US House Redistricting: Washington

[Sounder]

As I previously mentioned, I can't help but suspect all three current swing districts will be made significantly more Republican under such a plan, which would fall under the last two there.

I also think it would be a violation of communities of interest, but I suppose that is more subjective.

In the last 6 Presidential elections, Klickitat went Democrat 4 times and Kittitas went Democrat 50% of the time.   Chelan is trending blue.  Wealthy nature loving westsiders are moving to places like Leavenworth and Lake Chelan.  

Yes the 3rd will be more Republican, but that is only because it sheds the insanity surrounding The Evergreen Socialist College.   The 2nd should become more Republican too based on the trends.  It can be kept a lean Democrat district if the 8th crosses the Cascades at both Snoqualmie and Stevens, and takes in some of Eastern Snohomish County from the 2nd.

[Sounder]

Back in 2000, before King County property values skyrocketed even higher, there were over 1,200 people commuting from Kittitas into King County.  Considering there is a sizable student population there, it is a significant number.  Plus when you factor in the income discrepancy between King and Kittitas, it is even more significant.  

The issue is this:

- should Union Gap be in the same district as Vancouver

or

- should Ellensburg be in the same district as Issaquah

Drive the two routes and it is quite clear which is the way to go.  Plus factor in TV markets, commuters, and it is a slam dunk if you ask me.  

[Sounder]

Here are the historical districts up through the 70's:

[Sounder]

I have a really good 'in' with the S.O.S., I'll see what I can do.  May take some time. 

[Sounder]

Here is a slightly tweaked version of the one I posted initially in this thread.  I drew it up over OFM's 2000 density map to show where the people are approximately (some areas have grown/densified over the last 10 years).   I added more East Wenatchee in exchange for the Adams panhandle (Othello).  I drew the lines by hand (poorly), so it is not totally accurate, but a good representation. 

[Sounder]

So the northern district can include Clallam and Jefferson if that will help make a more convenient split in Snohomish.

It's kind of silly, since it is only linked via the Port Townsend - Keystone Ferry, but portions of the northern Olympic Peninsula are pretty much isolated from everywhere, so there are no real pressing links to preserve.  I'd like to see the cross sound districts phased away other than perhaps at the Tacoma Narrows now that there are 10 districts.  But looking at history, there have been a lot of ferry linked districts going all the way back to City of Seattle linked with Kitsap County. 

[Sounder]

How does it work? I went to the regional archives in Bellevue once, and I just had to tell them what I wanted and I could come take pics of it, IIRC.

I'll try the state library first, they have lots of information.  I have only been to the archives building on the Capitol Campus (if it is still there) when I was with the S.O.S.  office.  The last time I was there was when moving the signed and boxed ballot initiatives from the S.O.S. office to the vault over at archives, under armed State Patrol escort.  If they ever nuke Olympia, those ballot initiatives will be safe.  Tim Eyman can rest peacefully. 

[Sounder]

I drew up a new map:



South Sound:



Seattle:





The districts:

Blue - This district unites the University of Washington with Washington State University.  For an even bigger block party, Central Washington University, Eastern Washington University, Gonzaga University, Washington State University Tri-Cities, Washington State University Spokane, Bellevue College, Spokane Falls CC, and Spokane CC are included in this higher education centric district.   I need to tweak the district boundaries some to include the Gorge Amphitheater, an essential meeting place for the district.  Current Rep.: open seat.  Future Rep: Dave Matthews

Pink - Neah Bay and Anatone are finally united into the same congressional district.  After a century of evil gerrymandering that kept these sister cities separate, justice finally prevails.  This district wins as the all time great food producing congressional district, and plans on hosting a future season of Bravo TV's Top Chef.  Current Rep:  Doc Hastings.  Future Rep:  Drew Bledsoe

