US House Redistricting: Minnesota

[Brittain33]

All the evidence that was given in 2001 about the lack of roads between Duluth and Fargo  and Grand Forks is still true. 

What was this evidence? Looking on Google maps, there are roads between Duluth and Fargo and between Duluth and Grand Forks. It looks like US-2 connects the first two cities and Rt. 210 and US-10 connects the latter two. For a large, sparsely populated rural area, transportation doesn't seem that bad. 

Redistricting is inherently a political process because it concerns communities, and communities are political constructs.

[Brittain33]

jimrtex, I have tremendous respect for your knowledge and work on these issues, and it makes me sad to always see you frame your work as a contrast between what is "reasonable", "rational," "inescapable" logic which always maximizes Republican prospects and concentrates Democratic votes in a few overwhelmingly uncompetitive districts, while the alternative that doesn't have the result is "a hack plan" and "we hate Michelle Bachmann."

Those value judgments are subjective, to put it mildly, and it's hard not to miss that the plan most favorable to Republicans is inevitably described as the fairest, most rational, legitimate plan. We all make our own value judgments based on different criteria and what we believe to be the purpose of representation, and there is a range of views on that which depends, often, on our partisan ends.

[Brittain33]

All the evidence that was given in 2001 about the lack of roads between Duluth and Fargo  and Grand Forks is still true. 

What was this evidence? Looking on Google maps, there are roads between Duluth and Fargo and between Duluth and Grand Forks. It looks like US-2 connects the first two cities and Rt. 210 and US-10 connects the latter two. For a large, sparsely populated rural area, transportation doesn't seem that bad. 

Redistricting is inherently a political process because it concerns communities, and communities are political constructs.

Courts, particularly federal courts are instructed to not apply political considerations when making remedial redistricting plans.

This has a lot of stuff about the 2000 Minnesota plan.

http://www.senate.mn/departments/scr/redist/redsum2000/zachman/c0-01-160_index.htm

Could you direct me to where in that list of files they say there is a lack of roads between Duluth and the Red River Valley? That's a lot of raw material to go fishing through when Google Maps shows there are good links... People can frame things how they like in their testimony to get a desired result, it doesn't mean it's true.

[Brittain33]

if they follow the logic they used in 2001

But doing so would not be logical. In 2001, they had the prospect of making the minimal change needed to preserve population equality among eight districts, some of which had grown faster than others. In 2011, they are dealing with (potentially) eliminating one district and altering the other districts to accommodate 15% more people in new territory; more than that in districts which are lagging in population. It would be irrational and immoral to consider arguments for a completely different scenario as binding on a new one with new parameters and a potentially different conclusion. In particular, there is the open question of whether 2001 testimony was flawed if someone claimed that there are no roads between Duluth and Grand Forks or Duluth and Fargo, when the evidence shows rural highways link them.

[Brittain33]

The Canadian border was out due to lack of transportation other than canoe or sea plane...  But I-29 lies along the entire western border. 

Help me understand this. If the objection is that you can't trace the actual border route on foot, I don't understand the relevance of that to the links between communities within the district (which are all connected by roads, east-west; very few people live literally in the middle of a swamp straddling the border), and then I don't understand the comparison to I-29, which requires you to not trace the western border on foot but to cross over into other states, indicating you don't need to travel as the crow flies to justify a district. With a regular automobile, you can reach nearly all of the communities within a unified northern district as easily as you could reach them from within MN-8 or MN-7 now.

It's academic because they are unlikely to create a unified northern district with more than 7 districts statewide, but I still don't understand the logic of the ground rules you are referring to.

[Brittain33]

Because Faribault is in the southern part of Rice, it is just too far to commute from for those who might buy a house in an existing town,

Someone in a thread here from 2007 talked about commuting from Faribault to Bloomington.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/minnesota/85765-faribault.html

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[Brittain33]

Republicans proposed a map that appears to make MN-7 safe for Chip Cravaack and shore up MN-3 a little while keeping Bachmann in a reduced MN-6. They drew a Duluth-Moorhead district.

http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/9131/gop-unveils-another-bad-congressional-map

[Brittain33]

Any thoughts what the DFL would draw if they have total control in 2020?

That probably depends on whether they want to violate the usual sensibilities by linking Mpls to outer suburbs. The public has not looked highly on those type of games in MN. Minnesota nice and all.

No one except partisans cares enough about gerrymandering to take it out on the offending party, ever.