US House Redistricting: Michigan

[minionofmidas]

Am I correct in assuming that Levin and Peters both live in the seat drawn for McCotter, Torie? (Actually, I'm sure that Peters does, but Levin is more interesting - the district seems to be far more Oakland than Wayne, and Levin has been around for ages, so it might make for those "McCotter's safe once he gets past 2012" situations.) So... who're the prospective candidates for the new, open Macomb County district, from either party?

[minionofmidas]

Levin lives in Royal Oak, which I have split, but it was split before, so I think he lives in one of the 11 most southern precincts that are in MI-02.  I don't think Levin will run in MI-02.

You mean 14, but you answered my question anyways.

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Wiki says Bloomfield Hills, which is in McCotter's. Still, either district is too Republican for me to like his chances.

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Yeah, that part of the question was really directed at anybody reading this.
I don't think Miller's the type to run a personal risk just to make things easier for the Republican Party. After all, she and Thad McCotter basically drew the last map together with the single objective of going to Washington, in their respective functions of SoS and State Senate Redistricting Committee chair (IIRC - well, I seem to recall he chaired the redistricting committee and looked up whether he was in the state house or senate at the time).

[minionofmidas]

Quite (and I remember his name) - though he didn't just retire.

Michigan Gubernatorial Election 2002 - Democratic Primary
Party    Candidate    Votes    %    ±%
   Democratic    Jennifer Granholm    499,129    47.69    
   Democratic    David Bonior    292,958    27.99    
   Democratic    Jim Blanchard    254,586    24.32    

[minionofmidas]

I don't see how they justify two Detroit districts. And if you go down to one Detroit district, then Ann Arbor is no longer in with Dingell, and you have a lot of Democrats in Macomb and Oakland who don't really fit into a single district. I am curious what happens.

I'm thinking 1 district for Macomb Democrats, 1 district for Oakland Democrats, 1 district for Ann Arbor, 1 district for Detroit, and 1 district for everything else in Wayne County that McCotter doesn't want.


That Detroit district might displace NY-16 as the new Mordor.

Mordor has a lot of surface. I think you mean the new Rivendell.

Torie, your map's two districts have probably no more than half a million inhabitants each. Sorry to break it, but all your work here is only good for the trash can now. Detroit is gone. Party's over. The city is no more.

[minionofmidas]

I was slightly exaggerating, but Wayne County as a whole has 130,000 people fewer than your map supposes.

[minionofmidas]

Whee, that salmon district is ugly. Besides, aren't you conceding the Dems an extra 0.5 seats compared to Torie's old map? Or is the Flint/Saginaw district unnecessary now?

[minionofmidas]

The salmon district is split ugly like that with the gold district to even out the black %. Those districts are 55.6/56% AA. If Conyers want to grab a 60% AA district and shaft Clarke by giving him only 50-51% AA, the split becomes cleaner.

Go for it. Clarke comes to those new White voters with a reformist, clean (if flaky farleft ) dragonslayer reputation. White Liberals will love to vote for the guy.

[minionofmidas]

The solution that suggests itself, in getting Rogers to move: Make the district both he and McCotter are in losable (but not too losable, obviously - you want to actually hold it). Make the new district that includes a lot of his old territory, but not his home, and no incumbent whatsoever, unlosable. in other words, give him an incentive to move. He's much too influential to just be forced out by McCotter.

[minionofmidas]

Wait... does this still fulfill all the other requirements?

[minionofmidas]

Why wouldn't 6-6-2 be fair (at least from a Republican perspective, not that they would have any interest in that) in a Gore-Kerry-Obama state like Michigan?

Michigan, like much of the rest of the country, has a natural Republican redistricting advantage. The Democrats are concentrated in a few strongholds, such as Detroit, while the vast majority of the people of the state live in areas in which Republican fair better in the typical election than Democrats.

The other reality is that the GOP, currently, won all the swing seats but one, Peters' seat. So, if the current map was something like 5-5-5, the reasonable outcome would be 8-5-toss-up Republican until the next "wave" election.

Uh, the current map is a perfectly disgusting - if deceptively clean-looking, thanks to the legal constraints - gerrymander. (Not saying it's worse than the Illinois map, or the last Illinois map, or this proposed monstrosity here.)

[minionofmidas]

Got a zoomin for the rape of Grand Rapids? We all know what line Lansing is being raped on.

[minionofmidas]

For what it's worth, here's what I did in an effort to make a community-of-interest-oriented map.

Don't like it. Saginaw ought to be with Bay City (especially if Bay City is with Flint!) That gray district, while logical from the outside, won't feel like it to locals if Detroit's suburbs are anything like most other similar areas in the world.

There actually is an alternative to either splitting Lansing (self-forbidding if you've got any respect for good governance at all) or drawing an additional Democratic seat. Torie explored it earlier on the incorrect data. Create a Flint-and-Lansing Dem pack. Not saying that's nice, of course, but it's probably preferable to the status quo if you're from Lansing.

[minionofmidas]

That might be possible... but is certainly not nice or justifiable on (even hackishly motivated) CoI grounds or going to be popular in Lansing. Though Lansing is an oddball town, formerly dominated by the car industry but also with the state government and an old uni.

Also, there's the question of what you put those now weak dem areas in South Wayne (and Monroe) with instead. It'd have to be quite Republican areas to break their Dem traditions.

[minionofmidas]

Just goes to show the competition wasn't great.

[minionofmidas]

They are also usually - but not always - important to the voters as marks of identity. I'd pretty much strike them from consideration pretty entirely only in fast growing suburban areas.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, they probably figured they didn't need to split Lansing so why bother?
The way 14, 11 and 8 wrap around each other is pretty, in a way. Not that the real map doesn't include similarly obvious gerries.

[minionofmidas]

Heh. I was wondering when we'd hear news from Arizona.