Most deceptive gerrymander?
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  Most deceptive gerrymander?
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #25 on: September 18, 2010, 04:10:20 PM »

Nah, sorry, it's the safe R 4th district that includes a bizarre spike into Saginaw.
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Vepres
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« Reply #26 on: September 18, 2010, 04:11:43 PM »

But can you really call it a gerrymander if the Districts are reasonable and just happen to favor one party?
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #27 on: September 18, 2010, 04:14:10 PM »

But can you really call it a gerrymander if the Districts are reasonable and just happen to favor one party?
But they aren't. Unless you 're talking about Colorado again, that would be something of an example of that. (Though not a perfect one... try Oregon for that.)
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muon2
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« Reply #28 on: September 18, 2010, 04:39:50 PM »

Well, no. It's more that concentrated strength makes it easier to gerrymander effectively.
Well, specifically in the case of Michigan, community of interest considerations would certainly create the two Black seats and probably Sander Levin's too - though very little else of the state would look anything like it does now.

Really? I'd say all of the following are pretty natural from a "communities of interest" point of view:
- putting the UP district down the more blue-collar eastern half of the LP rather than the summer playgrounds around Traverse City
- a district for the Thumb
- a district for Flint/Saginaw
- an affluent Oakland district - granted, Pontiac is out of place, but Pontiac will be out of place anywhere unless you do a snake up to Flint which would be even more of a GOP gerrymander.

And then there isn't anything obviously disastrous about west Michigan. I agree that the Lansing district and the Ann Arbor/Dingell combination are clearly gerrymandered, but Michigan is going to have more GOP seats than the popular vote would dictate in pretty much any district-based FPTP system unless you give Detroit the fajita treatment.

Mathematically MI averages about 53% D to 47% R. The two black-majority districts average about 85% D. If there are 15 districts, as there were in the last cycle, then that leaves the remaining 13 districts at 47% D to 53% R. A fair division would create a 7R - 6D split of these districts for a total 8D - 7R delegation.

The actual map used a state law requiring that county (and other municipal) splits be minimized, but the requirement was loose enough that a 9R - 6D map was approved by the partisan legislature. However, as the map was slanted, many of the R seats were competitive and have changed hands over the decade, such that the delegation is now 8D - 7R as one would expect with a fair split based on statewide voting tendencies.
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Vepres
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« Reply #29 on: September 18, 2010, 04:54:21 PM »

But can you really call it a gerrymander if the Districts are reasonable and just happen to favor one party?
But they aren't. Unless you 're talking about Colorado again, that would be something of an example of that. (Though not a perfect one... try Oregon for that.)

I'm talking in general terms.
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JohnnyLongtorso
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« Reply #30 on: September 18, 2010, 05:05:48 PM »

They're not really reasonable, though. They're drawn to dilute Democratic strength.

- MI-03 puts Grand Rapids in the very western corner. A fair district would have Grand Rapids as the center of population.

- MI-04 is specifically drawn to exclude Saginaw, and stretches 2/3rds of the way across the state.

- MI-07 and MI-08 each stretch from the middle of the state to the suburbs of Detroit. Battle Creek and Lansing would more logically be put in the same district, but they're split between the two.

- MI-11 is a bizarre L-shaped district that also attempts to dilute Dem strength as much as possible.
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« Reply #31 on: September 18, 2010, 10:33:41 PM »

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It only looks that way on the map, it's mostly a Detroit suburban district. With another bit of the Bay City area thrown in if I remember correctly.

Yep, Milk and Cereal's home for anyone who remembers him. But nowhere near Bay City.

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Ann Arbor/Dingell is merely hilarious. (Though might have happened even with a commission.)

The idea was to make one of the lost seats the old Rep for the Ann Arbor area, some very liberal and generic female Democrat who had very little seniority and the GOP had no reason to preserve. She ran anyway and lost to Dingell. Oddly enough a lot of the NARAL puppets among the Dem caucus in the House tried to get Dingell to actually stand down to her, even though she was only a 4-termer. One offer was that if Dingell stood down the Dem caucus would agree to make him the first Speaker of the House who wasn't a sitting member if the Dems won the House.


Beyond words.

Nah, sorry, it's the safe R 4th district that includes a bizarre spike into Saginaw.

It's hardly a safe R seat, it's only R+3. If it had been open in 2006 or 2008 it would've flipped, and would've be holdable even this year. And I don't think it contains any portion of Saginaw proper. A fairly drawn map probably would include Saginaw in a different seat than Flint, thus making this one far more winnable yes. The GOP are also very lucky that Upton didn't retire in either of those years. Also the GOP better pray that Upton who is now something like the 5th most liberal Republican in the House (granted this says a lot more about the current GOP House caucus than it does about Upton) doesn't become one of the Tea Party's targets in 2012.
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BRTD
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« Reply #32 on: September 18, 2010, 10:48:14 PM »

Admittedly though one area where JLT is wrong is MI-03. It's true the district does just out to the east instead of having Grand Rapids proper at the dead center but by doing so ignores Ottawa County to the west. Which would make it a hell of a lot more Republican. Granted this is mostly to get Ottawa County into MI-02 and prevent the election of a Stupak-esque Dem from MI-02.

