How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission

[Torie]

What is the population of the huge Newark-surrounding precinct, and where do they presumably live - in its southeastern part? Maybe we could have our cake and eat it too in regards to issues of de facto and, as it were, de jure erosity as well? (Though the part angling around to beyond the bridge would always look ugly.)

The block group is population 3906 and is all located at the Milpitas border. Torie's plan would need about 6 K from Fremont in addition to Newark in CD 15. Any little pocket in addition to the aforementioned block group would do.

It seems they live in two very disparate nodes, one where you describe, and one north of Newark (the streets in the green zone). What a bizarre precinct.  Someone must have been on crack when they drew it.



I see the two white plurality precincts you wanted to grab Mike in west downtown SJ, wading through some lightly populated Hispanic precincts to get them.  It is a reminder to look at precinct size. Anyway, I decided to just go for the whole hog. In for a penny, in for a pound.  Sorry boys, I just can't do Newark. It is just so wrong. I could not sleep at night having crossed that bridge too far. You don't want that do you?

Are we done with SJ now?  By the way, that county airport precinct east of Mountain View is not an American dream precinct. It is tiny 75K condos wedged between the freeway and the airport!  (Maybe those are pied a terre's, where the pilots "do" the stews, except that I suspect it is not the SJ commercial airport. I wonder what airport that is.) But the adjacent precinct already took a bite out it, the airport creates a natural barrier, so let the deed be done.  There is only one precinct CA-14 can lose in return, and only one, there on the east edge of the now famous west SJ jut of which we have spoken, and speculated so much, and it is too large. So that precinct will need to be chopped in half. In the meantime, CA-15 has 1,400 folks too many, and CA-14 1,400 residents too few.

Thanks guys, and particularly Mike for all your hard work on this. I appreciate it very much, and yes, it made the map better.



Oh, and just for fun, I did a zillow of sales in east Cupertino versus the SJ west jut, and yes, Sbane was right. The housing prices are about the same. It is amazing how little a million bucks gets you in this neck of the woods, a 2,000 square foot cookie cutter house on a small lot, without a view. At least my a tad larger cookie cutter house of about the same value has a magnificent view. Those damn Asians are driving up housing prices! Deport them all!  

[Torie]

Hey, sbane, don't put Laguna Niguel down like that!    But yes, Cupertino > Laguna Niguel. This is kind of a fun chart - a ranking of cities by per capita income over 50,000 in population. Your town beats LN too!  

[Torie]

Hasn't Prop 13 inflated home prices in the Bay Area (among other areas), since it gives people who bought houses ages ago a major incentive to stay in their homes, and a disincentive to sell, in a place where supply is already low, and demand is already high?

That is a factor, although mitigated by the housing price decline, which pushed more homes towards an assessment valuation that matched their real value. In some counties, you can sell one home and buy another, and carry over your prop 13 cap. We live in a crazy world.

[Torie]

Yes, well you are going for a max AVAP CD, within your little universe of constraints, and the rest of us are doing a balancing test. I suspect my CA-15, diluted as it may be for you, is 50% ACVAP, and even more likely, 50% AVPA (actually voted percentage Asian), since the Hispanics here hardly seem to vote at all. The turnout rates are just amazingly low in the Hispanic precincts. So on that one, we are on a parallel path.

As to CA-15, my numbers are my numbers (I switched the colors of my CA-34 lime CD just to see if some rogue precinct popped up in CA-15, which has a similar color, and none did). I will send you my data base.

I assume in your Asian purple tiger that if you chop south into SJ from Santa Clara, and lose the Evergreen jut, that that gets your Asian percentage down below your goals. The SV American dream CD (my CA-14), can pick up that upper middle class valley we agreed upon in south SJ to make up the population - to wit, twist the clock counterclockwise. You already have your tiger cutting into SJ anyway, and would even if you lost the Evergreen neighborhood. That Evergreen jut in east SJ is just not popular around here, and you made it butt ugly to boot.

In the meantime, here is the CA-20 cf which unites Merced. It's pretty awful. I notice the Commission's version has only a 53% HVAP in theirs (40.73% HCVAP). Did they assume that Madeira is not a community of interest with either Fresno or Merced, so there is no 50% HCVAP COI to draw?  I wonder what the legal risk is? If it is remote, I am inclined to go the way of the Commission.  The CD sucks.





