US House Redistricting: Kansas

[muon2]

Here's a version they could offer that is shaped much like the current CDs. With whole counties the maximum deviation is less than 900, and by shifting the townships in just two counties the maximum deviation is 28. McCain won by 3% in CD 2 and by 4% in CD 3. It works by shifting KC from CD3 to CD 3, but giving all of Lawrence to CD 3.

 

[muon2]

The Manhattan metro is split (as also under the current map - Junction City and Manhattan would be better off together. If someone believes they ought to be in the 2nd together, fine with me. Except it does require taking the 1st all the way to either the northeast or the southeast corner.) The Wichita metro is also split in that proposal, and that is new. Though it's not a very consequential split, slicing off one satellite-town-dominated county of 20k people.

Honestly, if you want to keep Manhattan out of a reasonably designed first district... go repopulate the High Plains.

In my first map I kept Manhattan and Junction City together, but in CD 1. I can put them into CD 2 with KC and Topeka to make that district more compact. If I also make CD 4 more of a compact block, CD 1 runs to the SE corner. This version has a maximum deviation of 512 using only whole counties.

[muon2]

Now you're splitting the KC Metro three ways (and that's just in Kansas).

Only if you are being technical. Linn County has a population of less than 10 K (9,656) and is entirely rural, but is listed in the KC metro area by the Census. If you want to include Linn in CD 3, then the only non-KC metro county to chop is Douglas, which is technically in its own metro area and not in the KC metro.

Do you really want Lawrence linked to western KS in CD 1? I can't put it in CD 2 in this version since by design this map is supposed to have Manhattan and Junction City in CD 2 in a reasonable district. Linn is rural as is SE KS and they are reasonable to link with the rural west.

[muon2]

If I were the Dems I would argue for a map based on IA rules. The districts should be of whole counties and measure compactness as the difference of the NS and EW distances. KS already tries to split as few counties as possible, so why not go all the way in terms of state policy. The compactness measure would weigh against long EW districts. Then they could offer the following map that has a smaller mean deviation than IA for its four districts (19.75 vs 29.25).



CD 1: dev -22
CD 2: dev +3
CD 3: dev +37
CD 4: dev -17

CD 2 of course is a competitive district where Obama won 50.8% to 47.3%.

[muon2]

So with GOP supermajorities in both chambers what's the big hangup?

In practice it's a three-party system and no party has a majority in either chamber. You do remember anything you've ever heard about the Republican Party in Kansas, don't you?

Given the dynamics in KS, I still think the Dems should have a map like mine above ready as an entry for the court.

[muon2]

Hacking up Southeast Kansas is almost as frowned upon (by politicians with connections to there) as hacking up KC or Topeka or Wichita. It's a well-defined region.

One thing that surprises me is that Jenkins was very much considered the moderate candidate in the 2008 primary... you wouldn't think that given the political battle lines now.

Southeastern Kansas (Baxter Springs) is where my great grandfather went from Jackson County, Indiana (a place he described as one where nobody amounted to much and never would), in his covered wagon with his new bride to claim his 160 acres under the Homestead Act as a Civil War Veteran. Great Grandfather was on Sherman's March to the Sea carrying two bullets in him acquired from all that action in Tennessee which he retained until his death in 1933 at age 93, in the rear guard as sharpshooter, trying to pick off the men in gray, who were trying to pick off them. My grandmother asked how good his aim was; he said well, more than once, hostile bullets ceased to fly after he took aim and pulled the trigger. That is all that he would say about it. They didn't eat much; there wasn't much around to eat for that rear guard, where the land had been "cleansed" of anything productive.

Anyway, as to SE Kansas, Baxter Springs was hell. Two of his first three children died there. There were some Native Americans around that did not appreciate the interlopers. So he finally decamped to Winterset, IA, and bought 10 arable acres for $12,000 an acre in today's dollars, next door to where his brother had a rather larger farm (how his brother got there is unknown, my grandmother never talked about that, and I discovered this all looking at old deeds in the Madison County Courthouse last year). Finally, his bonus for serving as a Veteran arrived rather late in 1877 (grandmother didn't mention that either, but I connected the dots, and figured out what must have happened), and with that money, he bought the bottom land just south of Winterset, or which I am now a proud one sixth owner. That land made him "rich" as it were.

It's kind of fun to part a part of American history that way. It comes alive, up close and personal.

That is truly fascinating. You see, my great grandfather along with his parents and brothers lived in Sheridan township KS in 1880 in the same Cherokee county as Baxter Springs. They originally also came from IN, however it was from Clinton county up near Kokomo, and they resided in MN for a few years in the 1870's before heading to KS. To continue the parallel my great grandmother and my grandfather eventually moved from MN to IA (Linn Co). Spooky.

When I was showing Cherokee county to my family on our 2008 road trip, I found it was home to the world's largest coal shovel, 16 stories high.

Anyway, to avoid splitting SE KS, why not give it to the western CD as I suggested earlier in the thread? The Dems can be split by putting Lawrence with OP and KCKS with Manhattan. Both those CDs are then about 51.5% McCain.

