US House Redistricting: Ohio

[jimrtex]

With the new ACS estimates, my OH-11 is under by 50,000 voters. I don't think there's going to be any way to keep Fudge's district majority-black.

If you connect CD 11 to Akron through Twinsburg a 54% black district is possible. CD 16 then connects Youngstown/Warren to Canton/Massillon and Kent. CD 14 remains pretty much as is.

Hit the nail on the head.

Cleveland must have gotten REALLY hosed in the census.

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/03/going_far_afield_to_make_a_min.html


Census figures for Ohio, which will be released this week, are expected to show that Rep. Marcia Fudge's present district -- which includes all of Cleveland's East Side, some of the West Side and many of Cuyahoga County's eastern suburbs -- will have to expand by 125,000 to 190,000 residents.

Losing two districts requires a 12.5% increase just to adjust for the loss of the seats.  So that is around 80,000.  I think it will be possible to include all of Cleveland in the majority black district.  It should make for an interesting primary.

[jimrtex]

Torie: if the VRA doesn't apply in Ohio why did you put so much time and effort into making OH-11 majority Black?

Section 2 does apply, and the USDOJ has been active recently in bring complaints in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, such as  Euclid, where they've produced a really ugly district following the Interstate and picking off apartments along the interstate, but stopping a block or so from the city limits so another district can get to south of the freeway.  And since Cleveland has had a black district since 1969 it is unlikely to go away now.

[jimrtex]

This plan is based on minimizing county and city splits, maintaining communities of interest, and to be reasonably compact and limited to major demographic areas of the state.  It was drawn without reference to political parties, current districts, or incumbents.

There are significant county splits in only the three larger counties.  The others are split only for better population equality.  Before those splits only 4 districts had deviation greater than 0.5%, and the worst was 1.1% short.



In northeastern Ohio, only Cuyahoga County has a significant split.  Cleveland and the eastern suburbs form a district that is entirely in the county, and has a 47% BVAP.  Most of the rest of the western and southern parts of the county are in a district that included Medina and Wayne counties.  A district barely comes into the county from the west to include Bay Village and part of Westlake.  A Summit-Portage district takes just enough to get up to the ideal population, while a northeastern district takes in the eastern tier of township.



In Cuyahoga County, only Solon and Westlake are split for purposes of population balance.



In Franklin County, the central district is based on Columbus along with enclaves like Bexley, Whitehall and Upper Arlington, with the extreme tentacles of Columbus chopped off.  About 80% of Columbus is included in the district.   Besides Columbus, only Prairie Township is significantly split.  Prairie has a significant residential enclave surrounded by Columbus and a less developed area on the outer edge of county.  It didn't make sense to extend the Columbus district to the western edge county, or to try to free up the enclave.

There are dozens of small enclaves of Columbus that results in minimal splits of those townships, with perhaps 2000 persons.



In southwestern Ohio, most of Hamilton County including Cincinnati makes up one district.  About 80,000 persons in the extreme eastern part along with Clermont County make up about 40% of a district, with 60% in counties to the east including along the Ohio River.  Butler and Warren make up most of a northern suburban district and including somewhat distinct cities such as Hamilton, Middletown, and Lebanon.  Montgomery and Greene form a Dayton based district, while Clark and Miami are part of Springfield a appendage that extend to the Columbus area.   Southwestern Ohio can support about 4 districts.  But to keep them in the area would mean splitting the Dayton district, or having a district wrap around from the Cincinnati suburbs to Springfield.  Having two districts extending outside of the area seems the better solution.



The only split city is Montgomery, with one precinct moved to Cincinnati district.

[jimrtex]

This is my variant to create a 51% BVAP district in Cuyahoga and Summit Counties.



It adds the 3 Black majority wards in Akron (63% BVAP)



In exchange for 2 wards and 3 precincts in south Cleveland (10% BVAP), avoiding wards west of downtown along the lakefront that are around 20% BVAP.



The odd shape of the Cleveland area is due to the ward configuration.  The long arm coming down from the north is Ward 3 which extends all the way to the lake.  They must have needed some more population.

And the arm extending up on the right is all in one precinct in an area along the Cuyahoga.  The upper 4/5 of the precinct are uninhabited, including that odd triangular area at the tip.  So it is actually really quite reasonable.

[jimrtex]

OK padfoot. I guess he was not sufficiently confident about the final map. It must have broke his heart to have decamped from where he lived. I know I would have been saying the F word all the way to Upper Arlington. It's nearby, maybe but a mile or two away, but yet it's worlds' away.

The compassionate folks in the legislature added an appropriation for local election officials to adjust everyone's precincts and so that they would be able to check petitions before the December filing deadline and candidates could decide where to run.

And coincidentally, bills with appropriations are not subject to referendums.

Hopefully, Obama will send them some stimulus money.

[jimrtex]

http://www.tribtoday.com/page/content.detail/id/561887/Dems-come-up-with-districts.html

It would be interesting to hear Sen. Sawyer explain why he split Cleveland in the manner that he did, when it wasn't necessary at all, and why he took an area of Columbus with a 55% BVAP and added them to a suburban area which had a 5.7% BVAP, plus the major splits of Clark and Greene counties.

[jimrtex]

Now... a genuine grey area. A very compact 50%+1 (and more than that: enough to actually elect a candidate of their choice) Hispanic district can be drawn in County X. A compact 50%+1 Black district can be drawn in the same county. Are you required to draw two districts electing members of both communities... even though you can't draw the two compact 50%+1 districts at the same time as an area is included in both maps (but you can draw two compact districts certain to elect a candidate of Hispanics' choice and a candidate of Blacks' choice... just with the latter under 50%+1 VAP over split opposition?)
That's Dallas County of course.