And here is a remap of the San Diego area which I assume will receive universal acclaim. If I had not just followed the Commission's Chula Vista chop, it is what I think I would have drawn in the first instance actually (even though it casts some Pub partisan shadows upon CA-50 potentially, but that is the nature of this exercise). 91,000 folks were involved in the Chula Vista chop. Surprising. It is a big town!

[Torie]

I am not sure exactly what you are recommending sbane. Perhaps you could draw it. Most of the eastside father south put in CA-15 is majority Hispanic.

[Torie]

Right, you put the majority hispanic areas in the 15th, the middle class district. And you cut them off from the Asian areas right to its south which have similar incomes. I would keep that area together. In exchange you can pick up Mountain View and other more middle of the road areas like Campbell in the 15th. This plan works even better with how Muon has drawn his map by including Newark and a chunk of Fremont in the 15th. This allows us to keep the class theme going and making sure the asian VAP doesn't fall too much. And we keep the east side mostly together. A win-win-win. Anyways, even in your map there is no reason for including the Hispanic areas in the 15th. Keep the east side together.

Now you have me totally confused. CA-15 is the lower income Asian-Hispanic CD. CA-16 is the middle class CD. CA-14 is the upper middle class CD. So I stuffed as many Hispanics and Asians into CA-15 as possible while avoiding muni chops. The change from my prior map per Mike's comments, was to switch out 3 or 4 west-side Hispanic precincts for east-side Hispanic precincts, plus pick up the 2 or 3 foothill precincts (Asian), immediately south of Milpitas, as well as delete a couple of white plurality precincts for heavily Asian ones in its SW corner.

[Torie]

So if I follow sbane' comments, I think this is the plan of mine he likes for the Asian district. I've adjusted the boundary between the central SJ district and the western SV to put the Campbell in the former and the New Almaden valley in the latter as suggested by Torie. The most Hispanic areas of Evergreen stay with central SJ, and it's now a HVAP plurality district. Did I pick up the comments accurately?

All the pictured districts are within 200 of the ideal population.



edit: I think I did misread sbane's comments, but I really don't want to put Mountain View in that district. I was trying to provide somewhat more separation between the Hispanic and Asian areas and that throws them together more.

I don't think sbane liked the Evergreen reach, which also creates erosity, which I don't like, along with the class confusion, which is not on your agenda if it reduces the Asian percentage clearly, unless it creates a chop, but then he drew this eastside thing (which seemed to chop the Hispanics in half), and then deleted his post, so I am confused about that too.

[Torie]

I am not sure exactly what you are recommending sbane. Perhaps you could draw it. Most of the eastside father south put in CA-15 is majority Hispanic.

You should keep the northeast Asian areas with Milpitas in CA-15 but move the Hispanic areas out and into the CA-16. So keep the east and southeast together. By moving the northeast Asian areas into CA-15 you are able to get it up to 40.5%VAP. And CA-16 is 37%HVAP. This is what I drew.

OK. No I want to keep the Hispanics in CA-15, not CA-14, due to class reasons, and to get the Asian share of the actual voters up. Basically I wanted a center city San Jose CD created, that excised whites - and richer Asians.  Xahar was for this, and it seemed a reasonable balancing test, and that other chap who dropped by, and nobody seemed to disagree. So it became more north south, than east west. I don't think I will change it now. One reason for that, is that it is entirely peripheral to the purpose of my exercise.

[Torie]

edit: I think I did misread sbane's comments, but I really don't want to put Mountain View in that district. I was trying to provide somewhat more separation between the Hispanic and Asian areas and that throws them together more.

Here is what I would do with your cut in Fremont and Newark. It makes it easier to draw a rational Asian heavy mostly middle class district. The 15th is 44.3% AVAP and the 16th (Cyan) is 37% HVAP.

You are abandoning the class metric as between CA-16 and CA-15.  You have the well to do Asians with poor Hispanics. It certainly is a reasonable choice however. My Asian CD has almost as high a percentage of Asian voters however, and clearly higher among actual voters, since you need to mix the Hispanics with the Asians to get there - not separate them.

[Torie]

I am not sure exactly what you are recommending sbane. Perhaps you could draw it. Most of the eastside father south put in CA-15 is majority Hispanic.

You should keep the northeast Asian areas with Milpitas in CA-15 but move the Hispanic areas out and into the CA-16. So keep the east and southeast together. By moving the northeast Asian areas into CA-15 you are able to get it up to 40.5%VAP. And CA-16 is 37%HVAP. This is what I drew.

