/her rulings? What if he was charged with trumped up crime in a state court and sent to prison?

There is a fundamental contradiction between claiming that the "political question" can be taken into account, and your claim that a bankruptcy judge cannot take the case and balance out the "political question" with every other financial question.

I would find it amazing if all 49 other states didn't file briefs concerning the "political question" that amount to, "On the political question, if you rule Illinois can stiff its creditors with impunity, you are not only freezing Illinois out of the credit market, but, you are freezing out us as well."



The system of bankruptcy is in the Federal Constitution which is not bound by State Constitutions.

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110601/NEWS02/106010350/Democrats-diluting-black-vote-data-show?odyssey=tab|mostpopular|text|FRONTPAGE

Oops, they did it again.

Gee you mean the Democrats would rather have blacks spread out into more seats thus increasing the Democratic vote in many districts rather than just pack blacks and thus Democratic votes into a few districts therefore making neighboring seats more Republican? What a shocker!

It's merely a lesson learned in tactics. Delaware Democrats show us how to ramp up the count of blacks up to 67% or so as of the last redistricting. Others have taken heed.

Alaska's map has been released:

http://media.adn.com/smedia/2011/06/07/18/13/ez7t.So.7.pdf

As expected, the Southeast panhandle is down to 4 house districts.  Petersburg was split from Wrangell and placed in a district with Democratic-leaning downtown Juneau.  The bush was split into 5-6 districts (depending on how one defines it), with one district stretching all the from the Bering Sea way to suburban areas of Fairbanks.  All are high-numbered districts.  The old huge interior bush house district 6 was split up, with the bulk of the population put in HD-39 with Nome.  That district now stretches from Nome to the Canadian border.   Some Senate districts, which make up two consecutively numbered house districts (i.e. 1+2=SD-A, 3+4=SD-B, etc.) might not be strictly contiguous in some places.

The redistricting panel didn't seem to care much about incumbents.  Some incumbents were put in districts together.

More here:
http://www.adn.com/2011/06/06/1902638/panel-approves-new-district-boundaries.html

South Carolina to go for a veto-proof majority.

http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=1992209084141467&act=post&pid=11860706111392099

One apparent strategy is to consolidate Democratic districts together, thus pushing one Democratic senator out. For instance, the plan would put Camden Democratic Sen. Vincent Sheheen in the same district as Fairfield County Democrat Creighton Coleman.

Richland County Democratic Sen. Joel Lourie’s district would get squished into Lexington Democrat Nikki Setzler’s.

A revised, renumbered Alaska map is here, which takes away a lot of the non-contiguity in Senate districts.

http://www.akredistricting.org/Files/Board%20Adopted%20Final%20Draft/Statewide.pdf

Numbering starts in Fairbanks and spirals southward toward Anchorage, then the panhandle, then the bush.  The Bristol district is smaller and takes in the far Aleutians, which were split.

Incumbents are mad about this plan, particularly Democrats, who think they are most harmed by it.  The redistricting panel was made up of 4 Republicans and 1 Democrat - though the vote for the map was unanimous.  The main arguments against the plan are geographic, not respecting borough boundaries and the like.  A prior Aleutian split wasn't allowed by a court and the Mat-Su Valley supposedly only has 4 seats instead of 5 - though a fifth is largely Mat-Su.

http://www.adn.com/2011/06/07/1904650/redistricting-plan-called-flawed.html

The panel really didn't care at all about where incumbents lived when drafting it, which, in my opinion, is the way redistricting ought to be.

Is the GOP in the Alaska legislature still split/factionalized? If so, with the map apparently bad for the Democrats, how does it fare for the pro-coalition Republicans?

Arguably more like they added Nome to the old 6th, removed the southwestern prong instead, and renumbered it the 39th.
Why renumber? I don't get that, but whatever... You mean Bethel. ;)

Fairbanks looks ugly and gerrymandered (though I'd have to compare closely with precincts maps to see if it actually is... and even then only in the Senate map.) Haven't looked at Anchorage yet, though what I hear about merging Eagle Pass and parts of downtown Anchorage sounds ugly.

Yes, the Alaska GOP is still split, at least in the Alaska State Senate.  

I guess how pro-coalition Republicans fare depends on how many Senate seats the GOP holds after elections.  If it's just barely a majority, the coalition may live.  If not, coalition Republicans might work within the party.  The Alaska Senate is currently 10-10 Republican-Democrat and 16-4 coalition.  The Alaska House is 24-16 Republican, with some of the 16 Democrats in a coalition with all but 2 Republicans - though they are not strictly needed for a majority in the caucus.

I would find it a lot more amazing if the other 49 states AND the federal government wouldn't side w/ the state of Illinois :))

Not to say that I believe an actual default by the state is likely - at least by a state that has amply demonstrated political willingness to raise taxes. I would, honestly, be a lot more concerned about, say, the state of Texas :))

Why do claim that states that pay their bills would side with the position that the alleged collateral that allows them to obtain significantly lower rates than unsecured credit isn't collectable?

Because briefs are filed not by states but by elected politicians, and the precedence set by a federal court overthrowing a locally elected state government is not something any of them would sign on to. Every elected official in the country would have a personal incentive to kill the proposal.

Also, what exactly do you think the impact on the Federal Health Care lawsuit would be if this were upheld? Wouldn't this pretty thoroughly gut the arguments of the states that are parties to the suit?

It is a simple question of whether, or not, the rest of the state what their GOB treated as secured, or unsecured, debt. Elected politicians understand the consequences of being frozen out of the credit market as much as anyone else. Supporting the notion that the pledged collateral is forfeited in default is not "overthrowing" a government.  That same government freely chose to pledge the collateral, and is bound by that decision. They certainly took the benefits of pledging collateral, namely significantly lower rates.

http://media.mlive.com/elections_impact/photo/senate-statewide-newjpg-0b52e03e92c3102b.jpg

Proposed State Senate map reveiled.

Do I see touchpoint continuity with the 14th district?  Blargh.

I correct myself. They actually packed the 1 black represented district up to 68% to limit blacks to 1 district out of 21.

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110615/NEWS02/106150363/Delaware-Black-Caucus-rips-Democratic-party-leaders-over-proposed-boundaries


It's OK if you're a Democrat!

Oh so the complaint is that the districts aren't gerrymandered to be majority black and have a bunch of Hispanics too?


Uh...go look at a map and take note of what this type of district would look like.

It sounds like the Democrats are actually just doing what Republicans on this forum screaming against the VRA frequently call for, just drawing compact districts based on neighborhoods and ignoring racial figures. But krazen just wants an excuse to scream about how those evil evil white liberals are really extreme racists and want to screw over blacks for no discernible reason whatsoever (basically his standard logic in a post like this.)

That's not the case at all. Else, Wilmington would be in 2 Senate districts, not 3, especially given the Democrats' typical systematic underpopulation of their districts under the 10% rule.

The reason to both quite discernible and obvious. Packing blacks up to 68% is done to ensure the surrounding districts elect whites. The only difference is that white liberals from other states selectively cry about it.


