US House Redistricting: Maryland

[muon2]

Though I don't expect it would be required, here's my version with 3 Black-majority districts. All are within 100 of the ideal population, and county splits are minimized. The political split ends up 5D - 3R.



CD 1 (blue) 52-46 McCain
CD 2 (green) 56-42 McCain
CD 3 (purple) 54.1% Black VAP
CD 4 (red) 50.9% Black VAP
CD 5 (gold) 52.1% Black VAP
CD 6 (teal) 57-41 McCain
CD 7 (gray) 62-36 Obama
CD 8 (slate) 72-26 Obama

[muon2]

This is the more realistic version of a neutrally drawn map with two Black-majority districts. All are within 100 of the ideal population, and county splits are minimized. The political split ends up 6D - 2R.



CD 1 (blue) 57-41 McCain
CD 2 (green) 58-40 Obama
CD 3 (purple) 53.5% Black VAP
CD 4 (red) 59.3% Black VAP
CD 5 (gold) 61-39 Obama
CD 6 (teal) 57-41 McCain
CD 7 (gray) 61-37 Obama
CD 8 (slate) 72-26 Obama

[muon2]

Though I don't expect it would be required, here's my version with 3 Black-majority districts. All are within 100 of the ideal population, and county splits are minimized. The political split ends up 5D - 3R.



CD 1 (blue) 52-46 McCain
CD 2 (green) 56-42 McCain
CD 3 (purple) 54.1% Black VAP
CD 4 (red) 50.9% Black VAP
CD 5 (gold) 52.1% Black VAP
CD 6 (teal) 57-41 McCain
CD 7 (gray) 62-36 Obama
CD 8 (slate) 72-26 Obama

With the Democrats controlling things, a 5-3 map is unacceptable. My map throws such nice things as "minimizing county splits" out the window to try to preserve a 6-2 delegation, with a shot a 7-1.




MD-1 (Blue) 50.9% McCain, 50.4% Republican Average
MD-2 (Green) 54.3% Obama, 60.1% Democratic Average
MD-3 (Purple) 76.5% Obama, 76.5% Democratic Average, 54.0% VAP Black
MD-4 (Red) 84.4% Obama, 83.2% Democratic Average, 52.1% VAP Black
MD-5 (Yellow) 73.0% Obama, 73.9% Democratic Average, 51.7% VAP Black
MD-6 (Teal) 61.7% McCain, 61.5% Republican Average
MD-7 (Gray) 59.7% Obama, 59.0% Democratic Average
MD-8 (Lavender) 68.2% Obama, 69.3% Democratic Average

I assumed that the Dems wouldn't even consider a map with three Black-majority districts, and since it wouldn't be required I took a neutral approach.

[muon2]

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The cross-bay hop is not bizarre.  The 1st district has crossed the bay for the last 30 some years.  If you add Harford Co to the 9 eastern shore counties, they are 27,642 people short of one district.


I don't care for the Md GOP's map either.  I've created 3 different scenarios that are better than that one

I do like the fact that their map has CD 5 and 6 virtually identical to my version with three black-majority CDs posted three weeks ago.

I also agree that a CD-1 cross of the bay is not unusual, and I followed that direction in my map, I just took in a lot more across the bay that the MD GOP.

[muon2]

Maybe the Pubs should send a telegram to the MD Dems, that if they kill off a Pubbie in MD, Cooper in TN is finished. An semi-erose go for the kill map will be passed in TN. Just a thought. And I just drew one (not yet posted; my prior map was more "gentlemanly." I'm serious. I feel a bit bad. Cooper is a throughly decent man. I feel unclean. But the MD Dems are being a bit piggish. It's time to retaliate.

After the Ohio monstrosity, I'd accept nothing less than the following as a Maryland Democrat.

Why fight over getting rid of Bartlett or Harris when you can do both? A lot of thin connections here, but the current map has those as well.



MD-01 - 49.6 McCain, 48.7 Obama. Good fit for Kratovil.
MD-02 - 57.2 Obama, 40.8 McCain.
MD-03 - 58.8 Obama, 39.0 McCain.
MD-04 - 80.8 Obama, 18.3 McCain, 54.2% black VAP.
MD-05 - 65.3 Obama, 33.5 McCain.
MD-06 - 54.8 Obama, 43.5 McCain. Maybe not safe, but Republicans are so weak in Montgomery County that it would be pretty close to safe.
MD-07 - 65.5 Obama, 32.8 McCain, 50.8% black VAP. The trick is to put the uber-Republican northern suburbs of Baltimore here, I think.
MD-08 - 63.1 Obama, 35.3 McCain.

This all reminds me of Cold War nuclear escalation.

The IN and WI maps from the GOP were fairly modest (just ask Torie ). Then came the IL offering from the Dems, and GOP'ers wanted revenge. Now there's OH and the Dems want to retaliate. From the posts I'd guess that MD will prompt more escalating comments. Oh well.