What if the Blacks candidate of choice is different than the Hispanics candidate of choice in the primary?  (see the Texas House race in Fort Bend County).

[jimrtex]

Now... a genuine grey area. A very compact 50%+1 (and more than that: enough to actually elect a candidate of their choice) Hispanic district can be drawn in County X. A compact 50%+1 Black district can be drawn in the same county. Are you required to draw two districts electing members of both communities... even though you can't draw the two compact 50%+1 districts at the same time as an area is included in both maps (but you can draw two compact districts certain to elect a candidate of Hispanics' choice and a candidate of Blacks' choice... just with the latter under 50%+1 VAP over split opposition?)
That's Dallas County of course.

What if the Blacks candidate of choice is different than the Hispanics candidate of choice in the primary?  (see the Texas House race in Fort Bend County).

Read again maybe?
I didn't advocate drawing two "coalition" districts. But there is a lot of untested legal ground regarding those.

What is a district that is 28% B and 39% H as has been proposed by plaintiffs?

[jimrtex]

Ohio Supreme Court rules unanimously that the maps can be sent to a referendum.

The article is slightly misleading.  Under Ohio's referendum procedure, petitioners file a small number of signatures to start the process, and then file a lot more later on.  Husted had refused to accept the initial petition because the redistricting bill included a funding procedure. The court order requires him to accept the petition.

[jimrtex]

So what would happen if the referendum succeeded? And when would it be held?

Also, and regardless of that question, getting the map they passed finalized before December 7th is out of the question now, as that's within the 90 days frame from today, right? So unless Republicans cave and pass a bipartisan compromise quick, some kind of court intervention is unavoidable - the original gerry might survive yet, but only in conjunction with some disorderly emergency primary that might have other rules, or from 2014 on with a court map for 2012?
Or are there further nuclear options for Republicans - as this case was pretty much a Democratic nuclear option? Or does the signature collection not impact "finalization" in the sense of the law? Or is that unclear as well?

If the referendum fails, then any elections conducted under an interim map would be void, so wouldn't it be better to wait until next November?  If the referendum fails, hold special elections in January when the seats become vacant.

It is not like the legislature has failed to act.  The legislation is still being considered in the process set out in the Ohio Constitution.

[jimrtex]

So what would happen if the referendum succeeded? And when would it be held?

Also, and regardless of that question, getting the map they passed finalized before December 7th is out of the question now, as that's within the 90 days frame from today, right? So unless Republicans cave and pass a bipartisan compromise quick, some kind of court intervention is unavoidable - the original gerry might survive yet, but only in conjunction with some disorderly emergency primary that might have other rules, or from 2014 on with a court map for 2012?
Or are there further nuclear options for Republicans - as this case was pretty much a Democratic nuclear option? Or does the signature collection not impact "finalization" in the sense of the law? Or is that unclear as well?

If the referendum fails, then any elections conducted under an interim map would be void, so wouldn't it be better to wait until next November?  If the referendum fails, hold special elections in January when the seats become vacant.

It is not like the legislature has failed to act.  The legislation is still being considered in the process set out in the Ohio Constitution.

I don't think we need to worry about the referendum failing, for now. Though obviously a court would have to.

So... for now the maps are valid and "final" before that december date? Collecting sufficient signatures is highly unlikely to be any sort of issue, and the due date is after that december date.
A referendum will then have to be held within what time frame? And is there a quorum requirement?
After that referendum (provided it passes, but unless there's a quorum I don't see how it doesn't), we have no map and are after the due date, so this will necessitate a court map? Or can Republicans pass a new map after that date and hope to just get a new court-ordered primary calendar?

If the Republicans pass a new map, even if it only moves two people total, the clock starts over again, including for the referedum.

But not for the finalization date. And not for the general election date, either. Unless the new map is one that no one objects to, doing this would be good for Democrats and bad for Republicans.

If enough signatures are gathered, the law is suspended until after the election (in November 2012).   It would be unconstitutional to use the previous districts, because there are 18 of them and they don't have equal population.  So it would be pretty easy to get an injunction to stop congressional elections from being held.

The issue then is why would a court have to impose new districts?   Imagine that the State constitution provided for the governor to consider a bill for 360 days before vetoing it or not.  A court isn't going to step in while the ordinary legislative process is in place.  The Ohio Constitution provides the power of the referendum, and includes a relatively long time line.

If Ohioans want a very long and deliberative legislative process, who are the federal courts to interfere and legislate?  Ohio also has the initiative process, so if someone wanted to propose a different districting law they may.

Representatives don't start their terms until January 2013, and it is illegal for them to be chosen before November 2012.  So why should the process start now?  The only reason would be if Ohio wanted to keep 18 YO, new Ohioans, new citizens from voting, by making the effective choosing time 8 months prior to the date set by Congress.  Why should the federal courts facilitate such discrimination?

So if the referendum fails, special elections can be held to fill the new districts.  And if it succeeds, then what is the problem with simply having no representatives from Ohio, until they get matters sorted out?

[jimrtex]

Jim, you argument is that it's more likely that a federal court would allow Ohio to forego representation rather than draw an interim map?

Setting aside whether you can construct an argument where you think it should be that way... Is there any precedent where the federal courts would arrive at that solution rather than draw a map?

Under the US Constitution, States have sole responsibility to provide for the manner of electing representatives, subject to override by Congress.   Congress has directed that representatives be chosen by district, and that those comply with the VRA but has otherwise stayed out of the process.  When federal courts have acted, they were not acting on behalf of Congress - other than enforcing a strained interpretation of the districting mandate.  And the Supreme Court has told the federal courts to defer to the State legislatures and judicial process.   If anyone acts, it would be the Ohio courts.