Here's the house map too. They did an exemplary job in making sure none of the Dover districts had a plurality of blacks.

http://legis.delaware.gov/legislature.nsf/1688f230b96d580f85256ae20071717e/afdf2ea2da07d72e85257893006a10c0/$FILE/Statewide%20(Proposed).pdf

No that's not discernible because there's no advantage to electing white Democrats as opposed to black Democrats. And "packing" Wilmington makes sense simply because Wilmington is one city and there's no reason to carve it up into a million pieces just because that might give another district a better chance of electing a black. If Wilmington can fit into two districts, then why should it be cut into three?

I can't figure out a way to draw a plurality black VAP seat in Dover. The best I can get is 45% white to 43.9% black VAP, it's plurality black in total population but that number isn't taken into account. Why it's split three ways is rather obvious, since Dover is the only town in the area that votes for Democrats, it makes more sense to split it and get three districts capable of electing Democrats instead of one.

Obvious retort:

Looking at things from a perspective of fair redistricting like in Iowa, yes. That's not happening here so the Democrats are simply drawing things to their partisan interest like any party in control in any state does. Is this a good thing? Of course not, but for any party to claim a moral high ground is ridiculous. In this instance the Democrats are splitting up an area when it benefits them politically, and keeping it compact if the entire area is Democratic and there is no reason to split it up. Is this consistent? Of course not, but the reason for the inconsistency is obvious, and it's not that all white liberals have an extreme hatred for blacks (which is pretty hilarious to claim considering the millions of white liberals who voted for Obama over Hillary.)

The Republicans' proposed map doesn't create a black-plurality district in Dover, nor does the existing map have one.

If the maps are based on geographic reasons, there is no argument for any unfairness toward anybody, because no one is being deliberately disenfranchised. There is no racism involved here.

I am completely in favor of getting rid of the VRA and having standards that call for strict, geography based redistricting. The VRA is being heavily misused.

The bolded is precisely my question.

You seem to have not looked at the map. Wilmington COULD be a pair of 57% or so black districts that divide the city in half and encompass the entire city and a small number of surrounding precincts.

Instead, they created the following.

1 district with 68% black VAP (that numerous liberals have claimed constitutes 'packing') that covers a portion of Wilmington and goes into Edgemoor and down to New Castle.

A 2nd district that takes a piece of Wilmington and goes up to New Jersey.

A 3rd district with 50.8% black VAP that takes a piece of Wilmington and goes down to Newport.

Certainly curious to have 3 districts touching a city that has the population for 2 districts and not 1 district wholly inside the city.

The black legislative caucus is asking the very valid question as to why that last district was drawn to be only 50.8% VAP when there are surplus blacks in the 2nd district that doesn't need to be entering Wilmington at all.

The proposal for Dover was to clearly split some precincts to collect the numerous black neighborhoods. You can't do that on the app.

Well, then I await the 'geographical' reason for the 3 way split of Wilmington.

So you are proposing two majority black seats, which is exactly what the status quo is. Except one happens to be more black than the other which doesn't mean much. The most likely representative from a 60% black VAP district is a black Democrats. Same with a 50% black VAP district. Hell even the case with a 45% black VAP district.

The second district is easily explainable in that it sounds designed to take in Republican or marginal areas and prevent a possible swing district. Pack Wilmington like that and you could end up with something like 2 safe Dem seats and one winnable seat, as opposed to the likely 3 safe Dem seats.

BTW once again if white liberals are all extreme racists who hate blacks more than anyone who did millions support Obama over Hillary?

That answer doesn't really make too much sense, because it they wanted to safeguard that 2nd district (given where it is, it doesn't really need to be), they would have skimmed some of the nonwilmington blacks from the 1st overpacked district, and you would still the remainder of the wilmington blacks for the 3rd district. As it stands, the Delaware Black Caucus has been unable to claim the 3rd district as they are extremely unhappy that it is represented by a white and hence are asking for a much better population distribution.

I wouldn't call anyone racist. There is merely a preference in making sure that whites have the best chance at winning almost all of the seats, as they have succeeded in doing in places like New England. They would not have cracked the San Fernando Valley, for instance, without such a preference. Nor would New Jersey Democrats have parceled the North Area of Hudson County into numerous districts.

Presumably, they like the idea of maximizing their potential job opportunity, and they don't like how many blacks vote on some issues such as homosexuality. But that's why the Delaware Black Caucus is asking the question.

Actually, from what I've heard, the Delaware Senate plan doles out favors to the Senate President's friends and allies (there are a couple of Republicans who are given safe seats, while two others are put in tougher seats). Not everything is some grand racist white liberal conspiracy.

So, Democratic partisan considerations come first, and, the interests of Blacks are secondary.

I think that is the jest of Krazen's point: the VRA is being abused by Democratic partisans to further Democratic partisan interests nominally in the name of Black interest, but, only to the extent that Black interest is firmly in line with Democratic interest. When push comes to shove, Black interest is told to take a back seat.

What a minute, redistricting is a conspiracy. That is a given. The only question is whether, or not, that conspiracy is effectively, if not intentionally, racist. The numbers suggest that it is.

And that's exactly what happened in the San Fernando Valley too (where the districts were actually drawn by one of the current reps' brothers form what I understand.) Considering how patronistic and machine-based New Jersey politics are that's likely what happened there.

The funny thing though is this type of blatant nepotism and all that is worthy of criticism as well, so why even go on the ridiculous racist angle?

Well, in Texas, the GOP is furthering GOP interest. The response by the Democrats has been accusations of "racism."  Either the charge of "racism" is based on intent, or results. Regardless  of which of the two options you choose, you should apply it equally to both parties.

Louisiana precleared.

http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/story/f9b272a433524b65a1620d58f33ea9a1/LA-XGR--Louisiana-Redistricting/

The redesign of the Louisiana House's 105 seats received clearance Monday from the U.S. Justice Department, paving the way for fall elections under the new maps and coming despite complaints from black lawmakers that the plan dilutes minority voting strength.



The obvious response, as the GOP has been much better about creating black districts than their Democratic predecessors.

LOL.

The GOP sure are better, those second VRA congressional districts in Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina are proof of that. Wait a minute, there are none, because those would be losses and therefore not beneficial.

The Democratic party in South Carolina is seeking 0 black districts.

The Democrats created 27 black districts in the last Louisiana map. This one has 29. That sounds terrific doesn't it?

To be fair, the main reason the LA GOP increased the number of black majority districts was to give all their new party switchers whiter districts.

Still, Louisiana passing preclearance on the first attempt is a pretty momentous occasion! I don't know the record for their state legislative redistricting, but I'm fairly certain that LA Congressional redistricting has never passed preclearance on the first try.

I have no doubt that GOP partisan interest and maximizing the number of Black seats align. Pointing your finger at the GOP doesn't excuse the Democrats for trying to minimizing the number of Black seats because that is what is in Democratic interest. Such blatant partisanship makes Democratic claims about the moral imperative to create a second Black seat in Lousianna ring hallow.



Since the Lousianna Speaker of the House stated that this is the first time for preclearance of the original map, that's a pretty safe bet.

Of course. Both sides of the aisle are blatant hypocrites, especially on regarding the "principles of redistricting" (for lack of a better term).


Thanks for the info; I thought that was the case but didn't know for certain.

Whether, one, both or neither  political party is more consistent in one question. Whether one, both, or neither political party is better on creating VRA districts is another question. On the second question, the  facts indicate that the GOP has done a much better job, regardless of motivation.