Cadet Blue? (district centering on Kitsap Peninsula, islands) - The maritime district.  Further justice as Ballard finally frees itself from big bully Seattle.  Linked with other fishing and port towns such as Anacortes, and most of this region's islands.  Point Roberts too, since it is pretty much an island itself.  Mercer Island is also included in this district, linked to the rest of the district by Paul Allen's super secret Mercer Island - Sperry Peninsula tunnel.  Current Rep: Norm Dicks.  Future Rep: Sig Hansen

Yellow:  After a decade and a half of Almost Live! jokes against it, congressional power is the only just remedy for this image challenged part of our region.  The big hair, beer drinking, big truck driving, chew spitters are once again united in a common district.  Because of the area's growing population, I had to disappoint many of the constituents by not being able to include Skagit Speedway in Alger or Grays Harbor Raceway in Elma into the district.  As a consolation prize, they at least have South Sound Speedway near Tenino.  Current Rep:  Dave Reichert.  Future Rep: Kasey Kahne

Orangish Red:  The U.S. 2 District.  Follows the old Stevens Pass route out of Seattle all the way to Spokane.  It was originally only going to include areas west of the mountains, but the essentiality of having an international airport in this district forced it to encompass the Airway Heights area after residents of Mukilteo rejected plans to turn Paine Field into Seattle-Everett International Airport.  Current Rep:  open seat.  Future Rep:  J.P. Patches

Aqua:  The aqua district includes the littoral views of Puget Sound west of Interstate 5.  West Seattle, Burien, and Tacoma will use their united political power to fight the unjust snubbing of the region by Dick's Drive-In during their recent expansion.  Current Rep: Adam Smith.  Future Rep:  Chris Cornell

Purple:  This district represents a once proud, now dead industry of this region: macro brewering.  Uniting the corpses of the once great Rainier Brewery in Seattle and Olympia Brewery in Tumwater, this is our area's rust belt (except the entire rest of the district, which is fine).  Current Rep:  Jim McDermott.  Future Rep: Shawn Kemp (if enough of his children follow him to Seattle)

Green:  Green represents all the money that was given to me by Rick Larsen's people to draw this district.  He knows he is a goner without some big gerrymander.  Current Rep: Rick Larsen.  Future Rep:  Rick Steves

Grey:  Washington's great mountainous northern tier and winter sports capital.  Has the snowfall records and Memorial Cups.  Also has an extensive border with Canada, which probably explains its snowfall and winter sports prowess.  Current Rep:  Cathy Rogers-McMorris.  Future Rep: Jake Locker

Purple: Follows the Columbia up the Wallula Gap to the junction with its largest tributary, the Snake.   The Yakama Nation and Mt. St. Helens are the non-Columbia River portions of the district.  Due to its extensive border with Oregon, foreign relations skills and fluency in the Oregonian language are essential for any candidate thinking about running in this district.  Current Rep:  Jamie Herrera.  Future Rep:  Curt "the original famous Curt Warner" Warner

[Sounder]

The new district could happen just about anywhere between SE Snohomish County and Longview.  Based on where the incumbents live, NE King County, Pierce County, and Thurston County are the obvious front runners.  

I am in Olympia and am hoping to be put into the 6th with the entire Olympic Peninsula.  

[Sounder]

Because Reichert lives in Auburn, it makes it easy to put the new district either in Pierce County or Seattle's Eastside.  Once again, it all comes down to where they pull the 150,000 or so extra people from Eastern Washington.   Geographically it makes sense using the low central Cascade passes.  Historically they have gone up the Columbia Gorge.  

[Sounder]

WA-03 has year-round road contiguity along the Columbia, from Klickitat County up to Yakima, and from Yakima into Lewis County along US-12.
Thoughts?

The 3rd is brutal.    So is the 6th.  Don't be afraid to carve up Thurston County, it makes sense geographically and culturally. 

[Sounder]

Yakima is going to have to get chopped up.

No it doesn't.  It shouldn't.  If geography and common sense win out, the low Central Cascade passes should be used as well as the Columbia.

[Sounder]

why can't I-90 be used as such a connector again?