In other cases, the legislative process had failed before the federal court stepped in.  For example, in Maine, the legislature said we aren't going to redistrict until 2014.  The federal court said they couldn't conduct the elections under those districts, and then gave the State legislature and courts time to redistrict.

In Texas in 2001, the legislature had failed to redistrict; the governor said he wasn't going to call a special session unless there was a prospect for legislative redistricting; the state district court had produced a plan that was overturned by the Texas Supreme Court, and there was no indication that the district court would simply sulk after the case had been remanded, before the federal court undertook the unwelcome task of redistricting.

In Ohio, the legislative process is still going forward.  The US Supreme Court has specifically ruled that the referendum is a legitimate part of the way in which the legislature (legislative process) provides for the manner of electing representatives (this was in an Ohio case).  The case is not ripe for further intervention.

There is no reason for intervention beyond enjoining Ohio from conducting preliminaries based on an 18-district plan.  If a court thinks the primaries should be held, they could simply use the plan created by the legislature (this was done in California in the 1970s after Governor Reagan vetoed the districting plan.  The California Supreme Court ordered that plan be used because it was the only one that had the correct number of districts; which is the same situation as in Ohio.

Why would the Ohio Supreme Court impose an entirely new plan simply because a small segment (3%) of the population is dissatisfied with a law that was was passed by a majority of both houses of the legislature and the governor?   If the referendum is defeated, then Ohio will have elected its 16 members of Congress.  If the referendum is successful, then an interim solution can be fashioned for use in the 2014 elections, or for special elections.  Or Congress could refuse to sit the members from Ohio.

The court would be taking sides, when there was no need to, and would encourage the breaking of the legislative process in order to get judicial intervention.

[jimrtex]

This is my map:

https://districtbuilder.drawthelineohio.org/districtmapping/plan/1585/view/



The darker colors are the areas retained from existing districts, the light color areas that are added.   I messed up the district numbering in the Northeast.  I merged OH-4 and OH-5, and OH-10 and OH-11.  It was my intent to retain the lower numbers (OH-4 and OH-10) for the merged districts and reassign OH-5 and OH-11 to OH-17 and OH-18.  So the northeastern district would continue to be OH-14, while the Youngstown-Akron district was renamed to OH-11.  OH-5 under the new map is the successor to OH-18 shifted westward with its southern tail cut off.

The basic goal was to retain as much of the current district cores as possible while eliminating two districts.  Secondary goals were to reduce county splits, particularly in rural areas, reduce city splits, and to some extent retain incumbents.  The new plan eliminates the existing splits of Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Akron.  Under the new plan, the the only city that has significant splits is Columbus.

OH-10 and OH-11, the Cleveland districts, have a population equivalent to about 0.83 and 0.75 of the target population.  If they are merged then the excess of 0.58 can be distributed to surrounding districts.  If OH-11 were eliminated, then a population equivalent to 0.75 districts would need to be distributed.  This would also cause the substantial Black population in eastern Cleveland and adjoining suburbs to be split among several districts.  

As it turns out, the merger of OH-10 and OH-11 turned out to be more like the elimination of OH-10 and its absorption into OH-11 and OH-13 (the merged district was given the number OH-10 because that is the lower number, and OH-10 contributed more to the original merger.  The existing OH-11 has a 58% BVAP, while OH-10 has an 8% BVAP.  A merger of equal parts could drop the combined area to 33% (it would be somewhat higher because the areas in Cleveland that would be combined have a higher BVAP.  But there would still be VRA concerns about such a drastic drop in the BVAP.  The final merged district has a 48% BVAP.  

It is unlikely that a court would impose an extension to Akron to produce a majority BVAP.  This would not be preserving the core of an existing district, and it is a stretch to get to Akron.  The modification proposed by one of the contest winners, would just barely reach 50%, and the BVAP percentage actually decreased by including the area in Akron - which did not have a majority BVAP.  Overall, a majority was achieved by excluding 15% and 20% BVAP areas in west Cleveland and replacing them with 40% BVAP areas in Akron.

I drew an extreme map by linking Cleveland and Akron via the median of I-271 and I-77 (the median forms a continuous string of census blocks) and took the 3 Akron wards with a majority BVAP.  This produces a 51.6% BVAP.  Such an extreme district can hardly be considered compact.

The 7 current northeastern districts, OH-9, -10, -11, -13, -14, -16, and -17 have a population equivalent to 6 ideal 2010 districts.  So the excess population from the merger of OH-10 and OH-11 can be used to shore up the remaining 5 districts.  The other district loss must come from the 11 remaining districts in the state.

It might make sense to merge districts in the center of the state, with other districts sliding inward.  But the 3 Columbus-area districts are the 3 most populous in Ohio, and are collectively short about 40,000 people from that needed for 3 2010 districts.  If you were to merge two of the districts, you could split the other district in two and add the portions removed from the the other two districts.  You would simply be rearranging the districts, and not preserving their cores.

So in fact, you need to reduce the 8 districts that form a large doughnut around Columbus to 7 districts.  The least populous districts are OH-1 in the Cincinnati area, and OH-6 along the Ohio River, but it is really difficult to eliminate a district in the corner or along edge of a state.  There are fewer districts that can expand into the void, so you end up with a chain of districts being slid, and much larger number of persons assigned to new districts (and any many cases, the end result is much closer to a renumbering than a realignment).

The two adjacent districts with the least combined population are OH-4 and OH-5 in the northwest portion of the state.  Combined, they have an excess population of 520,000 which will need to transferred to other districts, but this is less than would be needed for any other pair of districts.  Moreover, there are 7 adjoining districts which can absorb the excess population.