Well, I read that fact in the link Krazen provided.

does anyone know what Mike Gronstal's district looks like in Iowa. I really hope he isn't the Tom Daschle of Iowa.

It appears to have been renumbered from SD-50 to SD-08, but is otherwise almost exactly the same district taking in most or all of Council Bluffs.

New map: http://www.legis.iowa.gov/DOCS/Resources/Redist/2011/2011-03-31/SenateStatewide8x11_color.pdf
Old map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iowa_Senate_districts.jpg

Proposed map for the Vermont House of Representatives:

http://vermont-elections.org/2011LABMaps.html

It eliminates all of the two-member districts.

Interesting. Does this mean they might be changing the crazy multi-member Senate districts?

It looks like they might be breaking up the bigger districts (http://www.wcax.com/story/14966857/vts-changing-population-means-changes-to-voting-districts):

This is comical. They're going to have to start over with the Vermont Senate map because... (http://www.necn.com/06/24/11/Vt-Senate-plan-contains-error/landing_politics.html?&blockID=3&apID=40a4ee2a7e3546c8a363a7fcf395c262)


Whoops!

Its a tiny part of Pottawattomie county; largely based in Council Bluffs.

http://theiowarepublican.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/778px-Iowa_Senate_districts.jpg

I was reading the minutes of the Legislative Apportionment Board.  It is a pretty interesting process.  The redistricting statutes says that the LAB submits their proposal to the legislature and then the legislature may approve the proposal or substitute their own.  There have been comments to the press from members of the Democratic legislative leadership suggesting that the LAB was engaging in an intellectual exercise.

The 2010-11 LAB is a tri-partisan body.  Previously, parties qualified to participate based on their vote in the gubernatorial election (25%), but there was an election with an independent where the Democratic candidate finished 3rd and missed the threshold, so it would have been a uni-partisan GOP board.  The legislature changed it so participation was based on having enough representatives elected for 3 sessions from different counties, and the Progressives qualified along with the Democrats and Republicans.

So there is a chairman appointed by the Supreme Court, and two members of each party, one appointed by the governor, and the other by the party itself.  So instead of a 5-member board, there is a 7-member board.  In the critical votes on going with single member districts, the Progressive and Republican members outvoted the Democrats and the Republican chairman who was appointed by the Supreme Court.

The LAB creates a "tentative proposal" which is then submitted to the "board of civil authority" (BCA) of towns and cities that are tentatively split.  BCA is apparently a generic term that encompasses various forms of government organization.  The BCA may recommend alternative district lines, which the LAB may consider before making their "final proposal" to the legislature.

It is not clear whether the LAB can adjust the entire proposal, or are limited to adjusting the boundaries of town-splits based on recommendations of the BCA.  In earlier versions of the the HB Plan (HB stands for Hintgen and Brooks, the two Progressive member, with Steve Hintgen being the major protagonist), there were 6 2-member "initial districts".  For example, in Middlebury, Middlebury College has enough population for a single house district, but apparently relatively few voters).  It is unclear whether if the Middlebury town board proposed a 2-member initial district whether the LAB could agree, or if they are now stuck with 2 districts.  The minutes of the latest two LAB meetings have not been approved, and are not online, but apparently the LAB decided to go absolutely uniformly to single-member districts.

The alternative GL Plan (GL stands for Gerry Gossens and Tom Little, Gossens is a Democratic member, and Little is the chairman appointed by the Supreme Court.  A Republican, he appears to have widespread cross-party respect.)  provides for the following: 44 single-member, 28 two-member, 4 three-member, 4 four-member, one five-member, and one 17-member "initial districts".

The Vermont reapportionment statutes appears to favor an apportionment, in the conventional sense, as opposed to how it is often used in the US, vs a districting plan.  The legislature approves (as a bill) a final planof initial districts.  The local BCA then subdistrict the initial districts.  If an initial district has 2 members, splitting into single member districts is optional.  If I understand the statute, a town that would be split has absolute veto power, to force either an other plan, or no split.  With an ideal population of 4172, it is pretty hard to avoid town splits if single member districts are used, but may be more avoidable with two-member districts.  This is true, even though the LAB uses a deviation of +10% to -10%, or 20% total, vs. the 10% total that other legislatures typically use.

If an initial district has 3 or more members, then the BCA must subdistrict it into a combination one and/or two member districts.  It appears that the legislature is required to accept any subdistricting plan that complies with statutory provisions - the most severe limit is that the deviation of any district must not exceed the largest deviation of the initial districts (ie + or - 10%).

During the early meetings of the LAB, it appears that Little thought he had the support to create a conventional plan, with multi-member initial districts.  Hintgen kept refining his plan and, Little would make a comment that everything the LAB produced were public records and would be available to the BCA when they did their subdistricts.  But eventually Hintgen got the majority to go with his plan.

IIUC, the HB proposal now goes to the BCA of towns that are split, and they may recommend alternative boundaries within their towns.  Because of the single-member districts there are lots of towns that are split.  Conceivably the LAB will accept all their recommendations, and they will be happy.  Alternatively, the towns will decide that the single-member districts are horrible and contact the legislators to substitute their own plan.  

A single-member plan is sure to threaten lots of incumbents.  If there are two representatives from a district with 8000 people, there is a good chance they are neighbors.   And even if they are not physical neighbors they might be politically similar.  You might have a more liberal member who happens to live in a farmhouse in a more rural part of town, but is elected by voters in town, or a store owner who lives in town who garners support from rural constituents.  Two incumbents might face one another in a single-member district, with an open seat in the same town, or an incumbent might face a less favorable electorate.

There are also quite a few RD 2-member districts.   With such small districts, personal campaigning can be effective.  It might be feasible to knock on all doors.  And there may also be a high level of civic involvement by ordinary voters.  A strong R incumbent might finish in the top 2 against two D opponents in a nominally Democratic district.  All Republicans will vote for him, and any voter who wants a bipartisan delegation will vote for him, and pick between the two Democrats.  In such a case, the Democrats are actually running against each other, and might not be willing to run as partisan clones.  

The current plan has 42 2-member districts and 66 single-member districts, so 84 representatives (56%) are elected from 2-member districts.  At the time of the OMOV decisions, Vermont elected 2 representatives from each town, so that it had a 246-member House, and there may be a sense that 2-member districts are proper, and single-member districts are exceptional.

After the LAB makes their final proposal for 150-member single member districts, and if it were approved by the legislature, that would be end of the process.  Because all the "initial districts" would be single-member districts, there would be no role for the BCA in the process.

If the GL plan had been adopted by the LAB as the tentative proposal, then there would be very little role for the BCA at this point, since its initial districts only split two towns.  In one case, Milton is split so a Grand Isle two-member district has enough population, with the rest of Milton forming another two-member district.  The other town that is split is Eden, which is split between 2 single-member districts.  If they were in a 2-member district, Johnson would have a dominant position (40% or so) in a 7-town district extending north to the Canadian border.  I'd guess that this was a patch to get a district up to enough population.

If the GL plan were approved by the legislature, then all the initial districts with 2 or more members would be subject to subdistricting by the various BCA.

