US House Redistricting: Minnesota

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

If the "Democratic Hack Plan" looks something like this, I see no good reason for either Peterson or Walz to oppose it. What Democrat in his right mind wouldn't trade Bachmann for Cravaack?



(Note to moderators: I think this discussion on Minnesota warrants its own thread.) Done.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Cravaack lives way out in the boonies of the Iron Range in St. Louis County  It is not clear to me he would beat Bachmann in a primary if he moves south into the new district. Meanwhile, Peterson might not win the Dem primary in the northern district, and if he is switched for some conventional liberal from St. Louis County, then his part of the district will be mad (the northwest corner of Minnesota is sometimes one of the most volatile parts of the US politically, up there with with northern Maine, so just because it love Peterson, does not mean it will love some liberal labor backed guy from Duluth after taking their local boy down), and Cravaack if he hung around, might actually whip the Iron Range Dem in that event.

That's Oberstar's home. Cravaack lives in Lindstrom, in Chisago County.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Walz would run in the blue. Kline would run in the green.

I would guess that Bachmann and Cravaack would run in the teal district, and I would say that since the population carryover from Bachmann's district is greater than from Cravaack's, that Bachmann could indeed win the primary. If the rest of the district is shaped like it is in the statewide map, then the carryover from Bachmann's district would outnumber that from Cravaack's districk by about two and a half to one.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

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.

Using Google Earth, I asked for directions from Duluth to Fargo, and for Duluth to Grand Forks. This was the result:



The red lines are the current congressional district boundaries.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

The testimony was that from Duluth to Moorhead you either had to go as far south as Brainerd or use forest roads.  Mapquest says to go south through Brainerd.  Google shows a route further north.  But if you try to force that route into Mapquest it mightily resists going directly east from Park Rapids.  And try going from Noyes to Grand Portage.

All I had to do to force that route into Mapquest is change the default from "Shortest Time" to "Shortest Distance." The difference is less than 20 minutes on a 4-1/2 to 5 hour trip, according to Mapquest. According to Google, that route is actually 11 minutes faster.

The Grand Portage to Noyes route looks horrible on the map, but it's caused by lack of roads in Superior National Forest, not lack of roads in North-Central Minnesota. Anything travelling west from Grand Portage is funnelled into Duluth. So this route can basically be reduced to a Duluth-Noyes route, which is fairly direct. International Falls to Noyes is also very direct.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

It's gerrymandering because:

It seeks to make Chip Cravaack's district safe by taking out Duluth and the Iron Range.

It seeks to make Colin Peterson, who is a very conservative Democrat, the representative from the liberal northeastern part of the state.

Not only that, but you can bet your bottom dollar that Peterson would be primaried by a liberal Duluth-area Democrat. The Republicans are obviously banking on a divisive primary so they can pull off another Cravaack-style upset.

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Not only that, but as BRTD said, it removes much of Walz's home base by splitting North Mankato from Mankato. I'll take his word for what that area is like, since he actually lived there.

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Not only that, but it does this by expanding into rural McLeod County, which has no community of interest with the Minneapolis suburbs. Why not expand into Wright or Anoka instead?

Furthermore, I'd bet my right nut that the western part of this plan's 7th district has more in common with Detroit Lakes and Bemidji than with Cambridge and Lindstrom. Granted, Cambridge and Lindstrom have little in common with Duluth either, except for the fact that they've shared a congressional district since the 1960's. History clearly favors a map where the upstate districts stretch north to south.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

This btw is blatantly untrue:

In the last redistricting, the Demcrats bitched and moaned that it was unfair for there to be four out-state anchored  districts, and four metro-based districts when the metro was 58% of the state. The courts agreed, and restructured the state's districts. Republican Representatives in Southern Minnesota were harmed.

No Republicans were harmed by the 2000 redistricting. Kennedy got an almost completely new district that he won in and would've continued to hold had he not been a complete idiot who thought he could win a Senate seat. Gutknecht's district got about two points more Republican. He lost in 2006 because it was still a swing district, it was a horrible year for Republicans and he got detached and unpopular in the district, not because it was drawn anymore significantly Democratic. Just look at a map, it lost Democratic Rice County and some marginal swing counties for some heavily Republican counties out west. Gore lost the most Democratic county added to the district by almost 6 points.