I'll have a more fairly drawn MI map coming up.
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BRTD
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« Reply #33 on: September 18, 2010, 11:24:45 PM »

OK here goes. I guess JLT had a bit of a point about Grand Rapids though the seat isn't that winnable regardless. And I know it's far from perfect for a lot of reasons but anyway here is Michigan redrawn with 2002 Census data:



MI-01 is still a Dem district in almost all cases.
MI-02 is more winnable but still clearly a GOP-leaning seat.
MI-03, well same really.
MI-04 doesn't change much. Turns out adding Saginaw is kind of tricky with the other seats drawn better.
MI-05 is basically the same.
MI-06 is more winnable, probably the same situation as now. Turns out Battle Creek wasn't as Democratic as I thought.
MI-07 is the biggest change. It goes now to a Lansing-based and dominated seat. Would be Dem.
MI-08 would be pretty safe GOP.
MI-09 is a bit more black and a bit more winnable. Probably the same situation that happened in reality though with this seat.
MI-10 is a bit less suburban but also a bit more conservative.
MI-11, OK I'm not exactly comfortable putting Ann Arbor with the Detroit outer suburbs, but it doesn't belong anywhere pretty well. Anyway this would be a Dem seat and not McCotter (who is annoying but moreso for being a dumb than an ideologue.)
MI-12 is maybe a bit less Dem, but would be won by one.
MI-13 and MI-14, nothing to say really. Barely changed them.
MI-15 is a seat that Dingell would probably win, but would far more winnable without him.

So basically you get Dems winning under most circumstances 1, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13 and 14, the GOP winning under most circumstances 2, 3, 4, 8 and 10 and 6, 9 and 15 as swing seats. So not much of a natural GOP advantage.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #34 on: September 19, 2010, 03:52:41 AM »

OK here goes. I guess JLT had a bit of a point about Grand Rapids though the seat isn't that winnable regardless. And I know it's far from perfect for a lot of reasons but anyway here is Michigan redrawn with 2002 Census data:



Too lazy to try right now - or even to dig up my old attempts from years ago - but since Flint and Saginaw/Bay City (metros) are too large to fit into one district together, wouldn't you "fairly" draw a seat based on each, including the actually thumb parts of what looks like a thumb-based district? That ought shift the red and grey seats south, also eliminate that orange rurban thing, transfer Detroit Suburban areas clockwise.
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JohnnyLongtorso
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« Reply #35 on: September 19, 2010, 07:18:35 AM »

I wasn't looking at electability for MI-03 (for the Dems to be able to win a Grand Rapids-based district, they'd have to connect it to Muskegon County) so much as the fact that it doesn't make any sense from a "communities of interest" standpoint.
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BRTD
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« Reply #36 on: September 19, 2010, 12:00:04 PM »

So more like this?



Even less happy with where Ann Arbor went. Maybe putting it in Dingell's seat wasn't so bad after all (despite it being part of a blatant attempt to remove incumbents and Dem-voting areas so McCotter could be elected.)
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #37 on: September 19, 2010, 12:17:38 PM »

Just because it votes Democratic doesn't mean it's not a leafy, affluent suburban quasi-city. Tongue
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« Reply #38 on: September 19, 2010, 01:07:05 PM »

That seat would be a tossup though. No Ann Arbor seat should be. BTW it appears that Ypsilanti is actually even more Dem than Ann Arbor.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #39 on: September 19, 2010, 01:17:19 PM »

That seat would be a tossup though. No Ann Arbor seat should be. BTW it appears that Ypsilanti is actually even more Dem than Ann Arbor.
Go figure.
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Dgov
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« Reply #40 on: September 19, 2010, 04:17:00 PM »


That's actually a pretty even map.  the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 10th, would all be pretty Safe GOP, the 5th, 11th, 12, 13th, and 14th would all be pretty Safe Democrat, and the 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 15th would be competitive.
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BRTD
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« Reply #41 on: September 19, 2010, 08:58:42 PM »

The 1st doesn't change much, so no way that would be a safe Republican district. And otherwise that does prove my point that under a fair map the Republicans wouldn't have such a slanted advantage.
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muon2
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« Reply #42 on: September 21, 2010, 09:48:03 AM »

They're not really reasonable, though. They're drawn to dilute Democratic strength.

- MI-03 puts Grand Rapids in the very western corner. A fair district would have Grand Rapids as the center of population.

- MI-04 is specifically drawn to exclude Saginaw, and stretches 2/3rds of the way across the state.

- MI-07 and MI-08 each stretch from the middle of the state to the suburbs of Detroit. Battle Creek and Lansing would more logically be put in the same district, but they're split between the two.

- MI-11 is a bizarre L-shaped district that also attempts to dilute Dem strength as much as possible.

What is interesting about this observation is that MI used fairly rigorous standards to draw districts in 2001. They were based on the standards used by the court-appointed master in 1981 and 1991 and codified into law in the late '90s. The standards rest heavily on minimizing the splitting of counties, townships and municipalities, and the law describes the types of splits that are permissible.

