US House Redistricting: Tennessee

[BigSkyBob]

I don't know what's taking the Tennessee Republicans so long.  Tennessee is an easy draw.

8-1 map clean respectable map is so easy it's ridiculous





Davidson Co. doesn't need to been split 3 or 4 ways.

In my draw I split Davidson exactly in half 360,000 people in each district, and each half is 60.6% Obama.  Both districts as a whole are 54.6% McCain.  Cooper=gone

This is your idea of a "clean" and "respectable" map? Granted, it's not a Maryland-style gerrymander, but it still destroys communities of interest (namely Nashville) for partisan gain.
There is no reason other than partisanship why Davidson County should not remain intact.

If you consider metro Nashville to be a "community of interest," then the posted map actually consolidates Metro into two districts, while most other maps split Nashville suburbanites into several districts stretching as far away as Memphis.

You can go back and forth about capricious concepts such as "communities of interest." In redistricting "communities of interest," generally, means, "An area that would benefit me to consolidate into one district!," and not much more.

[BigSkyBob]

I don't know what's taking the Tennessee Republicans so long.  Tennessee is an easy draw.

8-1 map clean respectable map is so easy it's ridiculous





Davidson Co. doesn't need to been split 3 or 4 ways.

In my draw I split Davidson exactly in half 360,000 people in each district, and each half is 60.6% Obama.  Both districts as a whole are 54.6% McCain.  Cooper=gone

This is your idea of a "clean" and "respectable" map? Granted, it's not a Maryland-style gerrymander, but it still destroys communities of interest (namely Nashville) for partisan gain.
There is no reason other than partisanship why Davidson County should not remain intact.

If you consider metro Nashville to be a "community of interest," then the posted map actually consolidates Metro into two districts, while most other maps split Nashville suburbanites into several districts stretching as far away as Memphis.

You can go back and forth about capricious concepts such as "communities of interest." In redistricting "communities of interest," generally, means, "An area that would benefit me to consolidate into one district!," and not much more.

I consider the city of Nashville to be a community of interest, and its completely politically different suburbs to be a separate community of interest.

And, I consider you wrong. The Census Bureau defines metro areas the way they do because they are unified wholes, not an arbitrary mixture of suburbs with urban cores. People in the suburbs often work in the cities, shop in the cities, eat in the cities, etc., while people whom live in the cities often work outside the city, and shop outside the city as well.

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In every election there is a winner and a loser. The people whom vote for the loser aren't as happy with the result as those that vote for the winner. No matter how you divvy up the lines, elections will result in large numbers of voters voting for the loser.

For you to specify one group of losers are being particular aggrieved by backing the losing candidate is just another example of using self-serving standards.

Frankly, the political interests of most Americans are safe streets, safety from foreign threats, good schools, decent roads, etc.  Crossing the county line outside of Davidson doesn't particularly alter those priorities.

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Again, no matter how you slice the lines hundreds of thousands of voters in the metro area will back the losing candidates. According to you, they will be, "effectively without representation."

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That is a perfectly valid split, as was the proposed map. It is simply a political question as to which of the two to implement.


I said,

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Your comments only re-enforce my belief in the correctness of my observation.

[BigSkyBob]

In every election there is a winner and a loser. The people whom vote for the loser aren't as happy with the result as those that vote for the winner. No matter how you divvy up the lines, elections will result in large numbers of voters voting for the loser.

For you to specify one group of losers are being particular aggrieved by backing the losing candidate is just another example of using self-serving standards.

They are not aggrieved by backing the losing candidate. They are aggrieved because the mapmakers decided that those people in particular should be the ones who back the losing candidate.

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Again, the issue is not that people back losing candidates, it's that the mapmakers effectively determine who the losing candidates are, and by extension, deny representation to the voters who back those candidates.

This was the core of an argument made by the IL League of Women Voters in their attack on the legislative and congressional maps drawn by the Dems this year. It's an argument that has lost in the past at SCOTUS, but not without sympathetic words from the justices. This year they took the novel step of attaching that argument to the recent Citizens United and Freedom Club PAC rulings. Unfortunately, the federal district court panel had their case consolidated with the GOP state case and then their claims were dismissed. There may yet be further legal action along this line.