Exactly. If anyone was harmed by the 2000 redistricting, it was Democrat Bill Luther, whose eastern suburban district was basically split in half and had heavily Republican exurbs added to each half. Those two districts are represented today by Michele Bachmann and John Kline.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

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Yet again, the metro area include 58%, not 62.5% in the previous census. To create a fifth metro seat the courts expanded the 2nd district to the South, and the 6th district to the Northwest. While the metro share has increased, it hasn't increased to 62.5% of the state. One, or more, metro districts had to expand outstate. That is a mathematical fact. You cannot justly claim a metro/out-state cross to be sinister because it is inevitable.

The Republican map, basically, improved on the metro/rural split by making the sixth district a purely metro seat, and concentrating all the rural areas paired with the metro into the second. There is nothing inherently unfair, unjust or sinister about such a choice.


To answer your question, to expand the third into either Anoka, or Wright counties would require that the sixth expand into rural areas, or wrap around into Dakota county. This is contrary to their goal of making the sixth a metro seat.


Again, you can't just dismiss redistricting choices you don't like as being "gerrymandering."

The trade-off for making the Sixth a "purely metro" seat was to expand the Third into rural McLeod County. As you said, either way, one of the districts has to expand out of the metro. So why should it be the Third (which is currently an inner-ring suburban district) rather than the Sixth (which already includes rural areas)?

Regardless, the Third won't be won by a Democrat except under special circumstances anyway, and that is hardly the most egregiously gerrymandered part of the map. That dubious honor goes to the upstate area.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

First, if it doesn't matter, why did you claim it as proof of "gerrymandering?"

Tell the 30,000+ residents of rural McLeod County who would be stuck in a Hennepin County district that it "doesn't matter". There is no reason whatsoever to extend an inner-ring suburban district that far west. The Sixth can easily pick up the rural areas needed to balance the population between metro and rural districts, and doing so would be less controversial since the Sixth already contains rural areas anyway.

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I don't like the fact that it splits the community of interest that is northwestern Minnesota, dividing it among districts dominated by areas it has nothing in common with, for purely partisan reasons. This map seeks to deny northwestern Minnesota any representation in Congress. The current configuration preserves the community of interest. Fergus Falls does not belong with Lindstrom, and Moorhead does not belong with Duluth.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

First, if it doesn't matter, why did you claim it as proof of "gerrymandering?"

Tell the 30,000+ residents of rural McLeod County who would be stuck in a Hennepin County district that it "doesn't matter". There is no reason whatsoever to extend an inner-ring suburban district that far west. The Sixth can easily pick up the rural areas needed to balance the population between metro and rural districts, and doing so would be less controversial since the Sixth already contains rural areas anyway.

Again, you spin a circular web of sophistry. Of course, all the rural counties combined with a metro district could be concentrated in the Sixth. It is equally true that they can be concentrated in the Second. And, it is equally true that they could be split. That is just a redistricting choice. Claiming one choice that doesn't favor you is "gerrymandering" while the choice that does favor you is not, is simply hypocritical nonsense.


It just so happens that the non-metro areas to the North of the Metro are more Republican than the non-metro areas to the South. The effect of expanding the sixth is the removal of Republicans from the non-metro districts. The effect of expanding south is removing fewer Republicans from the non-metro areas. To argue that because a redistricting in your favor can be done, it should be done is purely circular.

Of course, removing non-metro Republicans from the outstates districts will draw less of an ire from partisan Democrats. Sure, the Republicans could avoid "controversy" by taking a meek, submissive attitude towards partisan Democrats. The Republicans in the legislature could have gone to DKE website and voted for the "7-1 Democratic gerrymander." If they did, the Democrats wouldn't have bitched and moaned about the map. Of course, they would have screwed themselves. The Republicans in the legislature took the decision to take decisions that favored them, and not the Democrats. Certainly, Democrats aren't going to like the decisions taken, just as Republicans wouldn't have liked some of the decision Democrats would have taken. Claiming any choice taken by Republicans that disfavoring you constitutes "gerrymandering" is just injecting aggressive incivility into political discourse.