So my bet is that single-member plan gets tossed by the legislature.  They might adopt the GL plan, or perhaps could take the HB plan and paste all single-member districts together, but I'd guess that they would view it to be so radical it might be totally ignored.  The GL plan has a 17-member Burlington, South Burlington, Winooski district.  The legislature might logically try to split Burlington out as its own initial district (9 or 10 members).

The LAB didn't spend too much time on the Senate plan (until the latter meetings).  Before the OMOV decisions, each county had one senator, with the remainder apportioned by population.   While the Vermont constitution requires one and two-member representative districts, it sets no limits on Senate districts.  Statute provides for apportionment of the 30 senators among counties or groups of counties.  All 14 counties, except Essex and Grand Isle would be entitled to at least one senator.

Chittenden is entitled to about 7.5 senators, with no other county entitled to more than 3.  The reapportionment statutes say that senators should be apportioned to counties or groups of counties, but also the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment should be respected.  In the past, towns have been shifted between counties, so that the county-based districts are somewhat like those in Ireland.

It appears that there are several counties that are a little bit short of enough for a whole number of districts that were rounded up, while those that an excess population were two far above to be rounded down, so instead must have had towns shifted out.  And they may have rounded Chittenden up to give it 4 2-member districts.  All in all, the rounding was imbalanced and they ended up with 31 seats.  The constitution says that county and other political subdivision boundaries should be respected, but is not specific about counties.  The statutes say counties (or groups of counties), but because of population equality have not been strictly followed in the past.  The 2-member districts in Chittenden don't really comply with the statute, unless you can make a case that large multi-member districts violate equal protection.  Do Yankees talk enough to be a protected linguistic minority?

Apparently Republicans tried to break up the Chittenden senatorial district in 2001, and failed. Like for the House, the LAB only makes a proposal which the legislature may adopt or replace.  There might be some support for smaller districts from the other counties, who are wary of 1/4 of the senate being elected from a single big city district.

I've copied the Vermont discussion into the Vermont Legislative Redistricting (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=133182.0) thread (formerly the Vermont State Senate Redistricting thread).

A moderator might have been able to just move the posts over, but I think this works okay.

The numbers are out on NC redistricting.

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/3b9a1b58949b4bbcbd5a2e2426c811e4/NC--Capitol-Letter/


There are currently 18 House members and seven senators who are black. The proposed maps would create 24 House districts and nine Senate seats where black voters constitute a majority.




The assertion of NC Democrats of course is quite amusing given their history of losing at court litigation.

Proposed Arkansas Senate maps:

Beebe's (http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/swtimes.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/a/6f/a6f19a0e-ae24-11e0-ad18-001cc4c03286/4e1efb8e651b2.image.jpg).
McDaniel's (http://arkansasnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Attorney-Generals-Senate-Map.pdf).

State legislative maps in Arkansas are approved by a three-person panel consisting of the Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State. I've heard these maps guarantee the Democrats about 15-16 seats, so they'd have to hold a couple more seats to keep their majority.

Turns out this isn't as easy now that I can try it with partisan data. This is the best I could do:

()

This little gerrymandered beast is still just 52.5% for Obama and averages 52.1% for Republican candidates for other offices. Granted it's more winnable than any of the seats they did put those places in.

Arkansas is done. (http://talkbusiness.net/article/BOARD-OF-APPORTIONMENT-MEETS-TO-FINALIZE-LEGISLATIVE-MAPS-UPDATED-/2206/)

The proposed California State Senate maps keep a district that stretches from Morgan Hill in Santa Clara County all the way down past San Luis Obispo (while somehow excluding Salinas). It's both ugly and unnecessary.

Proposed WV Senate map:

()

I hear it's passed the Senate.

Is it reasonable to say you can guess which districts favor Democrats based on underweighting or overweighting by population?

an attempt at Tennessee State Senate redistricting

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()
()
()

SD1 (Southerland-R): 71/29 McCain, 64/36 Rep (71/29 McCain, 64/36 Rep)
SD2 (Ramsey-R): 71.5/28.5 McCain, 65/35 Rep (71/29 McCain, 65/35 Rep)
SD3 (Crowe-R): 70/30 McCain, 64/36 Rep (71/29 McCain, 65/35 Rep)
SD4 (Faulk-R): 71/29 McCain, 62/38 Rep (71/29 McCain, 63/37 Rep)
SD5 (McNally-R): 67/33 McCain, 57/43 Rep (69/31 McCain, 61/39 Rep)
SD6 (winner of Special Election-R): 62/38 McCain, 55/45 Rep (65/35 McCain, 58/42 Rep)
SD7 (Campfield-R): 59/41 McCain, 55/45 Rep (56/44 McCain, 52/48 Rep)
SD8 (Overbey-R): 72/28 McCain, 65/35 Rep (72/28 McCain, 65/35 Rep)
SD9 (Bell-R): 73/27 McCain, 65/35 Rep (72.5/27.5 McCain, 65/35 Rep)
SD10 (Berke-D): 57/43 McCain, 50.1/49.9 Rep (50.3/49.7 McCain, 56/44 Dem)
SD11 (Watson-R): 70/30 McCain, 62/38 Rep (73/27 McCain, 65/35 Rep)
SD12 (Yager-R): 70/30 McCain, 62/38 Rep (71/29 McCain, 60/40 Rep)
SD13 (Ketron-R): 64/36 McCain, 60/40 Rep (64/36 McCain, 57/43 Rep)
SD14 (Stewart-D): 65/35 McCain, 55/45 Rep (63/37 McCain, 53/47 Rep)
SD15 (Burks-D): 65/35 McCain, 56/44 Rep (65/35 McCain, 55.5/45.5 Rep)
SD16 (Tracy-R): 59.5/40.5 McCain, 54/46 Rep (59/41 McCain, 54.5/45.5 Rep)
SD17 (Beavers-R): 66/34 McCain, 58/42 Rep (66.5/33.5 McCain, 58/42 Rep)
SD18 (open): 68/32 McCain, 61/39 Rep (67/33 McCain, 60/40 Rep)
SD19 (Harper-D): 81/19 Obama, 79/21 Dem (86/14 Obama, 83/17 Dem)
SD20 (open): 62/38 Obama, 62/38 Dem (55/45 Obama, 56/44 Dem)
SD21 (Henry-D): 55/45 McCain, 52/48 Rep (55/45 Obama, 56.5/43.5 Dem)
SD22 (Barnes-D and Roberts-R): 61/39 McCain, 54/46 Rep (56/44 McCain, 52/48 Rep)
SD23 (Johnson-R): 64.5/35.5 McCain, 62/38 Rep (66/34 McCain, 63/37 Rep)
SD24 (Herron-D): 62/38 McCain, 52/48 Rep (63.5/36.5 McCain, 53/47 Rep)
SD25 (Summerville-R): 58/42 McCain, 51/49 Rep (61/39 McCain, 52/48 Rep)
SD26 (Gresham-R): 60/40 McCain, 53/47 Rep (62.5/37.5 McCain, 55/45 Rep)
SD27 (Finney-D): 59/41 McCain, 52/48 Rep (58/42 McCain, 51/49 Rep)
SD28 (Kyle-D): 79/21 Obama, 73/27 Dem (71.5/28.5 Obama, 67/33 Dem)
SD29 (Ford-D): 76/24 Obama, 70/30 Dem (78/22 Obama, 72/28 Dem)
SD30 (open): 65/35 McCain, 56/44 Rep
SD31 (Kelsey-R): 54/46 McCain, 56/44 Rep (53/47 McCain, 57.5/42.5 Rep)
SD32 (Norris-R): 65/35 McCain, 64/36 Rep (69/31 McCain, 63/37 Rep)
SD33 (Tate-D): 81/19 Obama, 75/25 Dem (80/20 Obama, 74/26 Dem)

The 30th moves out of Memphis (where it was a 66/34 Obama/63D/37R district).