[muon2]

Interesting map. But does "Baxter Springs" really want to be tied to the western rurals via that narrow corridor that you drew, and visa versa ?

Based on my visit there, I would think that Baxter Springs would rather be tied to Dodge City than to Lawrence and Topeka.

In the next decade, CD 3 is most at risk politically for the GOP. As inner KC suburbs mature, they'll lose the hard R pattern, like others before them. It's more important to bring that R number up there than in any other district. So, I do think that a trade of SE KS for Manhattan and some Dems should be a good compromise.

[muon2]

Here is the map the RNC might draw (using Muon2's approach to drawing KS-03). No doubt something like it has been drawn - and rejected. 

Indeed, you posted it from a news article last August.

http://www.mcphersonsentinel.com/news/x404073585/County-moves-to-2nd-in-controversial-proposal?photo=0

Unclear whether this is a real proposal or just Dems being preemptive.

It's rather amusing that 60% of the geography of the state is being used to neutralize two thirds of little old Wyandotte County.  But then I used close to half of Ohio to contain not so little Columbus.

[muon2]

Is it possible to go south of Wichita to connect western and SE Kansas?

As they've had to come east, they've gone north of Wichita rather than splitting Wichita, and they've had to keep going further east to make room for the Wichita district.

Hey, I like it!



In fact, I like it so much that I sent an email off to Speaker O'Neil attaching it, and commending its virtues and seeming meeting of all of the little constraints out there that have folks in gridlock.  Kudos! 

Before you send the email, let me suggest a modification between CD 2 and 3. Keep all of Miami county south of Johnson in CD 3 and split off a piece of KC into CD 2. It doesn't hurt CD 2 too much (53% McCain), but helps keep CD 2 out of extreme danger (50.5% McCain). I'll redraw my map showing it to incorporate the southern bridge and then post.

[muon2]

Here's the way I would do the southern link. I think the link is best as whole counties, and I only grab the city of Mulvane south of Wichita to keep it whole. CD 3 is 50.5% McCain and CD 2 is 52.8%. The maximum deviation is 28 in this map.

[muon2]

Here's my preferred chop of KC. KS tries to minimize county splits, and doesn't split more than one county between two districts. So, once you decide to chop KC, then Miami county must be whole.



Kingman to the east, but Hutchinson to the west. With that in mind, here's my remake. I've made CD 2 very rectangular, but cutting off those far western counties in exchange for land near Emporia drops CD 2 by 20 GOP basis points. So it goes.

[muon2]

I was concerned about chopping into the black community in KSC, KS, but your chop isn't too egregious in that regard, Muon2, and picks up a few Pub basis points, so I went for it. However, KS-04 I don't think going that far east is going to fly, taking in those two counties that are currently in KS-02, that are really part of its "core," (exclusive if SE KS, which we are excising, to shore it up in exchange for its sucking up Douglas County and now part of KSC). Whether KS-02 is Pub enough for everyone but the State Senate moderates with this approach remains to be seen. Heck, it may not be even for them.  It is 20 basis points less Pub than the State Senate plan and what a court might draw (see the map at the bottom).

Anyway, putting the KS-02 20 Pub basis points issue aside, here is my volley back to you. I did follow your approach to put the county south of Miami in KS-01, for the sake of preserving rectangular shapes, and because it fits in just fine with SE KS.

Hey, as an aside, I "found" a Minneapolis, KS. So now we have Manhattan, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis. I wonder how many other such towns there are like that in the state. My favorite KS town of course is "Liberal," which isn't "liberal" at all. I wonder what its provenance is.

If this is a go, I will email it to the Speaker, with the screen shot and the drf file. He will probably think I am a pretty obsessive creative (obviously true), and laugh, but what the heck. If you want your name associated with any of this as a fellow state legislator lending "gravitas" to this all, let me know.

I'll sign off on the plan. You are free to use me as a reference, too.

[muon2]

Here is one other alternative Muon2. No change in the KS-02 partisan numbers however. Do you like this one better?  The negative is that Elk County was previously in KS-04, so by moving it to KS-01, it is one more change element which seems to freak people out, even if the population numbers (like in Kingman), are de minimus.

Addendum: Oh this has another county chop, which sucks, so I don't think so. Do you agree?

I think the extra county split leads us away from this version. I'm still with the prior offering.

[muon2]

I think either plan is fine. If there's a strong political reason to choose one over the other you can go that way. Otherwise it seems like a wash.

I was concerned about chopping into the black community in KSC, KS, but your chop isn't too egregious in that regard, Muon2, and picks up a few Pub basis points, so I went for it. However, KS-04 I don't think going that far east is going to fly, taking in those two counties that are currently in KS-02, that are really part of its "core," (exclusive if SE KS, which we are excising, to shore it up in exchange for its sucking up Douglas County and now part of KSC). Whether KS-02 is Pub enough for everyone but the State Senate moderates with this approach remains to be seen. Heck, it may not be even for them.  It is 20 basis points less Pub than the State Senate plan and what a court might draw (see the map at the bottom).

Anyway, putting the KS-02 20 Pub basis points issue aside, here is my volley back to you. I did follow your approach to put the county south of Miami in KS-01, for the sake of preserving rectangular shapes, and because it fits in just fine with SE KS.