An analysis for the Midwest Democracy Network by Michael McDonald of George Mason U last year showed that the partisan composition of the districts had 5 strong D, 2 strong R and 8 lean R. The fact that the GOP was able to stay within these standards to get an such effective advantage perhaps does rank MI as the most deceptive gerrymander.

To satisfy my own curiosity, I tested the MI standards with the estimated data set. All districts are with 100 persons of the ideal size, and two black-majority districts (58% and 56%) are maintained. The districts were drawn to conform with MI state law as regards to minimization of county, township and municipality splits. Using 2004 presidential votes, I get 5 strong D districts, 4 strong R, 2 lean D and 3 lean R. Based on this I would conclude that the standards were fine, but not tight enough to prevent partisan gerrymandering.


 
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BRTD
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« Reply #43 on: September 27, 2010, 11:29:49 PM »

There's also Idaho. Yes, Idaho. You may wonder how you can gerrymander a super-Republican state with only two districts, but they basically did this by splitting Boise right down the middle, clearly to prevent the possibility of any strong Boise-based Democrat taking a seat on their own merits. Succeeded in that sense but failed in preventing district 1 Republicans from nominating Bill Sali. However it does make me wonder if all of Boise will be removed from ID-01 in redistricting. This will put pretty much all the areas with a notable number of Democrats in Idaho in one district, but also plenty of Mormons and probably enough to cancel them out.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #44 on: September 28, 2010, 04:04:19 AM »

No. Don't get yourself confused by the 2008 map, take a look at 1996 or 2000 instead. Noone was going to consider Boise the Dems' strongest area in 2000.
Boise also happens to be slap bang in the middle of the state and it's difficult to get from the one end to the other except via Boise - there isn't actually a sensible alternative to splitting it (though the exact split might have been done better.)
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JohnnyLongtorso
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« Reply #45 on: September 28, 2010, 06:55:22 AM »

There's also Idaho. Yes, Idaho. You may wonder how you can gerrymander a super-Republican state with only two districts, but they basically did this by splitting Boise right down the middle, clearly to prevent the possibility of any strong Boise-based Democrat taking a seat on their own merits. Succeeded in that sense but failed in preventing district 1 Republicans from nominating Bill Sali. However it does make me wonder if all of Boise will be removed from ID-01 in redistricting. This will put pretty much all the areas with a notable number of Democrats in Idaho in one district, but also plenty of Mormons and probably enough to cancel them out.

Idaho's redistricting is actually done by a bipartisan commission, if you can believe it.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #46 on: September 28, 2010, 06:16:36 PM »

There's also Idaho. Yes, Idaho. You may wonder how you can gerrymander a super-Republican state with only two districts, but they basically did this by splitting Boise right down the middle, clearly to prevent the possibility of any strong Boise-based Democrat taking a seat on their own merits. Succeeded in that sense but failed in preventing district 1 Republicans from nominating Bill Sali. However it does make me wonder if all of Boise will be removed from ID-01 in redistricting. This will put pretty much all the areas with a notable number of Democrats in Idaho in one district, but also plenty of Mormons and probably enough to cancel them out.

It is pretty hard to keep Boise in a single district unless you want to have a district that includes Eastern Idaho and the panhandle.
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muon2
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« Reply #47 on: September 28, 2010, 09:10:26 PM »

There's also Idaho. Yes, Idaho. You may wonder how you can gerrymander a super-Republican state with only two districts, but they basically did this by splitting Boise right down the middle, clearly to prevent the possibility of any strong Boise-based Democrat taking a seat on their own merits. Succeeded in that sense but failed in preventing district 1 Republicans from nominating Bill Sali. However it does make me wonder if all of Boise will be removed from ID-01 in redistricting. This will put pretty much all the areas with a notable number of Democrats in Idaho in one district, but also plenty of Mormons and probably enough to cancel them out.

It is pretty hard to keep Boise in a single district unless you want to have a district that includes Eastern Idaho and the panhandle.

That type of map could look good on paper, but the two parts would have little or no road connection without going through MT. When ID gets a third district it should divide quite nicely.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #48 on: September 28, 2010, 10:02:59 PM »

There's also Idaho. Yes, Idaho. You may wonder how you can gerrymander a super-Republican state with only two districts, but they basically did this by splitting Boise right down the middle, clearly to prevent the possibility of any strong Boise-based Democrat taking a seat on their own merits. Succeeded in that sense but failed in preventing district 1 Republicans from nominating Bill Sali. However it does make me wonder if all of Boise will be removed from ID-01 in redistricting. This will put pretty much all the areas with a notable number of Democrats in Idaho in one district, but also plenty of Mormons and probably enough to cancel them out.

Not to mention a very popular and strong Republican incumbent congressmen, in Mike Simpson.
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« Reply #49 on: September 28, 2010, 10:07:15 PM »

I contest that Masschusetts is the most deceptive Republican gerrymander.


A 52-47 GOP win produced a GOP win in seven House seats. Tongue

So deceptive, it was drawn by Dems. Grin
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