High AfAm-percentage districts

SD10: 19.5% (was 31.4%)
SD11: 16.1% (was 7%)
SD19: 53.1% (was 56.2%)
SD20: 21.9% (was 23.1%)
SD26: 28.4% (was 20.6%)
SD27: 23.4% (was 27%)
SD28: 65.1% (was 58.1%)
SD29: 62.7% (was 70.2%)
SD31: 32% (was 32.7%)
SD32: 21.1% (was 18.5%)
SD33: 73.9% (was 72.7%)

and the former SD30 was 47.5% African-American

Predicted effects. Even districts up in 2012/Odd districts up in 2014

2012:
Berke loses or comes close in the closest election in the district since 1984.
Stewart loses or comes close. Stewart won by 6.95% in 2008.
The Republicans keep the open 18th and the Democrats keep the open 20th.
Joe Haynes goes into retirement.
Roberts defeats Barnes.
Herron could hold the 24th.
Gresham could get a solid challenge. Kyle could get a solid primary challenge.
Republicans pickup the open 30th.

The Senate goes from 20-13 Republican to 22-11 Republican at worst. Maybe even 24-9 Republican or 25-8 if Herron retires or gets a solid challenge.

2014:
If Burks retires, her seat goes Republican. Henry would probably retire and his seat goes Republican. Summerville and Finney should get solid challenges. The partisan composition would be a range from 21-12 Republican to 28-5 Republican with the 5 Democrats being Ford, Tate, Kyle, the 20th district incumbent, and Harper.

And a look at Maury county since the border between the 30th and 13th may not be clear

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So i'm sure this violates the Tennessee Constitution

Are these the new Ohio legislative maps?

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/upload/reshape/GA/mann-dirossi-senate.pdf

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/upload/reshape/GA/mann-dirossi-senate.pdf

Yes, and the Apportionment Board is expected to approve them at their meeting this morning. The group that ran the competition has an analysis of the proposal (http://drawthelinemidwest.org/ohio/proposed-legislative-maps/) in terms of the contest parameters.

Edit: It has been approved.

Their interpretation of the constitution is wrong.  The constraint is not on one district dividing more than two units, but rather the boundary between two districts dividing more than one unit.

You can't split off the piece of McCoysville where Bob Hatfield lives (and then cut off a big chunk of Hatfieldtown where many of his supporters live AND put the rest of McCoysville and Hatfieldtown in another district.

If you accepted the contest interpretation, then it is a violation of the constitution for a district to split both Montgomery and Greene counties.


"such units" is a reference to the units prescribed in division (B) - counties, townships, municipalities, and city wards.   "between two districts" is describing the boundary between any pair of two districts.

Their interpretation would mean that if City A was divided between District 1 and District 2, and Township B was divided between District 2 and District 3, that "two districts" would refer to "three districts".

When I submitted my entry they asked about my plan which included districts that split both Cincinnati and Columbia Township and Cincinnati and Sycamore Township.  I explained that their interpretation was wrong, and didn't hear any more about it.

Similarly with respect to the drawing of two 50% BVAP senate districts in Cuyahoga County, I not only sent them a lengthy explanation of why it was impossible, I sent them demonstration maps showing the problems with an attempt at two majority BVAP districts, and also provided a plan with 5 majority BVAP house districts.

The "winning" plans clearly violated the Ohio Constitution to draw their senate districts (and the case in NC would appear to indicate that a State may not exceed reasonable state reapportionment standards to create VRA districts.

I tend to agree with your interpretation of the Constitution as far as splits, but I disagree with your conclusion about the black majority senate districts in Cuyahoga.

There is a way to draw two black-majority districts, even following the ward rules. I didn't follow the ward rules, because I was aiming for better compactness and didn't have to follow wards for the competition.

The way to two black-majority districts while preserving wards requires an unconstitutional split of Cuyahoga. The key is to get Oakwood, Glenwillow and Solon into one of the two districts which leaves separate fragments on both the eastern and southern ends of the county.

I made that split in my plan and I provided a lengthy rationale, which in a nutshell starts with a proof that at least one county must be treated unconstitutionally in NE OH. Then when considering which county to split unconstitutionally I found three reasons to support the choice of Cuyahoga. It is the largest population county, it only is required to have 10 whole house seats based on population, and by doing so one can create two black-majority districts without any other constitutional violations.

Is it the county that violates the constitution, or each district?  I would argue that the requirements are on the drawing of the house districts.

You can draw 11 districts in Cuyahoga; or 10 districts and one that is almost entirely in Cuyahoga (see 11.08).  The rules are general for all counties.  And it should be considered a violation of equal protection to take advantage of the large size to create many districts that are overpopulated or underpopulated, which is systematic bias.

I think that creation of house districts and senate districts are independent processes, though there may be some feedback to adjust house districts so that they can be combined.  Your viewpoint may be based on your experience in Illinois, where senate districts are split to form house districts.  My solution would be to increase the size of the Ohio House to 105 members and eliminate the nesting requirement (105 is chosen so as to not reduce the number of senators, and to eliminate the possibility of any natural nesting (105/33 is 3.18).

To create 2 50% BVAP senate districts results in 4 50% BVAP house districts, and the packing of two of the house districts to overwhelm the district in west Cleveland  (70.6%, 59.9%, and 19.9%) to yield 50.1%; and the other is 56.0%, 51.0%, 45.5% for 50.7%.  If you totally ignored city and ward boundaries, and perhaps even precinct boundaries, you might be able to squeeze those 3 house districts over 50%.

And the majority depends on how mixed-race persons are tabulated.  So even though 2 50% BVAP are possible, albeit with a violation of the constitution, it is not a desirable result, since 5 50% BVAP house districts can quite comfortably be accomplished without packing or narrowly clawing bast 50%, which produces a senate district with a comfortable 50% BVAP, and another in the 40% range with two representatives.

Plus the contest rules were schizophrenic, since they created an incentive to crack elsewhere.

Sections 11.10 and 11.11 deal with the creation of House and Senate districts from counties. Section 11.10(C) elaborates on section 11.08. When I looked at the inherent conflict in the constitutional requirements applied to NE OH, I considered a number of sections that could be violated and resolve the problem. I also felt that to resolve the problem only one section should be violated. It appears that most plans chose to violate section 11.11 on the formation of Senate districts. I see nothing to indicate that a violation of section 11.10(C) isn't equally acceptable to resolve the conflict. Actually, by resolving it that way, I can do a better job of spreading population since I don't have to systematically underpopulate Cuyahoga.

I had done an shared map designed to create 11 black-majority House districts and 4 in the Senate. In that plan, without any unusual squeezing, HD 8 is up to 49.4% without going into Cleveland. Based on the testimony on the congressional plan, I would think that would be sufficient to elect the candidate of choice.