There is no law against it.  In fact it makes by far the most sense.  Kittitas County is more connected to King County than Yakima County is to any county west of the Cascades.

[Sounder]

.

As for why this is different from the Snoqualmie Pass--reasonableness. The areas on either side of Snoqualmie Pass have nothing in common with one another, while Lewis County, Clark County and Yakima County are fairly similar.

Other way around.  Kittitas County has a significant amount of King County commuters and students from Western Washington.  There is very little in common with SW Washington and the Yakima Valley. 

Look at commuter #s, traffic #s, elevation: Snoqualmie Pass makes by far the most sense.

[Sounder]

I also agree -- None of the Snoqualmie connections I tried were anything but ridiculous, even if you accept that Cle Elum, Roslyn and Ellensburg have much to do with East King County.

Actually it is easy.  Kittitas County, southern Chelan County, and the East Wenatchee Bench have enough people.  Kittitas and Wenatchee are geographically isolated themselves, and have to be placed somewhere. Growth in Kittitas and Chelan has largely driven by westsiders. 

[Sounder]

Here is a new one using the 2010 census numbers:


Statewide:




Puget Sound area:




I put the new district in the Central Cascades which pushes the 8th into rural and suburban Pierce and Thurston Counties. 

The population totals for each district range from 672,355 to 672,530.   I had to carve into Clarkston to balance the 4th and 5th, which isn't visible in the above map.

[Sounder]

Why did the 8th need to go into Snohomish? Keep it within King county and put the exurban parts of Snoho in the 2nd which are in the 8th as you have drawn it, and the 1st picks up Everett and surroundings.

That's the new 10th.  The 8th gets pushed south towards Auburn where Reichert lives.  The 10th stretches into SE Snohomish County, home to US 2, the 2nd major route through the Cascades.  The 10th is a mountain and foothills district.   For you folks not familiar to the area, google up some pictures of Index and Leavenworth. 

[Sounder]

^^^

Sorry Sounder.  Especially in light of the Yakima City split, I might buy the I-90 connection if it were cleaner.  But I've tried, and it seems much dirtier.  Not only are the splits ugly, but there are also a lot of them.

How is it ugly?  

 Look at where the people actually live, look at the geography, look at the roads.   The Yakima split is far uglier.   My above scenario creates clean districts.  The new 10th centered around Snoqualmie Pass and Stevens Pass makes a lot of sense.   The entire district is foothills (Issaquah Alps, Sammamish Plateau, East Hill), foothill valleys (Snoqualmie Valley, Skykomish Valley, Wenatchee Valley, Kittitas Valley and the three passes that link them), and mountains.  

Meanwhile a Yakima split puts together significant population centers with zero connections (way greater number of commuters over Snoqualmie Pass), has a vast area of nothingness in between (unlike the Central Cascade scenario with linear settlements lining the heavily traversed central Cascade passes), linked by lower quality, lesser traversed transportation infrastructure (can take Amtrak to Leavenworth and Wenatchee on top of the two major mountain passes).  That's ugly.  

[Sounder]

The consensus seems to be that the Snoqualmie Pass link is undesirable,[/img]

There may be a consensus, but why do people believe this?  That data screams otherwise.  Other than historical precedence when the state had way less districts, there is no reason to split up the Yakima Valley.  Kittitas County is heavily dependent on Western Washington.   Wenatchee is a messier split, but it isn't naturally linked much to anything tucked into that pocket around the Columbia River.  Wenatchee has to go somewhere. 

How many of you folks have driven these roads?  In winter?  Snoqualmie Pass is the easiest link between east and west in Washington.  Interstate 84 in Oregon is #2.  Stevens Pass #3.  A central Cascade district can take advantage of both #1 and #3, plus would have the south and west links into Wenatchee. 

[Sounder]

^^^



Index and Leavenworth are kind of cherrypicking the most similar East/West sides of that district.  It's more like Google Bellevue and then East Wenatchee...