As with OH-10 and OH-11, this was ended up more as the elimination of OH-4 than a merger of equals.  Other than OH-9 to the north, most of the other districts were primarily adjacent to the old OH-4 rather than OH-5 in the northwestern corner of the state.  The combined district is numbered as OH-4, because the existing population of OH-4 is slightly larger than OH-5, and 4 is the lower number.  The new OH-5 is not the successor to either district, but simply a renumbered OH-18, and the practice of using lower numbered districts in the southern part of the state.  OH-17 was renumbered as OH-11 since it was further north.

After merging OH-4 and OH-5 and OH-10 and OH-11, the next step was to eliminate county splits in more areas where assigning all of a county to the district with the largest share of the population would not cause major population disruptions.  Since these counties are largely in less populated areas, district boundaries were likely to be shifted multiple counties.  Any counting splitting to balance population more finely could be done at the end.

The following counties were merged Belmont (OH-6), Athens (OH-6), Scioto (OH-2), Ross (OH-18), Mercer (OH-8), Wyandot (OH-4/5), Ashland (OH-16), and Lucas (OH-9).  Initially, I removed the splits of Portage (OH-17) and Trumbull (OH-17) but later added them back in since it enabled a better split of Summit.  Perry was shifted to OH-18 after the placement of all of Athens into OH-6 cut off contiguity to the southern tail of OH-18.

At this point, splits of Mahoning, Summit, Cuyahoga, Medina, Licking, Franklin, Montgomery, Butler, Warren, and Hamilton remained in place.  The splits of Montgomery and Licking were eliminated as part of the overall population balancing process, while most of the other splits underwent significant adjustment.



The next step was to adjust the districts surrounding the merged districts.  While OH-10 and OH-11 were far below the ideal population, their merged population had an excess of 419 thousand to be distributed to other districts to get their population up to the ideal.

OH-10 and OH-11 have only two neighbors, OH-13 with a deficit of 72 thousand, and OH-14 with a deficit of 73 thousand.   So these districts after taking in 419 thousand new constituents would have to distribute 274 thousand of their constituents to other districts further south and possibly west.  The next tier of districts, OH-9, OH-16, and OH-17, have deficits of 102, 76, and 121 thousand, enough to absorb the remaining excess.  But OH-9, which stretches from Toledo along Lake Erie to just west of the cities of Lorain and Elyria, is an immediate neighbor of the merged OH-4 and OH-5, and will be used to absorb the excess from that merger.  So the remaining 77 thousand excess from the OH-10 and OH-11 merger will be distributed further south to OH-6 and OH-18.

As OH-14 moves further west into the Cleveland suburbs, it begins encountering areas with significant Black populations, so it instead wraps around the southeastern suburbs and into southern Cuyahoga  County.  This is sufficient to eliminate its deficit.  But not to eat away at OH-10+11 combined excess.  And even if it could take in additional population, it has nowhere to distribute it.  OH-17 had already been extended northward to include all of Portage and Trumbull counties.

This means that most of the excess from OH-10+11 must be take in by OH-13 which will shift significantly northward and eastward.  The population distribution of the current OH-13 is somewhat like a lopsided dumbbell.  38% of the population is in Summit County, 31% in Lorain County, 21% in a linking strip of Cleveland suburbs in Cuyahoga (13%) and Medina (8%) counties, and a 10% deficit.  Some of the areas in Summit County, such as Richfield, are Cleveland suburbs, rather than part of the Akron area.  If the 10% deficit is made up from Cuyahoga, then around 2/3 of the district could be considered to be Cleveland suburbs, vs. around 1/3 more tied to Akron.  So though the current representative, Betty Sutton is from an Akron suburb, this is a secondary core of the district.  There is no logical way to preserve this area, when OH-13 must undergo substantial change.  In the proposed implementation, the boundary is moved north and east about one tier of townships into the inner west Cleveland suburbs, with a bit more to include Lakewood.

Akron is currently split 60-40 between OH-13 and OH-17.  Ordinarily, when unifying an area, the preference would be to do so in the district with a greater population.  But with OH-13 moving northward, merging all of Akron in OH-17 is preferred.  The district switches from being a Youngstown-part of Akron district to being a Youngstown-Akron district.

The remaining portion of OH-13 in Summit County was shifted to OH-6, which currently stretches from Stark County (Canton) to Medina County, skirting Summit County.  As part of a final population adjustment, OH-18 (renamed OH-5) took in some areas of OH06, including parts of Ashland and Wayne counties.

The original configuration of OH-17 in Summit County had somewhat of a keyhole appearance narrow to the east and then expanding to encompass Akron.  This was alleviated by moving suburbs such as Cuyahoga Falls and Stow to OH-17, and shifting the more rural areas of Portage and Trumbull counties back to OH-14.

And finally OH-17 was renamed OH-11.

[jimrtex]

This is my map:

https://districtbuilder.drawthelineohio.org/districtmapping/plan/1585/view/

Were you going to equalize population? I assume that it would be difficult for OH to make a case for anything other than complete equality unless a constitutional amendment was passed to create a compelling interest in some minor inequality.

I equalized population to the precinct level.  Courts have regularly created congressional districts with less than perfect equality.  Since this would be an interim map, it is unlikely that a court would want to force a change in election procedure while the voters were still considering whether to veto the legislature's plan.

The maximum deviation is 0.064%, and from largest to smallest 0.128%.  Standard deviation is 311, and relative standard deviation is 0.043%.

I don't think I understand the US Supreme Court's insistence on complete equality.  As I understand it, the basis for relative equality of legislative districts is based on the equal protection clause, while that for congress is somehow derived from the constitution that says that representatives should be chosen by the people of the States.

Could I get you to total the population of the districts of the state?  I can't get the total to come out right.  The average should be exactly 721031.5 but I don't get that.  I couldn't figure out a way to copy the population to a spreadsheet, so I had to do it by hand, but I checked it about 10 times.