It's not hard to balance the wards and percentages when a plan isn't trying to micromanage compactness. For instance, this is a simple adjustment to the competition plan that divides no more than one ward between a pair of districts. The percentages in 11 and 12 become 67.5% and 65.6%.

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I would think that 2 SDs and 4 HDs over 50% with a fifth HD just under 50% would be better than 1 SD and 5 HDs over 50% with a second SD just under 50%. The upper chamber seat is usually given more importance by minority groups.


No argument there. As we have discussed previously, a threshold test for compactness would have greatly reduced the schizophrenia for me. The map I posted above would lose about a point and a half in the competition even though the boundaries of only 4 of 99 districts were adjusted.

I wasn't really referring to the current census, where Cuyahoga is entitled to 10.985 representatives, but rather the case where it might be entitled to10.485 and divided into 10 or 11 districts wholly within the county, which could be done without going outside 5% per district deviation, but I believe should be regarded as violation of equal protection since the discrimination is applied to an identifiable class of persons: Cuyahogans.

Doesn't your senate plan split Cuyahoga between 5 districts?




This is the version of your plan that I had modified to be based on whole wards. 

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11.07(C) can only be used if it is not feasible to create districts with the units in 11.07(B).  And it is feasible to do so.  I doubt that lack of ready access to ward boundaries in the contest would count as non-feasible, since they were available on the SOS web site.

If a challenge were going to be made to the apportionment board plan it would be based on not forming districts from whole counties and whole cities and city wards when it was feasible to do so.  I really don't think it was the intent of the constitution that of only 5 districts made up of whole counties includes the 4 single-county districts that are outside the 5% deviation range.

This removes the two least Black wards from use in the 6 house districts.  I'm pretty sure I selected the other cites based on having 6/11 of the total county population.  It also required a change in the district that extends into Medina.

While it wasn't necessarily the intent to create 70.6% and 60.0% districts, rather than two that were at 65%, there may be no way to do so using whole wards plus all the other constraints.  10, 11, and 12 form the 50.1% senate district.  I may have had to pull Newburgh Heights out to tip the balance, which stretches from the airport to both East Cleveland and Maple Heights.

It is District 7 that is the 45% district, once you eliminate the split of Ward 10 and add University Heights you are in trouble, since Euclid is under 50%.

How would a court look at it when that second seat was achieved by packing a pair of house districts and adding a 20% white district in west Cleveland?

Proposed Missouri State Senate districts:


http://oa.mo.gov/bp/redistricting/documents/Senate%20Apportionment%20Map%208.5x11%20Statewide.pdf


Proposed Missouri State House districts:

http://oa.mo.gov/bp/redistricting/documents/House%20Apportionment%20Plan%208.5x11%20Statewide.pdf

For detailed maps:

http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/s_default.asp?id=maps

the data

http://oa.mo.gov/bp/redistricting/pdf/House%20Election%20Table.pdf

Partisan splits
from 02 to 10: 102-61 R
2008: 87 to 76 R
2010: 123 to 40 R

Competitive districts (within 10%)
from 02 to 10: 41
2008: 53
2010: 21

I think they skewed some of their data by including state senate/rep races. It'd be a far better indication of tendencies to stick to races where both parties have a candidate.

Maryland's proposed districts. (http://www.mdp.state.md.us/Redistricting/2010/legiDist.shtml)

Some observations:

- Looks like they're trying to screw Sen. Nancy Jacobs, the erstwhile Senate Minority Leader, out of her seat, by cutting the Cecil County portion out of the 34th.
- Speaker Michael Busch gets a safe district in Annapolis. They're splitting up a lot of the House districts in Anne Arundel, probably trying to squeeze another seat or two out.
- 38th gets split up three ways, probably to protect Del. Norm Conway, but possibly also to try to pick up 38A. Doesn't look like they did much to shore up Sen. Mathias, except maybe to cut out a bit of Wicomico southeast of Salisbury.
- 3rd shrinks a bit, probably will help out Sen. Ronald Young.
- It looks like they screwed Sen. James Brochin in the 42nd by making his district a lot more Republican. I'm not sure why they did that.

Proposed Tennessee state Senate maps:

http://www.capitol.tn.gov/senate/redist/Plan%20H%20StMap.pdf

Regional insert maps here:

http://www.capitol.tn.gov/senate/redist/redistricting.html

Proposed New York Legislative Districts:



http://www.latfor.state.ny.us/maps/

I hope Cuomo vetoes that mess.

According to NYT, his aides are already saying he will.

He better.  If not, he's shot at the nomination in 2016 is finished.  The Dem Superdelegates will make sure he doesnt get anywhere near the nomination. 

I hope that if he does, the Assembly and Senate make a deal to override the veto.  Neither body really wants to roll the dice and get a court-drawn map that puts incumbents in danger.

Both maps are poster children for partisan Gerrymandering.  They did quite the job of carving up cities for partisan ends.

Agree 101%. That doesn't make these maps any better, BTW...

If he wants to endear himself to national Democrats he can strike a deal where he accepts the senate map but the Republicans let Democrats draw the congressional map.

I could see the State Assembly signing onto the project, possibily, but, some Senate Democrats also will have to sign onto the project. What is their risk-reward ratio in a court-drawn map?

The proposed Senate map creates some minority-majority districts that might otherwise not exist, including the first Asian-American majority district.  That's despite New York losing 100,000 African-Americans in the last census.  I could see the black caucus and three independent-leaning Democrats whose districts were largely protected splitting off from the caucus and voting for the plan.

The Senate map also puts the Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish community in one district instead of five.

Well, I don't think it's a question that the bill would pass the state Senate: very likely it would. The issue is, whether the Assembley desides to go along (not impossible) and whether Cuomo would veto it - quite likely. There is no way they override a veto, so how this or that senator votes is not of much interest for anyone other than political junkies like ourselves. The issue is, what will Cuomo do.

The thing that makes the senate map so interesting is that despite the crazy lines the Republicans didn't capitalize as much as they would have if they got rid of a few of those useless gerrymanderings and included more Conservative areas in less liberal or democratic districts (giving Brighton Beach and part of Sheepshead bay to Savino ranks as one of the dumbest political moves in this map and creates a counterproductive gerrymander)

personally I think there trying to help all 4 independent democrats even when they could win some of those seats.  (there are plenty of useless gerrymanders in this map and a few other places where the Republicans would have been better of making straighter lines if they would ave wanted to win that seat (ex. parts of Forrest Hills))

A judge threw out Kentucky's state legislative maps. (http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/46ae8c89db654aacba82ee89bd48b2f1/KY-XGR--Political-Redistricting/)

Apparently, each house drew their own map.  The Republicans sued over the House map for splitting too many counties; A Democrat senator sued after her district was moved (from Lexington to northern Kentucky) so that she can not run for re-election this year.  Meanwhile, a district that is up in 2014 was moved from western Kentucky to Lexington.

The web pages for the senators have been updated to reflect their new districts.  Click on the Democrat from Lexington, and you will see an 8 county area in Northern Kentucky.

The redistricting requirements for Kentucky date from 1891 (don't split counties unless a county has more than one representative), so it sounds like the legislature has kinda followed the constitution while also trying to adhere to OMOV.