[muon2]

Guys, please, please. All of these maps are disgusting.  They cannot be defended. Heck, some of mine are disgusting; it depends the purpose for which I am drawing the map, and what I think the political culture of a state is. Let's not pretend otherwise. It's all about power, unrestrained power. It's the functional equivalent of total political war now. There is no civility left. There once was.  Yes there was. I recall, barely, the days when John McCormick used to protect the GOP seat of Congressman Martin.

Quite. No political party ever 'earns' the right to effectively rig elections and no politician ever 'earns' the right to handpick their electors. That it happens is just regrettable political reality and not much else.

It's made worse as a party will choose whether to be on the side of fair maps or not based solely on their control of the process in the state. For example, in OH the Dems are supporting a competition-driven plan that is compact, generates relatively few county splits and has an 8-8 partisan split that matches the statewide average vote. If the Dems applied that same logic to MD then they should have a 5 - 3 split with 2 black-majority districts, and perhaps a couple of the districts would be competitive. They would have compact districts that split few counties, the result might be the map below. Even though both OH and MD Dems are in contact with the national party, that won't result in any consistency in approach, for exactly the reasons noted above.

[muon2]

This is the true "non-partisan" map.  One county split. No strangely shaped districts

I'm not sure I follow why this is more "non-partisan". I also don't follow your split analysis. I count 9 county splits in four counties, using the rule that districts entirely within a county are not a split piece. That's the same number of splits in my map.

[muon2]

Yup, by one county split, I meant that Anne Arundel county is the only one with less than the pop of a one district to be split

OK, but one should count the number of fragments in the larger counties, too. A plan should try to minimize those as well.

That still leaves the question as to what makes your plan "true non-partisan". I'm just curious as to the factors you applied to that standard.

[muon2]

I actually find option 1 a more egregious gerrymander than option 2. I wonder why they had to be so contorted for a 7-1 map.

[muon2]

They chickened.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/maryland-politics/post/proposed-md-congressional-map-could-imperil-rep-roscoe-bartlett/2011/10/03/gIQAY7FKJL_blog.html

Even that 6th district doesn't look super heavily Democratic. Probably enough to flip it though.

I'd estimate that at 55-56% Obama... more than enough to flip it.

Not surprising, another disgusting Maryland gerrymander.

Absolutely no reason to rip up Carroll County.

I'm bothered more by the fingers of CD 2 and 3, particularly the cuts in Anne Arundel. The power point goes through a great deal of justification for the areas in CD 2, but ignores the finger that hooks around the north side of Baltimore. They don't bother to say much about CD 3, nor is there a single district map in the presentation. I think that's because the arm into Anne Arundel that wraps around to pick up disconnected peninsulas would be an invitation for abuse.

Of course, they could have easily swapped the respective arms of those two districts. However, I'm guessing that would make CD 2 too R for the mapper's taste.

[muon2]

Lets see ...

If the minority groups want 3 black districts, and Edwards likes Montgomery better than Anne Arundel, and the GOP wants 2 solid seats, and it's best to leave all the members in their districts,

... then have I got a plan for you.



The black-majority districts 4, 5, and 7 have BVAPs of 53.9%, 51.1% and 56.6% respectively.

The two GOP districts 1 and 6 were 56.6% and 58.0% for McCain. All other districts voted for Obama, and had an average Dem vote in 2006-2008 of over 56%.

[muon2]

Who says Roscoe wants two solid GOP seats? Clearly he and the Blacks conspiring spells 7-1 with Harris replaced by a Black to me! (Seriously... would such a map be possible? Hoyer and Ruppersberger would probably have to take quite marginal districts and share the Eastern Shore between them.)

If MD is at all like IL, then Hoyer would continue to represent the black-majority CD-5. A senior member in leadership shouldn't have a big problem in a primary. When he retires the district could elect a minority in the open contest.

Ruppersberger (green) has the closest distrcit with a 2.4% margin for Obama, though the DRA Dem average is +13%. Sarbanes (purple) is the other close district where Obama won by 5.7%, but it also shows a +12.4% Dem advantage in the DRA.

[muon2]

O'Malley's follow-up map was leaked. Very minor changes.

This what the Baltimore Sun saw:

[muon2]

Wow... and people say the Ohio map looks bad.

I think OH, IL, and NC can all take a back seat to this.

[muon2]

Does anyone know how the lawsuit is going to overturn the maps? I heard Republicans had a good shot of getting them thrown out.

On what basis?

Blatant racial gerrymandering so Democrats could pick up Bartlett's district. Census numbers entitled another minority majority district in the state.

Maryland's congressional map absolutely should be thrown out, but not because of any racial gerrymandering bull crap.

It should be tossed because it is so egregiously gerrymandered.  Worst map of the whole cycle

And I bet the Dem controlled League of Women Voters is not complaining about the MD map either. They only like to bitch about Pubbie gerrymanders.

Actually in IL the LWV testified against the Dem maps and filed their own lawsuits against them.

[muon2]

Ughhh. Great we now have those disgusting lines in place for the rest of the decade.

Neither party wants to give up the chance for partisan gerrymandering across the nation, and until that changes we will see lines like this for far more than a decade.