[jimrtex]

I've whipped up a couple of nuclear response:

1) Modify state law to state laws subject to a referedum that are time sensitive remain in effect, until, and unless, they are repealed. If repealed, the existing deadlines are moved back the appropriate timeframe. [In this case, the current map remains in effect for 2012, and the entire redistricting process restarts for 2014 with the new finalization date two years after the old one, etc.]

2) Mandate at-large elections with the specific exception of any VRA districts. Let Fudge run in an AA-majority district centered in East Cleveland. The remaining fifteen [almost] at-large districts would be problematic for the Democrats.

At large elections violate federal law.

The referendum provisions are in the Ohio Constitution.

The legislature could pass a law delaying the congressional elections until after the referendum.  If the referendum fails, the special election would be conducted based on the districts drawn by the legislature.  If the referendum succeeds, the districts could be drawn by a specially appointed board.

[jimrtex]

Could I get you to total the population of the districts of the state?  I can't get the total to come out right.  The average should be exactly 721031.5 but I don't get that.  I couldn't figure out a way to copy the population to a spreadsheet, so I had to do it by hand, but I checked it about 10 times.

I added up your districts and I get a total that exceeds the actual state population by 10. I found that there is a bug in DistrictBuilder that sometimes fails to shift population out of a district when an area is moved. There is no recalculation feature that could clear the overcount. The only solution I found is to get a blank map and copy the districts one at a time from the miscalculated map. The new map won't have the the error.

OK, I will report it as a bug.

If you noticed there were shared maps of the legislative districts that Jim Slagle put up as shared plans that have fuzzy boundaries.   The State's data base created "block splits" so that wards and precincts would be comprised of whole "block splits" where the precincts and wards did not conform to census blocks.  Fractional populations were attributed to these sub areas. 

In the data base, the block splits were given IDs that consisted of the containing census block and additional digits (so the IDs used the general pattern of census block IDs which are a concatenation of state, county, census tract, block group, and block IDs.  If you chop off these last digits, you get the encompassing block number.  But if you upload these into District Builder, you get doubly assigned blocks, which it appears are displayed using the transparency controls.  If you manually assign these areas, whether by whole county or whole township or by block, the existing double assignments are eliminated.

[jimrtex]

I understand the distinction between Congress and the state legislatures due to specific constitutional language relating to Congress. However, the logic is not clear to me that leads from "chosen ... by the People of the several States" in Art I sect 2 to drawing districts of equal population "as nearly as practicable" in Wesberry v Sanders. Though it seems a stretch, I can at least follow the train of thought in Kirkpatrick v Preisler that goes from the Wesberry language to a standard with "only the limited population variances which are unavoidable despite a good faith effort. to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is shown." In any case Kirkpatrick controls.

A footnote in Justice Harlan's dissent in Wesberry gives the variation in district population for each state at that time.   They might not have given much attention to the phrase "as nearly as practicable" when faced with variations of 4X.  Later, they got stuck with figuring out what they had meant.

Had Wesberry been based on the legislative apportionment logic of equal protection, the Supreme Court might have tumbled upon the realization that 10% variation is not reasonable for congressional-sized districts by now.

In modern terms, "chosen by the People" means "chosen by the CVAP, excluding felons" and districts should therefore have equal electorates without regard to minor and alien populations.  It is quite practicable to combine the census data and ACS data to make a good faith effort at electorate equality.  Political expediency would not serve as justification for not doing this.

[jimrtex]

I understand the distinction between Congress and the state legislatures due to specific constitutional language relating to Congress. However, the logic is not clear to me that leads from "chosen ... by the People of the several States" in Art I sect 2 to drawing districts of equal population "as nearly as practicable" in Wesberry v Sanders. Though it seems a stretch, I can at least follow the train of thought in Kirkpatrick v Preisler that goes from the Wesberry language to a standard with "only the limited population variances which are unavoidable despite a good faith effort. to achieve absolute equality, or for which justification is shown." In any case Kirkpatrick controls.

A footnote in Justice Harlan's dissent in Wesberry gives the variation in district population for each state at that time.   They might not have given much attention to the phrase "as nearly as practicable" when faced with variations of 4X.  Later, they got stuck with figuring out what they had meant.

Had Wesberry been based on the legislative apportionment logic of equal protection, the Supreme Court might have tumbled upon the realization that 10% variation is not reasonable for congressional-sized districts by now.

In modern terms, "chosen by the People" means "chosen by the CVAP, excluding felons" and districts should therefore have equal electorates without regard to minor and alien populations.  It is quite practicable to combine the census data and ACS data to make a good faith effort at electorate equality.  Political expediency would not serve as justification for not doing this.

There are those entitled to vote, and those entitled to representation.

Minors, and aliens within the nationalization process are, arguably, entitled to representation, while illegal aliens, tourists, foreign students, diplomats and their staffs are not.

But the fundamental basis for Wesberry v Sanders is that representatives be chosen (elected) by the People (voters) of the State.  There is no other way to read the Constitution.

It doesn't matter on what basis the apportionment of representatives is.  If representatives were chosen at at-large by some method of proportional representation, you wouldn't get more votes because you had 4 children, or had a family of aliens living next door.  So why should you get more votes based on where you live, simply because district elections are used?

[jimrtex]

In modern terms, "chosen by the People" means "chosen by the CVAP, excluding felons" and districts should therefore have equal electorates without regard to minor and alien populations.  It is quite practicable to combine the census data and ACS data to make a good faith effort at electorate equality.  Political expediency would not serve as justification for not doing this.

There are those entitled to vote, and those entitled to representation.