The argument might fly for classes of people, and, seems to have been legislated for minorities in the VRA. Arguments that protect zip codes, not classes of people, are going to go nowhere.

And, as I noted before, the notion of members of political party being deemed a protected class is outrageous and dangerous. I'd rather lose in Illinois that throw in with the notion that the government, and the courts, should decide the partisan composition of legislatures rather than the voters.

[BigSkyBob]

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Unless the legislature passes maps in which every district is a swing district, or as many as possible in states like California or Texas, the final maps will have districts that favor certain parties, and/or certain incumbents. That outcome is completely unavoidable.

You are selectively objecting to that fact when it doesn't favor you in one area. That's ridiculous.

Second, this simply wasn't your initial claim. Your initial claim was that Davidson County is entitled to at least one Representative in Congress. Davidson simply does not have the necessary 705 thousand voters to warrent a full district. It is a mathematical fact that not every block of 626 thousand people are entitled to at least one representative because the average district must be larger than that!

Somehow, you are claiming that the residents of Davidson has an absolute right that every other block of 626 voters in the country doesn't have.

Baker vs Carr guarantees that every individual has an equal level of representation. I'm not going to take seriously arguments that some people should be made to have more equal representation than others.

[BigSkyBob]

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And, Davidson County doesn't have the population for one. Downtown Nashville could "dominate" one district, and the suburbs could "dominate" two districts.

The Davidson County line defines a County/city, not a "community of interest." Currently, the legislative delegation from Davidson is heavily Democratic because they baconmandered the inner city areas with the surrounds residential areas. Republican mappers have been able to redraw the county to "pack" the inner city areas into inner city districts, and the residential areas into Republican leaning districts. I'm sure if you asked the Republican folks on the periphery of Davidson whom they feel more a shared sense of "community" with, the residential folks on the other side of the county line, or the folks in the inner city, I'm pretty sure they would side with their fellow Republican suburbanites.

That said, we are talking about a million Republican-leaning suburbanites, be they inside, or outside Davidson County, and four-hundred thousand heavily-Democratic leanings inner city residents. Somehow, I'm suppose to believe that the only fair distribution of two seats between 400,000 and 1,000,000. is 1-1!

Metro Nashville has the population for two districts, plus. None of the Counties have the population for one district. Some county has to be split. Davidson is a natural choice. The failure to split  it would result in a huge ring district that isn't nearly as compact as simply splitting Davidson.

There seems to be an unstated premise on your part that when splitting counties it is the larger county that should be the last one to be split. I don't see why Wilson doesn't have as much as right to be kept whole in redistricting as Davidson county.

There are two reasonable enough options for dividing the Nashville metro area. One is dividing Davidson resulting in two compact districts. Another is creating suburban-ring district with a donut-hole district in the middle. Democrats have an obvious partisan interest in the latter, while Republican would see their self-interest in the former.

Gerrymandering" is taking egregious political decisions. Neither option is "gerrymandering." It is simply a political choice that has to be taken one way or the other.   

[BigSkyBob]

Washington is the maximum Republicans could theoretically get.

That is a statement of profound ignorance. For instance, Slade Gordon's proposal was five Republican, four Democratic, and one swing seat.

[BigSkyBob]

Washington is the maximum Republicans could theoretically get.

That is a statement of profound ignorance. For instance, Slade Gordon's proposal was five Republican, four Democratic, and one swing seat.

Okay, and the best Democrats could possibly do (think MD or IL) is 8 Democratic, one swing seat, and one Republican.  A fair map produced by negotiation between the two parties should fall roughly in the middle of the partisan extremes.  We ended up with 5D-4R-1S, which is an awful lot closer to 4D-5R-1S than 8D-1R-1S. Therefore, Republicans got a better deal here, just like Democrats got a better deal in AZ.

No, if the best the Democrats can do is 8-1-1, then, the best the Republicans can do is three districts strongly favoring the Democrats, and seven Republican leaning ones. The constraints of the system don't allow for either map to be a realistic possibility.

Likewise, in Arizona, a 6-3 map in favor of the Democrats, with two Hispanic seats, respecting county lines,  being compact, etc., etc., is not possible.