US House Redistricting: Michigan

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That Lansing district is kind of cutting it close.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That is so much harder to view than version 1.0. I'll stick with version 1.0 for most things from here on. The only real advantage 2.0 has is that the partisan data for it now works for California, Texas and New York which didn't in 1.0 for me for some reason, so I'll just use it to compare partisan figures.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm assuming that's an error or something as Nader had no noticeable area of strength in 2000.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The way Oakland County is drawn would definitely be illegal.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I should try drawing a fair Michigan map just to see how it'd go. It'd actually probably be 7:7, (well more like 6:6:2.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

How does putting Lansing in with Detroit exurbs make sense for any reason beyond purely partisan ones?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's a map I drew at an attempt at non-gerrymandering:



Yes the Lansing district takes in some odd and not all that well-fitting counties, but if an area doesn't have enough full population for a district there will always be some odd counties tacked on. The seat though gets all of Oakland County into two well split seats and Lansing in a clear community of interest instead of just tacking it on with some Detroit exurbs to cancel it out. It's not even an overwhelmingly Dem seat, it's 56.7% for Obama and averaged 46.3% Democratic in those other races tallied which leaned Republican, the average is about 51.5% Democratic.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Except my map isn't designed to screw any specific party, unlike the Republicans' map.

Livingston may have been screwed in my map, but that's the price of having a nice logical split in Oakland, since the only options for Livingston are Lansing, Flint, Ann Arbor or outer Oakland. Of those, outer Oakland is the only one that fits well with it, so it's possible to draw it as such, but it'd make it not as good elsewhere. It IS possible though to combine Lansing with Livingston, but keep the Lansing area intact instead of splitting it and tacking on that slice of Oakland which serves no discernible non-partisan purpose.

And Bay City isn't lumped in with suburban Macomb on my map. It's in the green central Michigan swing district.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And while it might look in anything but the current setup that Livingston County is getting screwed over, it's entirely unfair when you consider that Livingston isn't just Detroit exurbia, there's no doubt plenty of people who commute from there to Lansing, Flint or Ann Arbor. So it's not quite removal of a "community of interest" to put it in with the latter two. In fact probably the main reason it's so Republican is it ends up as a sort of refuge for Republicans who don't want to live in Lansing, Flint, Ann Arbor but connected to there and don't want to have to commute from the Detroit suburbs.

So if you want to argue Livingston belongs with Lansing, it's possible to keep that triangle of counties that constitute the Lansing area intact, put on Livingston, and fill the remainder with part of Shiawassee County and get an almost pure toss up swing district.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

...and which would leave Lansing in a Dem-leaning seat.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That would be illegal under Michigan law, but is probably better than any proposed map so far, which probably shows why the obsession with county splitting is overdone. That gray seat for example is very logical, but also blatantly illegal.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You know as much as I'd no doubt hate Livingston, it's kind of a nice location for the type of things I like, like punk/hardcore/indie shows. Detroit is one of the few major cities where the scene isn't concentrated in the city proper for obvious reasons, but rather around Ferndale. However since Oakland County still isn't "hip", most bands on tour just prefer to look at Ann Arbor. Lansing has shows too, but big concerts by mainstream bands would prefer metro Detroit for obvious reasons. So Lansing has a scene of mostly local bands, Ann Arbor gets all the small bands passing through, metro Detroit gets the big rock concerts and bigger indie bands, and Flint doesn't have much besides the occasional local show.

But imagine someone opened a venue in Livingston County. Kids from Ann Arbor could still drive to shows there, as could kids from Lansing and Flint easily. Kids from metro Detroit have a bit further drive, but not impossible.

The backfiring though is kids often hate to drive to shows (I do too, I did all the time when I lived in Mankato but I'd walk to local shows, and I almost always walk now.) Kids from Flint would be used to it and would like it, but then again others wouldn't. Kids from Ann Arbor would just rather go to shows in Ann Arbor and would be annoyed at driving as they don't often now, kids from Lansing would prefer it to Ann Arbor or near Detroit but would still prefer that shows just come to Lansing, and kids from Ferndale would rather feel like the kids from Ann Arbor. So it'd only attract a big turnout if it was a bigger band meaning someone would have to bother opening a big club there, not likely. So....well here's a reason why exurbs suck. And why local bands will play in St. Cloud and kids from St. Cloud are willing to drive to Minneapolis, but why no one has shows between Minneapolis and St. Cloud.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Why would I, or anyone for that matter move TO Michigan?

But actually what I proposed for Livingston there is kind of what happened with New Brunswick due to it sitting right between NYC and Philly.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That map seems to make a lot of sense, Verily, though I'd want to see the Detroit-area districts a little closer.

It makes sense if you are a Democrat since it restructures the outstate districts to eliminate a Republican seat in Western Michigan and replace it with a Democratic seat in Central Michigan.

Gee, you mean a non-partisanly drawn map gives more Democrat seats than a Republican gerrymander? What a shocker!

It then maintains a 5-1_1/2 seat of seats in metro Detroit by created an outersuburban pack district to dump as many Republicans as possible. That might make sense to a Democrat.

Just like the Detroit districts are Dem pack seat? It does make sense to draw a district reflecting a community of interest in the outer suburbs that contains a lot of Republicans. More so than splitting up this area to create more Republican seats and marginalize Dem ones, that might make sense to a Republican. The alternative to this is either using Livingston to screw over Lansing, or screwing over it with Flint or Ann Arbor.

It fails to cross Eightmile right to add Blacks to the two Detroit districts because they are underpopulated. Drawing districts that are 51% Black rather than 54%/56% might make sense if you are Democrat.

...and are just as likely to elect blacks. And this would make sense to people of all political stripes when the intention is obvious to preserve county lines.

Crossing the Macomb/Oakland county line three times might make sense if you are a Democrat, but, it isn't within the rules.

Which proves the rules aren't exactly as well-written to prevent gerrymandering as they seem to be thought. Not to mention those splits don't really help the Democrats anymore than just drawing districts within the counties do.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'd like to see krazen or BigSkyBob draw a map as to what they'd consider "fair", but they'll probably just argue that the current disgusting GOP gerrymander is a fair map.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A "fair" map doesn't "give" either party seats.  A fair map would make as compact of districts as possible, minimizing county and municipality splits (in that order of importance) and let the chips fall where they do.

Which is exactly what Verily did. BSB and krazen then of course nitpicked his map to death ignoring or defending far more blatant gerrymanders in the current map. Hell your map isn't too disimilar to Verily's.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

District 8 is very far from continuous.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

How is it continuous? It's the non-coastal upper half of the lower peninsula plus a chunk of the thumb which is surrounded by District 5.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Johnson has my support.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

...so it's not continuous.