Minors, and aliens within the nationalization process are, arguably, entitled to representation, while illegal aliens, tourists, foreign students, diplomats and their staffs are not.

But the fundamental basis for Wesberry v Sanders is that representatives be chosen (elected) by the People (voters) of the State.  There is no other way to read the Constitution.

It doesn't matter on what basis the apportionment of representatives is.  If representatives were chosen at at-large by some method of proportional representation, you wouldn't get more votes because you had 4 children, or had a family of aliens living next door.  So why should you get more votes based on where you live, simply because district elections are used?

Well, if you live in Minnesota, as opposed to the South, your district will probably have much higher turnout. Does that mean that you, effectively, have a smaller vote than folks elsewhere? Certainly! Is that unfair in any way? No. Even equally sized electorates  [same number of adult, citizen, non-felons] are going to have unequal numbers of voters. Your logic seems to suggest that you are committed to granting Minnesota more seats than other states with the same CVAP.[In regards to the VRA, the CVAP-Majority standard should be modified to citizen-and-those-that reasonably-could-have-been-citizens-but-chose-otherwise-majority. The government shouldn't be the business of rebalancing electorates to ameliorate voter apathy or indifference towards taking citizenship.]

The folks that don't vote are still entitled to representation. They still have the right to call their Congressman for assistance. Why shouldn't an equal number of claimants on a Representative's time have an equal claim to a representative? The children of the adults, including the felons, in a district, too, have the right to call their Congressman for assistance...

I agree that illegal aliens, foreign students, tourists, diplomats and their staffs, etc., aren't entitled to representation, and, thus, shouldn't be counted when apportioning districts.

Comparisons between States are irrelevant for this discussion, since the Constitution directs that representatives be chosen by the People of each individual State, and that the representatives be apportioned on the basis of the number of persons in the respective States.  Are aliens non-persons?

Representatives are apportioned to individual States, and representatives are only required to be inhabitants of the State, not of any vicinity.  Representatives are representatives of the State, even when they are chosen by different groups of voters within the State, whether the voters are classified based on residence or in some other manner.

Prior to the abolition of slavery, slaves were not represented, nor did they participate in the choosing of representatives, but their numbers did form part of the basis of the apportionment of representatives among the States.

So the apportionment of representatives and choosing of representatives are distinct.

A citizen over the age of 18 is qualified to vote for members of the larger house of their legislature, regardless whether they are "registered" or not.  Pre-registration is a relatively modern concept, and not all States have voter registration.  By your logic, someone who is not registered is disqualified from voting.  But if that were true, then their right to vote would be abridged, and the number of representatives for the State should be reduced.

So all citizens over the age of 18, with the possible exception of disenfranchised felons, form the "People who choose", and any non-voters as abstaining from the choice, rather not being choosers.  If each representative is chosen by a group of choosers, then the choosers should be equal in number.

You don't have to be a voter or a constituent to call a representative or write a letter.  It up to each representative how they respond.  They have no legal obligation to do so.  If a representative has no legal obligation to respond, your "right" to contact the representative is no more meaningful than your right to accost another person in a public place with your political views.

[jimrtex]

Branch v Smith allows for 'at large' elections when an election is so imminent that districts cannot be reasonably drawn without disrupting the process.

If I understand the decision,

Stevens, Souter, and Breyer said no way.

O'Connor and Thomas said that should be the first resort by a federal court.

And Scalia, Rehnquist, Kennedy, Ginsburg said that it was true in such never achievable circumstances that even Kennedy and Ginsburg could sign on.

[jimrtex]

"In modern terms, "chosen by the People" means "chosen by the CVAP, excluding felons" and districts should therefore have equal electorates without regard to minor and alien populations.  It is quite practicable to combine the census data and ACS data to make a good faith effort at electorate equality."

as, more or less, committing you to supporting a Constitutional amendment to alter the distribution formula of Congressional seats so that each Congressional district has an equal number of voters.

There is nothing in the Constitution that requires that representatives be elected from congressional districts.   Why would I favor putting such a restriction in the Constitution?

The apportionment language is in the Constitution.  When the 14th Amendment was passed, there was consideration to changing the basis of apportionment to male voters over the age of 21.  I'm not sure that you could get such an amendment passed, so we are stuck with it.  "Whole number of persons in a state" has some ambiguity, but it has always been interpreted as residents, regardless with there is a right to such residence.

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Wait, I'm taking your position about an equal number of electors to its logical conclusion that that means an equal number of voters, be it the result of failure to take citizenship, failure to register, or failure to vote. Absent such a target, the system will grant a smaller share of the electorate to a voter in Minnesota than South Carolina. Either such inequalities are compelling, or they aren't.

If one is not a citizen, they are not a citizen.  It doesn't matter whether it is because they are not qualified to become a citizen, or have failed to become a citizen, or have made no effort to become a citizen.   If non-citizens are not eligible to vote for the larger house of the legislature, they are not voters for US Representatives.

A citizen over the age of 18 is a voter, regardless of whether they always vote, have sometimes voted, or never have voted.  They could vote in November 2012 (assuming they haven't died, renounced their citizenship, or become convicted of a felony).

[jimrtex]

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The point I raised is that the position you stated consistently leads to conclusion that it would be a more perfect union if each state where granted House seats based on the number of actual voters in those states.  [In modern terms, "chosen by the People" means "chosen by the CVAP, excluding felons" and districts should therefore have equal electorates without regard to minor and alien populations.  It is quite practicable to combine the census data and ACS data to make a good faith effort at electorate equality.]

You articulated the point in terms of congressional districts.  You are equating the number of representatives to the number of districts - but that implies the choosing is done by districts.  It needn't be.

If you didn't mean districts, you shouldn't have used the term.