The legislature is still doing congressional districting (or may be stalemated).  Now they can do legislative districting again.

An Alaskan judge ordered (http://www.adn.com/2012/02/07/2304877/redistricting-board-to-appeal.html) the redistricting board to redraw four house districts.  The board is appealing the need to redraw two of the four, largely due to VRA concerns.

Here's an amazing map of the proposed New York Senate districts, (http://www.thenewyorkworld.com/2012/01/26/senate-redistricting/) showing population deviation. Every single upstate district is underpopulated and every single NYC/Long Island district is overpopulated.

Is that counting prisoners as residents of the prison they're at (as the U.S. census does and has been used in the past, and as some like BigSkyBob are saying the state is still compelled to do by it's state constitution) or as residents of where they last resided before going to prision?

They ended up striking a deal where about 80% of the prisoners would be counted as residents of their old addresses, but about 20% whose addresses could not be verified or whatever would be counted as residents at their prison.

The Kentucky and Pennsylvania verdicts are, effectively, identical.
Except that at least it wasn't the state Supreme Court... which is where the case is now going.

Sort of.  Pennsylvania had an updated redistricting procedure (post OMOV) and the Supreme Court was part of the process (not just as the ultimate judicial entity).  The 2011 plan is better than the 2001 plan that they had previously approved.  The Supreme Court essentially said that there could be no precedents that the redistricting commission could rely on.

Though one of the challengers in Pennsylvania was the senator whose district was moved, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did not consider that - and if you are going to respect county lines, you can't simply slide districts.  At best Pennsylvania could add a provision like in Ohio or Hawaii where the continuing senate districts are based on share of existing districts.

In Kentucky, there are no real guidelines.  So at best a court would have to cite previous cases.

The referendum of the California senate districts has qualified.

The Florida supreme court ruled the state senate map against the Fair Districting amendment today, while giving the house map the nod. They'll be redoing it in a special session next week.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/09/2684620/fla-justices-reject-senate-redistricting.html

This is the Florida Supreme Court opinion

http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/sc12-1.pdf

Basically they spend a great deal of time explaining that they get to define what the terms mean and that no deference should be applied to the legislature.  As predicted, the purpose of the initiative in Florida was to get the plan into the courts.  They managed to quote both Texas opinions from this year, as well as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court opinion.

They also adopted the position of the USDOJ that VRA districts must use a functional analysis, where election results are used to determine whether minorities are effective in controlling elections.   While only 5 counties in Florida are subject to Section 5 of the VRA, the amendment incorporates the retrogression language into the Florida Constitution.

I suspect that the difference in the two plans is due to the difference in size of the districts.  House districts are small enough that it is more practical to apportion them among counties.  Meanwhile, you can probably create reasonably compact House VRA districts, while Senate districts with 470,000 population may need to string together a lot of population.

The court seemed to take a totality of circumstance approach when determining whether the Senate plan favored incumbents.  They somehow thought that because districts retained an average of 64% of their population, that this was proof of incumbent protection.

One particular issue they had was with the numbering of senate districts.  Florida has overlapping senate terms, with even and odd-numbered districts elected in alternate years.  But rather than  continuing some districts which elected in 2010 until 2014, all senate districts will elect in 2012.  Florida's interpretation is that terms are truncated by redistricting.  That is, some senators were elected in 2010 to 4-year terms, but because there was redistricting, the terms were truncated to 2 years.  The new districts then elect for a 2-year remainder of the term.  So 1/2 the districts elect in:

2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016; while others elect in 2006, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2018.  That is 1/2 the districts have 3 elections over 4 years, while others have 3 elections over 8 years.  The numbers were changed so that instead some senators who had been elected in 2006 and 2010, would be elected in 2012 and 2016.  A side effect of the numbering would be to permit senators to serve an extra two years.  Florida has term limits, preventing senators who have served 8 years, from seeking re-election.  With renumbering, senators who had served 6 years, a full 4-year term and a truncated 6-year term could be elected to another 4-year term; while those who had served 4 years, could be elected to a 2-year term followed by a 4-year term.

The minority opinion argued that the redistricting amendment was about favoring re-election of incumbents, and that it was not necessarily an advantage to be able to be re-elected.  The fundamental problem is that the term-limits wasn't particularly well thought out.  If Florida really wanted to limit service to 8 years, they could simply truncate terms of senators who had served 6 years when elected to another term.  Assigning numbers randomly would mean that about half of senators who had served less than 8 years, would get a favorable re-numbering.  Is arbitrary and capricious preferable to a deliberate practice?

The particular districts that they were concerned about were:

Two panhandle districts which were drawn east-west, giving an inland district and a coastal district.  The senate argued that the communities of interest were compact.

The senate had preserved a FL-3 junior district snaking south from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach (since it was smaller it didn't have to get to Orlando), which also pinned a district along the coast.  An illustrative plan keeping the district in Duval County was presented.

In the Orlando area, an existing black opportunity district was maintained, and a Hispanic opportunity district was created, with a district to the west having an arm between the two where an incumbent lives.

There was a long narrow black opportunity district in Palm Beach and Broward counties, and a parallel beach district.  The Democrats had demonstrated how to game the Roerck compactness measure by connecting two areas 40 miles apart by going inland and grabbing a large area of the Everglades (and likely using the western county line).  Though the plan was presented by the Democratic party, the court opined that it did not show intent to favor Democrats since Democrats won most seats in the area.

So an unabashed gerry to prevent the creation of a Volusia-based marginal, basically? (There shouldn't be a problem creating a minority Senate district in Duval alone, if somewhat on the close side of 50%.) Sounds like they were right to strike that.
So they're saying the arm is bad, even though Whites live in it (assuming the arm is where I guess it is... Whites do live there). Highly interesting in that case, as that situation is exactly mirrored in the Congressional map (except the southern district is merely Hispanic influence, there not being the numbers for Hispanic opportunity with larger districts.) That incumbent is of course Dan Webster.

Uh... that don't sound too reasonable. Of course the congressional map already does that, but it does so with good reason that may evaporate with smaller districts.

The Supreme Court doesn't have review authority over congressional districts.  That is left over from previous congressional revisions which were intended to make sure the legislature redistricted.  In the past, the Supreme Court could basically check that the population was more or less equal and the districts were contiguous.

The congressional districts have been challenged in state court.  The senate is suggesting that the trial be delayed so that filing can go forward.  The senate plan was drawn by the senate and the house plan was drawn by the house, while the congressional plan was a joint effort.

The congressional plan doesn't on the surface appear to have the problems that the senate plan did.  But there were a ton of complaints against the senate plan that the Supreme Court didn't buy into, and dismissed in fairly cursory fashion.   So basically you complain about everything and hope that some of it sticks.   Interestingly the lawyers for the League of Women Voters in Florida is a law firm that ordinarily works for Democrats.

The congressional plan ended up not drawing the St.Petersburg-Tampa minority district so that it dropped down into Manatee and Sarasota counties.  Curiously, a much smaller House district did do that, and it was approved by the Florida Supreme Court.

On the Orlando appendage, the court also attached significance to the fact that a senator lived in the area, and that during debate the question was raised whether anyone lived in that area, and even though the senator was in the chamber he didn't speak up.  So basically, parts of the debate are shaped in order to support the ultimate court case.