OK. No I want to keep the Hispanics in CA-15, not CA-14, due to class reasons, and to get the Asian share of the actual voters up. Basically I wanted a center city San Jose CD created, that excised whites - and richer Asians.  Xahar was for this, and it seemed a reasonable balancing test, and that other chap who dropped by, and nobody seemed to disagree. So it became more north south, than east west. I don't think I will change it now. One reason for that, is that it is entirely peripheral to the purpose of my exercise.

No, the wealthy areas are in the west valley mostly with a small pocket around Evergreen and some other areas to the south of San Jose. That's CA-16 the Hispanics are in BTW, not the 14th. The 14th is the upper class district by the hills.

Yes, I was referring to Evergreen, and south SJ, not an insignificant chunk, and yes, I meant CA-16 rather than CA-14, but whatever, you have severed the Hispanics from the Asian CD.

I guess my order of priorities is:

1. VRA
2. Compactness, not crossing jurisdictional and/or topographical lines absent compelling COI reasons to do so.
3. Class
4. COI of a lessor order, be it race or whatever.
5. Partisan competitiveness, with a balance between formerly Dem and GOP CD's put in play.

[Torie]

OK, I "fixed" CA-20, and restored Riverside too, so I think I am done. On to the matrix!

[Torie]

Hey, it got rid of three muni chops in Orange County net, and almost got rid of a chop of Florence in LA County to boot (down to one dangling precinct to the south still in CA-33).  Aren't you proud of me Mike?

My map is now finalized - hopefully.

[Torie]

My map is now finalized - hopefully.

Well, I don't really approve of you lumping in SJ Hispanics with the middle class district, but you can go ahead with your matrix chart since there are no partisan issues in the Bay Area.

I presume my CA-16 is more bourgeoise than my CA-15.  You disagree?  But yes, it is time to move on So many opinions, so little time.

[Torie]

This is my updated map for the Bakersfield region. I followed Torie's lead and reduced the muni splits to Bakersfield and Tulare. I kept the HVAP at 65.2% (down from my previous 65.3%). That's the minimum in that area that still gives 50% HCVAP, needed as this is a section 5 and section 2 area.

Is 65.2% based on something real, or just Maldef yammering? If it is real, I need to find 30 Hispanic basis points somewhere, probably involving another chop. This is a very interesting CD, by the way, but I digress.

[Torie]

Since I know everyone is breathlessly waiting for the matrix chart, I thought I would give you a preview.

Did the Commission screw the Pubs?  Well assuming you believe my(our) map was an honest attempt to draw something in tune with non-Partisan redistricting principles, then at least as to Norcal, the answer is well - F no!  

The column "Diff Comm PVI %" tells the tale. It is mostly in soothing earth-tones (more kind to the Pubs than my (our) map), including an extra 40 critical Pub basis points in the swing CD in the eastern Sacto suburbs (new CA-07), and in Stanislaus County (new CA-10). The one big oddity, because the Comm drew the north coast so odd, is that while the north coast CA-05 (old CA-01) slips from lean Dem to solid Dem, the Solano based CD (CA-03 - old CA-07), goes from solid Dem in my(our) map to but lean Dem, with the exchange giving the Pubs 1 percentage point net. I extra bolded and patterned the two cells to highlight the switch out. And the frosting on the cake is that old CA-11, now CA-09  (which was a major focus of the newspaper article where the Dems allegedly gamed the Commission), is well, 2.7 Pub points more GOP than in my (our) map. Fancy that.

So now we go on to SoCal, to see what the Commission wrought.

Facts matter don't they?  Facts are our friends.

[Torie]

I wish the DRA had the 2010 Senate data, but alas it has only the Gubernatorial data, which is largely useless.

And yes, overall, the Commission's plan was hardly a Dem hatchet job. The task is to zoom down, and see if in some instances, the work of the Commission can be criticized, and whether the Pubs took a punch that they could have just said no to. Riverside is one such instance, but that has the VRA issue in play, so there, the issue is why given the Commission's point of view was to not go beyond what the VRA demanded (which is in fact the law), just why did it in Riverside given the controlling Romero 9th Circuit decision, that makes clear you don't have to draw a CD that you would not otherwise draw to get up to 50% HVAP. So that CD will be on my list. I think my map of the SD area is the only reasonable one to draw (it just "works" so well), so if the Bilbray CD is more Dem, that would be added to the list too. And then there is the Ventura CD, and the San Bernadino CD to look at. The Chu CD is a disgrace in the Commission map, but that CD however drawn, is barely within reach of the Pubs anyway.