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Wait, I'm taking your position about an equal number of electors to its logical conclusion that that means an equal number of voters, be it the result of failure to take citizenship, failure to register, or failure to vote. Absent such a target, the system will grant a smaller share of the electorate to a voter in Minnesota than South Carolina. Either such inequalities are compelling, or they aren't.

If one is not a citizen, they are not a citizen.  It doesn't matter whether it is because they are not qualified to become a citizen, or have failed to become a citizen, or have made no effort to become a citizen.   If non-citizens are not eligible to vote for the larger house of the legislature, they are not voters for US Representatives.[/quote]

Equivocating on the meaning of "eligible," are folks qualified to receive citizenship conditional on applying for it, and following all the appropriate steps as "eligible" to vote as a citizen whom fails to register?
[/quote]
I think you mean to say that you are "confabulating" rather than "equivocating".

North Dakota does not have voter registration.   A North Dakota citizen simply shows up at the polls and votes.   Many States permit voters to register on election day at the polling place.  All States permit voters to register a very short time before an election.

Naturalization is a much longer and more complicated process.

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Wouldn't it be fairer to strive for equality in the number of actual voters as opposed to eligible voters so as to give each actual vote as equal of a weighting as possible?

Before passage of the 19th amendment, many States permitted women to vote.  They might have had twice as many actual voters as other States with similar population.  Compare the actual number of voters in the 1892 and 1896 elections.  Would you have apportioned more representatives to such States?

Louisiana elects its legislature in odd-numbered years (and only every fourth year).   Since they have no actual voters for the legislature in years when Congress is elected, why should they be entitled to any congressmen?  Or since they only actually vote every 4 years, should they get have as many representatives as a State where they actually voted every 2 years.  Should the number of actual voters include those who vote in the primary, primary runoff, and the general election 3 times, if they actually did vote in those actual elections?  What if I went to the polls and voted a straight ticket, but there was no candidate from that party in my legislative district, and I skipped that race.  Did I actually vote?

[jimrtex]

I think you mean to say that you are "confabulating" rather than "equivocating".

North Dakota does not have voter registration.   A North Dakota citizen simply shows up at the polls and votes.   Many States permit voters to register on election day at the polling place.  All States permit voters to register a very short time before an election.

Naturalization is a much longer and more complicated process.

Whether people voluntarily forfeit their right to vote due to inaction two years ago, 90 days ago, or on election day, the principle is the same.

The right to vote can not be voluntarily forfeited.  It continues to exist whether one exercises it in every race that one may vote in.

I don't doubt their are problems with apportionment based on the number of voters. But, that is where the logic of claiming some voter's votes are weighted differently than others  leads.

There is no problem with apportionment on the basis of number of voters.

You are only having problems because you are inventing problems.

[jimrtex]

This is my map:

https://districtbuilder.drawthelineohio.org/districtmapping/plan/1585/view/



The darker colors are the areas retained from existing districts, the light color areas that are added.   I messed up the district numbering in the Northeast.  I merged OH-4 and OH-5, and OH-10 and OH-11.  It was my intent to retain the lower numbers (OH-4 and OH-10) for the merged districts and reassign OH-5 and OH-11 to OH-17 and OH-18.  So the northeastern district would continue to be OH-14, while the Youngstown-Akron district was renamed to OH-11.  OH-5 under the new map is the successor to OH-18 shifted westward with its southern tail cut off.

The basic goal was to retain as much of the current district cores as possible while eliminating two districts.  Secondary goals were to reduce county splits, particularly in rural areas, reduce city splits, and to some extent retain incumbents.  The new plan eliminates the existing splits of Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Akron.  Under the new plan, the the only city that has significant splits is Columbus.

OH-10 and OH-11, the Cleveland districts, have a population equivalent to about 0.83 and 0.75 of the target population.  If they are merged then the excess of 0.58 can be distributed to surrounding districts.  If OH-11 were eliminated, then a population equivalent to 0.75 districts would need to be distributed.  This would also cause the substantial Black population in eastern Cleveland and adjoining suburbs to be split among several districts. 

As it turns out, the merger of OH-10 and OH-11 turned out to be more like the elimination of OH-10 and its absorption into OH-11 and OH-13 (the merged district was given the number OH-10 because that is the lower number, and OH-10 contributed more to the original merger.  The existing OH-11 has a 58% BVAP, while OH-10 has an 8% BVAP.  A merger of equal parts could drop the combined area to 33% (it would be somewhat higher because the areas in Cleveland that would be combined have a higher BVAP.  But there would still be VRA concerns about such a drastic drop in the BVAP.  The final merged district has a 48% BVAP. 

It is unlikely that a court would impose an extension to Akron to produce a majority BVAP.  This would not be preserving the core of an existing district, and it is a stretch to get to Akron.  The modification proposed by one of the contest winners, would just barely reach 50%, and the BVAP percentage actually decreased by including the area in Akron - which did not have a majority BVAP.  Overall, a majority was achieved by excluding 15% and 20% BVAP areas in west Cleveland and replacing them with 40% BVAP areas in Akron.

I drew an extreme map by linking Cleveland and Akron via the median of I-271 and I-77 (the median forms a continuous string of census blocks) and took the 3 Akron wards with a majority BVAP.  This produces a 51.6% BVAP.  Such an extreme district can hardly be considered compact.

The 7 current northeastern districts, OH-9, -10, -11, -13, -14, -16, and -17 have a population equivalent to 6 ideal 2010 districts.  So the excess population from the merger of OH-10 and OH-11 can be used to shore up the remaining 5 districts.  The other district loss must come from the 11 remaining districts in the state.