No matter how many time reassert it, the reality is that there are valid reasons for expanding into Carver county: it is on the boundary between the Sixth and Second. Adding McLeod brings the Third up to population.  Given the goal of concentrating out-state areas in the Second, the logical expansion for the Third is into the Second, and the logical county is the border county of Carver.

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I don't like the fact that it splits the community of interest that is northwestern Minnesota, dividing it among districts dominated by areas it has nothing in common with, for purely partisan reasons.

Sure, I have no doubt you don't like the map. What you don't have is any valid reason to label it "gerrymandering."


The reality remains that upstate can be divided either North and South or East and West. The first option favors the Republicans, so they took it. That doesn't make it "gerrymandering."

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"One man, one vote" means every region, area, county, city, etc., etc., has exactly the representation to which  it is entitled.

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In every conceivable maps there are pairs that don't make particular sense. In general, a county is apt to be more likely to be similar to a bordering county than a county farther away. But, lines must be drawn, even if it splits such pairs.


You have a bitch. You don't have a case for arguing "gerrymandering."
[/quote]

A sensible, fair map would preserve communities of interest. This map splits them for purely partisan reasons. You can't deny that, and you haven't even tried to. That is the very definition of gerrymandering, pure and simple.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

No, that is a sophistry. A proper map will draw a reasonable balance between compactness, adherence to county/city lines/ and "communities of interest," whatever that means, racial composition and series of other factors. Judging these standards as a whole, the Republicans created an entirely reasonable map. You can't dispute that fact, so you are forced to dumb-down the standard of reasonable districts to "communities of interest." That is how intellectually weak your case is.

Of course there are other factors involved in making a proper map than maintaining communities of interest, but the Republican map violates the communities of interest standard when there is no need to do so. It is simple to create a district that maintains the community of interest in western Minnesota without a trade-off in the other factors, as has been done in every round of redistricting since the 1960's. The only reason to split the community of interest is a partisan one.

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No, it is you whom has redefined "gerrymandering."  Redistricting is the process of splitting some areas from the rest of the state. [/quote]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gerrymander
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gerrymander
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gerrymander
http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_us1250680#m_en_us1250680
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/gerrymandering
http://www.yourdictionary.com/gerrymander

What exactly have I redefined?

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This goes above and beyond a 5-3 map- it is a blatant attempt at 6-2, achieved by weakening Walz and Peterson while shoring up Paulsen and Cravaack. Granted, the Duluth-Moorhead district is a bit of a gamble but:
     1.) The GOP has nothing to lose.
     2.) Cravaack proved that a GOP victory in this type of district is possible, and
     3.) If Peterson gets primaried, it can only help the GOP.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

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These are excerpts from the ruling in Zachmann vs. Kiffmeyer, which drew the current map.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

2) I have consistently noted that neither county lines, compactness, nor communities are the end all and be all, just the principles that should be maximized. Inevitably, these principles will conflict. I will not allow myself to claim that the perfection of any particular one is the enemy of the greater good of maximizing all three.

This is exactly the point. With a northwestern and a northeastern district you get all three- respect for county lines, compactness, and preservation of communities of interest. With the Republican proposal you only get respect for county lines and compactness at the expense of preservation of communities of interest. The Republicans' willingness to throw communities of interest out the window when it is not necessary to do so, for no other reason than for partisan gain makes their map a gerrymander.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Excuse me? Whom should we believe, a person whom was elected to Minnesota's legislature, was appointed by her peers-- whom where elected by a majority of the voters in a majority of the seats-- to create the map, or some wannabe punk with internet access?

Excuse me? Whom should we believe, a career politician who drew the map, who has a stake in the process, who lives in suburban Hennepin County, and would say whatever needs to be said to defend her work, or a normal person who actually lives in northern Minnesota and is intimately familiar with the geography and culture of that region? Oh wait, that career politician is a Republican, so obviously everything she says must be the gospel truth.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/203030/

http://drawthelinemidwest.org/minnesota/bemidji-pioneer-lets-find-a-better-method-of-redistricting/