The congressional plan retains the Jacksonville-Orlando snake, but renumbers it to FL-5.  Corrine Brown convinced James Clyburn to try to persuade the national NAACP to get the Florida NAACP to drop its support of the redistricting amendments, in part because she believed its provision against favoring/disfavoring incumbents would cause her to lose her district would reduce the ability of a cohesive and compact minority community to re-elect their candidate of choice.  She is also a plaintiff in federal court challenging the authority to set congressional redistricting standards by the initiative process.

It will be interesting to see if the district is challenged.  Even if you go from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, the district is just as ugly.

The arm in Orlando is in the congressional map, but since representatives don't have to live in their district it is less of an incumbent-protection issue (and where does the representative live in that district?).  You can't complain about keeping a mostly white area out of a black district, especially since the Hispanic district is not overly packed, and the black district already extends a few 100 miles south.   Incidentally, the amendment says specifically "incumbent", and since Alan Grayson is not an incumbent it is perfectly legal to disfavor him.

The congressional district on the Gulf Coast doesn't appear to be as oddly shaped along the coast.  Collier County is covered by Section 5, which I assume means protecting farm workers in the inland area, and that splitting off the narrow coastal strip around Naples may be required.

The Broward-Palm Beach black congressional district is similar in concept to the demonstration plan for the senate plan, except the congressional map includes some needles stretching up from the ends.  FL-22 is not particularly compact.

The Florida Supreme Court upheld districts in Dade County that were challenged on racial grounds, and the congressional maps look reasonably coherent.

The particular districts that are challenged in the congressional map by the Democrats are FL-4, 5, and 10; FL-12; 13; and 14; and FL-26.  I don't see them getting anywhere in the Tampa Bay seat, given that a House district that extended into Manatee and Sarasota were approved.

The Florida Supreme Court said that the legislature should have used a functional test for checking the effectiveness of minority districts (eg rather than checking BVAP%, you should determine what the minimum number of blacks in a district are in order that they can elect their candidate of choice (but of course not noticing whether that candidate is a Democrat).

It would be rather surprising that the the Florida Supreme Court would find FL-5 violates the Florida Constitution when the claim is made that the redistricting amendment was simply incorporating language from the VRA.

It doesn't get to be reviewed by the State Supreme Court automatically, but it might end up there. Mind you, it might not, either. I'm not exactly waiting with baited breath.

How do you "challenge FL-26" without demanding the entire south (minus the Black districts) be redrawn from scratch?

Seems that either I'm remembering something that was ever false or Webster moved at one point. He used to live - or I wrongly heard he did - very close to both Adams and Mica, right about where their new district and his new district meet. But now wiki says he lives in a western suburb. *shrug* Anyways, the design doesn't screw Grayson at all, it screws Polk County Republicans in favor of Orange County Republican incumbents.

The State House district in question in the Tampa Bay might have been an actual Black-majority district? That would kinda make sense. Possibly.

What's the complaint regarding FL-4? Some majority Black bit in Jacksonville that had to be excised from Brown's to make the numbers add up better elsewhere?

The lawsuits have already been filed in Leon Circuit Court.  The first complaint was after the legislature had passed the bill.  The second was after the governor signed it.  Florida does have to preclear their statewide maps, but they haven't filed yet that I can see (the covered counties are Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough, and Monroe).

It appears that the focus of the complaint is FL-5 and FL-13, and probably that packing black voters was done to favor Republicans in adjacent district.

http://redistricting.lls.edu/states-FL.php#litigation

The state court cases on the congressional redistricting are Romo v Scott, and League of Women Voters of Fla. v. Scott, if you go to the above link you will find links to the complaints.  They don't really get into the substance.

For most of the districts in the complaint, it is alleged that the district favors a party, disfavors a party, favors an incumbent, was drawn with the intent and result of the equal opportunity of racial and language minorities to participate in the political process; and diminishing their ability to elect their candidate of choice; not compact, and does not utilize political and geographical boundaries.

5, 4, and 10 would appear to be really a complaint about FL-5.

12 is not claimed to be a racial gerrymander, but simply a political gerrymander and not compact, but it must tie in with 13 and 14.  But unless the court finds fault with 14; 12 and 13 aren't going to overturned.  And since Hillsborough is a Section 5 covered county is 14 going to be challenged for going into St.Petersburg?

26 is challenged only as a political gerrymander and not utilizing political and geographical boundaries.   But it can be claimed that its configuration is forced because of the mainland part of the Monroe.  And US-1 from the Keys comes ashore in the district rather than going through the northernmost key.

What would happen politically if 26 and 27 were split along an east west line?

Incidentally, when Florida sought preclearance of the redistricting amendments after they had been passed by the legislature, they specifically highlighted the Jacksonville-Orlando congressional snake; the Jacksonville-Daytona senate snake junior, and the reed-thin Broward-Palm Beach districts as benchmark districts, and that they could interpret the new amendments as requiring their continuation.

http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/pub_info/redistricting2012/index.shtml

This has the litigation on the legislative plans.  The opinion includes illustrative maps on the alternatives.

By the way, the special apportionment session on the legislative map gets underway. tomorrow.  The legislature gets one more chance, then the Supreme Court gets to draw a map.

The Florida legislature opened its special redistricting session today, and indicated that a new senate map would be approved at the end of the 14-day session.  The House redistricting committee met, and the chair indicated it was the intent to defer to the senate in drawing its map, and unless something came up, the redistricting committee would meet on the 26th, with anticipated 2nd and 3rd reading before the full house on the following two days.

The last 25 minutes or so of the House committee meeting were a review of the SCOFLA opinion by the House counsel.  It is kind of interesting if you want to watch the video.

Ah, such memories of Free Republic in December 2000.

The legislature passed and Governor Cuomo signed into law the New York Assembly (http://www.latfor.state.ny.us/maps/?sec=2012a) and state Senate (http://www.latfor.state.ny.us/maps/?sec=2012s) redistricting plans.  Senate Democrats have already filed a lawsuit questioning the addition of the 63rd seat and claim they will sue in federal court, too.

In Alaska, the Alaska Supreme Court (http://media.adn.com/smedia/2012/03/14/17/28/ZrqTR.So.7.pdf) struck down[ the proposed map, upholding the lower court's opinion (http://www.adn.com/2012/03/14/2371064/supreme-court-orders-redistricting.html).  So it's back to the drawing board there.

The chairman of the senate redistricting committee has issued a plan that addresses all the issues in the Supreme Court decision.

They based the minority districts on a functional analysis (eg whether the district would election the minority candidate of choice vs. a simple percentage of VAP), which permitted more compact districts.

They made a determination that the area between the Black and Hispanic districts in the Orlando was necessary, but they placed it in a district to the east.  If you look at the original map for the East Central area, you can't even see the connection to the rest of the district because it is covered up with a highway marker.

They took a more radical approach in Broward-Palm Beach, creating a 49% black district in central Broward, and a 25% black, 26% Hispanic district in northern Palm Beach.

The original map had a 55% black district, and then a 20% black district in southern Broward.  So they added the somewhat black area adjacent to the southern part of the district, and lopped off the Broward part of the district.

Instead of 3 districts to the crossing the county line, there is only one.

They also decided to draw for odd and even district numbers randomly.