It might make sense to merge districts in the center of the state, with other districts sliding inward.  But the 3 Columbus-area districts are the 3 most populous in Ohio, and are collectively short about 40,000 people from that needed for 3 2010 districts.  If you were to merge two of the districts, you could split the other district in two and add the portions removed from the the other two districts.  You would simply be rearranging the districts, and not preserving their cores.

So in fact, you need to reduce the 8 districts that form a large doughnut around Columbus to 7 districts.  The least populous districts are OH-1 in the Cincinnati area, and OH-6 along the Ohio River, but it is really difficult to eliminate a district in the corner or along edge of a state.  There are fewer districts that can expand into the void, so you end up with a chain of districts being slid, and much larger number of persons assigned to new districts (and any many cases, the end result is much closer to a renumbering than a realignment).

The two adjacent districts with the least combined population are OH-4 and OH-5 in the northwest portion of the state.  Combined, they have an excess population of 520,000 which will need to transferred to other districts, but this is less than would be needed for any other pair of districts.  Moreover, there are 7 adjoining districts which can absorb the excess population.

As with OH-10 and OH-11, this was ended up more as the elimination of OH-4 than a merger of equals.  Other than OH-9 to the north, most of the other districts were primarily adjacent to the old OH-4 rather than OH-5 in the northwestern corner of the state.  The combined district is numbered as OH-4, because the existing population of OH-4 is slightly larger than OH-5, and 4 is the lower number.  The new OH-5 is not the successor to either district, but simply a renumbered OH-18, and the practice of using lower numbered districts in the southern part of the state.  OH-17 was renumbered as OH-11 since it was further north.

After merging OH-4 and OH-5 and OH-10 and OH-11, the next step was to eliminate county splits in more areas where assigning all of a county to the district with the largest share of the population would not cause major population disruptions.  Since these counties are largely in less populated areas, district boundaries were likely to be shifted multiple counties.  Any counting splitting to balance population more finely could be done at the end.

The following counties were merged Belmont (OH-6), Athens (OH-6), Scioto (OH-2), Ross (OH-18), Mercer (OH-8), Wyandot (OH-4/5), Ashland (OH-16), and Lucas (OH-9).  Initially, I removed the splits of Portage (OH-17) and Trumbull (OH-17) but later added them back in since it enabled a better split of Summit.  Perry was shifted to OH-18 after the placement of all of Athens into OH-6 cut off contiguity to the southern tail of OH-18.

At this point, splits of Mahoning, Summit, Cuyahoga, Medina, Licking, Franklin, Montgomery, Butler, Warren, and Hamilton remained in place.  The splits of Montgomery and Licking were eliminated as part of the overall population balancing process, while most of the other splits underwent significant adjustment.

[jimrtex]

The next step was to adjust the districts surrounding the merged districts.  While OH-10 and OH-11 were far below the ideal population, their merged population had an excess of 419 thousand to be distributed to other districts to get their population up to the ideal.

OH-10 and OH-11 have only two neighbors, OH-13 with a deficit of 72 thousand, and OH-14 with a deficit of 73 thousand.   So these districts after taking in 419 thousand new constituents would have to distribute 274 thousand of their constituents to other districts further south and possibly west.  The next tier of districts, OH-9, OH-16, and OH-17, have deficits of 102, 76, and 121 thousand, enough to absorb the remaining excess.  But OH-9, which stretches from Toledo along Lake Erie to just west of the cities of Lorain and Elyria, is an immediate neighbor of the merged OH-4 and OH-5, and will be used to absorb the excess from that merger.  So the remaining 77 thousand excess from the OH-10 and OH-11 merger will be distributed further south to OH-6 and OH-18.

As OH-14 moves further west into the Cleveland suburbs, it begins encountering areas with significant Black populations, so it instead wraps around the southeastern suburbs and into southern Cuyahoga  County.  This is sufficient to eliminate its deficit.  But not to eat away at OH-10+11 combined excess.  And even if it could take in additional population, it has nowhere to distribute it.  OH-17 had already been extended northward to include all of Portage and Trumbull counties.

This means that most of the excess from OH-10+11 must be take in by OH-13 which will shift significantly northward and eastward.  The population distribution of the current OH-13 is somewhat like a lopsided dumbbell.  38% of the population is in Summit County, 31% in Lorain County, 21% in a linking strip of Cleveland suburbs in Cuyahoga (13%) and Medina (8%) counties, and a 10% deficit.  Some of the areas in Summit County, such as Richfield, are Cleveland suburbs, rather than part of the Akron area.  If the 10% deficit is made up from Cuyahoga, then around 2/3 of the district could be considered to be Cleveland suburbs, vs. around 1/3 more tied to Akron.  So though the current representative, Betty Sutton is from an Akron suburb, this is a secondary core of the district.  There is no logical way to preserve this area, when OH-13 must undergo substantial change.  In the proposed implementation, the boundary is moved north and east about one tier of townships into the inner west Cleveland suburbs, with a bit more to include Lakewood.

Akron is currently split 60-40 between OH-13 and OH-17.  Ordinarily, when unifying an area, the preference would be to do so in the district with a greater population.  But with OH-13 moving northward, merging all of Akron in OH-17 is preferred.  The district switches from being a Youngstown-part of Akron district to being a Youngstown-Akron district.

The remaining portion of OH-13 in Summit County was shifted to OH-16, which currently stretches from Stark County (Canton) to Medina County, skirting Summit County.  As part of a final population adjustment, OH-18 (renamed OH-5) took in some areas of OH-16, including parts of Ashland and Wayne counties.

The original configuration of OH-17 in Summit County had somewhat of a keyhole appearance narrow to the east and then expanding to encompass Akron.  This was alleviated by moving suburbs such as Cuyahoga Falls and Stow to OH-17, and shifting the more rural areas of Portage and Trumbull counties back to OH-14.

And finally OH-17 was renamed OH-11.