Google is in the 1st and 7th.  East Wenatchee is attracting (Seattle suburban) Eastsiders.  Yahoo and Microsoft have both set up their massive data centers nearby to take advantage of cheap hydro electric power.  

[Sounder]

No, they don't. We established this before. Estimates of commute time found not a single person in Cle Elum, let alone Ellensburg or Wenatchee, who commuted to Bellevue/Redmond.

1200 people a day commuted to King County from Kittitas County in 2000.  That is a significant number for a small county with almost a third of its population students.   

What's the number between Yakima County and Clark?  Zero?   1200>>>>>>>>0  Simple math. 

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The only reason for the hay industry is all of those empty shipping containers heading west back through the ports of Seattle and Tacoma.  What's the difference between forest land and hay land, other than frequency of harvest?  Also, there is a rodeo in Roy.

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Not familiar  with Snoqualmie Valley I guess.  Pike Place market has to get is fine local produce from somewhere.   Ever hear of Carnation Farms?  If not, you must have heard of the Carnation brand that was born there.  There is farmland  right outside of Everett, WA and all the way up the Snohomish Valley.  Monroe fed the northern transcontinental railroad. 

[Sounder]

I didn't spend much time on the Olympic Peninsula, so that would be easy to adjust as would whether Centralia was with Olympia or not. I was just working on the shape of CD 3 to try to keep Yakima intact.

I'd be curious as to the local views on the merits of splitting Longview from Kelso as a trade for keeping Yakima whole.

You only keep the northern tip of Kitsap in your scenario, which may have to happen anyway (Inslee, ferry link).

As for the splits, Olympia and Centralia have no reason to be together.  SW Thurston is very Centralia centric, so that can be split off too.  Splitting Olympia and Lacey also makes sense as well.  Lacey is predominately military and spill over Central Puget Sound sprawl and is more Tacoma/Seattle centric.  As is Yelm and SE Thurston County.   Olympia and is older built, and is more SW Washington/Olympic Peninsula/Pacific Coast centric.  Tumwater too, except its building. 

Politically, I'd assume Longview-Kelso would want to stay united. 

[Sounder]

Here is another attempt at a Central Cascades 10th district. This version crosses the Cascades via three all-season mountain passes (Snoqualmie, Stevens, & White) as well as seasonal Chinook Pass.  I tried to cut out as much inner suburban Puget Sound and to stick as close to the mountains as possible.  Lacey is the exception.  East Wenatchee stays with Wenatchee, but Selah and the highlands get cut away from Yakima, but is a clean split due to geography.

  I also had to adjust the 4th and 5th back to the old horizontal rectangles.  Moses Lake is the epicenter of the split between those districts.   The populations of all 10 districts are within 94 people of having 672,453 total population.




The 9th follows the Highline (plateau west of Valley) down to Tacoma adding it and the older inner suburbs.  The 8th is bounded by the valley to the west and becomes a more compact suburban district.  The new 10th is predominantly rural and peripheral suburban.  Enumclaw (NASCAR racers, Horses), rural Spanaway (Daytona 500 winner), Roy (Rodeo), Monroe (race track), etc.  

 

[Sounder]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Google is in the 1st and 7th"?

That's the Congressional Districts where Google is physically located.   The area between Wenatchee and Quincy is becoming a major data center hub.  T-Mobile is another one there.

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The are more connections and commonalities between Cascade mountain towns than there are between Clark County and the Yakima Valley.  Hardly anyone lives or uses the Columbia River connection (on the Washington side of the river, other than freight trains).  Meanwhile a significant chunk of the new population east of the Mountains in the Central Cascades are former Puget Sound area residents and there is a decent amount a commuters and connectivity up there.  There is little to none between Vancouver and Yakima.  

[Sounder]

There are traffic cameras on the pass.  It's your job to check it out tomorrow morning and afternoon.

The person I know who does the cross Cascades commute works M-Th, so you won't see him up on the pass until 7:30 PM. 

Since we are monitoring Snoqualmie Pass, any volunteers to monitor Satus Pass?