Here is the version that does away with the extra chop. It does make the Sumner County chop uglier, but does pick up the county seat for KS-04, which would please the incumbent. I suspects he thinks it is a commuter exurb, if he thinks Kingman is. You do know Sumner County produces the most wheat of any county in the U.S (or did when I read that 20 years or so ago, I assume. Just another bit of trivia for you.

[muon2]

Here is some more chatter about KS CD redistricting. Given Jenkins' list of no's (in public at least if not maybe in private), to wit Manhattan in, Topeka in, and SE KS in, that leaves only Lawrence not being added to KS-02 (but to KS-01) per dpmapper's idea.

She does seem to be the person with the most constraining wish list.

[muon2]

As a thought experiment: Strict minimal change map, as Republican as semi-realistically possible.



Jenkins is at 53.3% R. There's but a tiny sliver of Lawrence city in the 3rd, and its portion of Douglas went for Obama by just 0.3 percentage points.

A minimal change map would still have to abide by their policy of minimal county splits, ie 3. Instead of going into Geary, could you put all of Nemeha in CD 2 and just balance districts in Shawnee?

[muon2]

The Geary exception to that principle is carried over from the current map. I didn't change the boundary there.

Ah yes. For some reason they split both Geary and Nemeha 10 years ago.

[muon2]

Map talk is heating up again.

[muon2]

Map talk is heating up again.

The article mentioned that the neutralize KC from the western plains "solution" might have legal problems with the Kansas SC, which surprised me. I didn't know the legislature was leashed. So I did a google and came up with this. There apparently is some generalized language, which if really applied (that "compact" thing), would basically dictate the plan the State Senate passed it would seem. However, the legislature can change the criteria whenever it wants, so I am a bit confused how any plan could be nixed under state law unless the legislature is foolish enough to pass a plan without "clarifying" that it meets state requirements, leaving just federal law issues, which in the case of Kansas won't constrict at all.

If anyone can mitigate my confusion, it would be much appreciated.

The committees adopted guidelines as part of their process. It doesn't appear to be statutory.

Under the guidelines, I am more convinced that moving SE KS is the best solution to the population deficit of the west. It is the least like the core of CD 2 and can be kept intact as a community of interest in the shift.

[muon2]

Map talk is heating up again.

The article mentioned that the neutralize KC from the western plains "solution" might have legal problems with the Kansas SC, which surprised me. I didn't know the legislature was leashed. So I did a google and came up with this. There apparently is some generalized language, which if really applied (that "compact" thing), would basically dictate the plan the State Senate passed it would seem. However, the legislature can change the criteria whenever it wants, so I am a bit confused how any plan could be nixed under state law unless the legislature is foolish enough to pass a plan without "clarifying" that it meets state requirements, leaving just federal law issues, which in the case of Kansas won't constrict at all.

If anyone can mitigate my confusion, it would be much appreciated.

The committees adopted guidelines as part of their process. It doesn't appear to be statutory.

Under the guidelines, I am more convinced that moving SE KS is the best solution to the population deficit of the west. It is the least like the core of CD 2 and can be kept intact as a community of interest in the shift.

Except for the "compact" thing. The Senate plan has it all, if one wants to be a "guidelines" junkie. Guidelines are great as window dressing when not inconvenient, and one has all the power.  Except here, apparently nobody does.

Actually many compactness measures do well when a large district wraps around a small one. For instance in your plan below, the area of CD 1 is so large and mostly rectangular that the extra part in the SE (also nicely compact itself) wouldn't hurt compactness much, when considering how well the other three districts perform in that regard. By comparison the current KS 2 is in many ways worse in terms of its compactness than your CD 1.

I think I will go with this then - yet another version.  It just "feels" right, minimizing the wanderings of KS-04.

[muon2]

The state senate committee on redistricting on a voice vote "without dissent," approved the map below yesterday, and it now goes to the floor.  It of course does not serve Pub interests, and kind of blows as a map qua map in any event. The prior Senate map was much better from a non partisan good mapping standpoint. Rather than this excrescence, where KS-01 roots around Topeka and Manhattan to pick up residents, instead go down to Pittsburg for heavens sake at least (see map at bottom). (The McCain-Obama vote in KS-02 is a pedestrian and enervating 51.6% McCain, 46.5% Obama.) And now the State Senate Pubs have managed to max Dem strength in KS-03 as well. Congratulations guys. You suck.

This is what happens when you let the majority-party incumbents call the shots. They tend to look after narrow interests which are good for neither the public or the party.

Is the House likely to go with this as well?

[muon2]

All that angst about keeping KSU in CD 2, and yet in the end the court takes it out. Given that it wasn't unreasonable for the court to do so, I remain amazed at the recalcitrance of the legislative leaders to avoid this.

[muon2]

Well the Pub Mods in the State Senate were purged, so maybe next year Kansas City will be appended to west Kansas in a CD redraw.

Will they be as equally hostile to the incumbent Congresscritters as to incumbent legislators. As we saw, they were a big factor in the makeup of the map.