US House Redistricting: West Virginia

[jimrtex]

Without looking at partisanship/incumbent locations, here's the map I came up with (no county splits, equal populations). blue district is -633, green is +164, purple is +468. Also tried to make the districts as compact as possible, given the state's odd shape.



It came out quite similarly to Vazdul's map.

Any way to swap Huntington and Charleston?  It would make the green seat the Ohio River seat instead of pretending that it is the northwestern seat in a oddly shaped state.  Or would that have to come to far east further north, so it wouldn't really be a river seat.

[jimrtex]

Any way to swap Huntington and Charleston?  It would make the green seat the Ohio River seat instead of pretending that it is the northwestern seat in a oddly shaped state.  Or would that have to come to far east further north, so it wouldn't really be a river seat.

How about this? I got great population equality out of it, although the green district is slightly less compact.

I think it has good thematic compactness:

Ohio River
Charleston and Coalfields
Monongahela and Eastern Panhandle

[jimrtex]

HB 2968 before the WV legislature would provide for a non-binding referendum on the secession of Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson counties to Virginia.  This could cause a loss of a district to the remainder of West Virginia and an additional one Virginia, if the apportionment would be adjusted.

[jimrtex]

HB 2968 before the WV legislature would provide for a non-binding referendum on the secession of Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson counties to Virginia.  This could cause a loss of a district to the remainder of West Virginia and an additional one Virginia, if the apportionment would be adjusted.

Presumably the apportionment wouldn't be changed, since what matters is the state population at the time of the Census. Would be an intriguing Constitutional question, anyway. Is this being seriously considered?

It was referred to committee.  The proposal was from a representative from Berkeley.  I don't know it was serious, or rhetorical - Charleston pays us no never mind.

[jimrtex]

The judges' order says that the constitution doesn't prohibit splitting counties. I can't copy-paste from it, but it's here, specifically pages 12 and 13. So they may require them to split counties to achieve perfect population equality.

That is quite a stretch for a Federal Judge to tell a state what the meaning of their Constitution is.

The court did a rather extreme parsing of the WV Constitution.

The constitution says that congressional districts

"For the election of representatives to Congress, the state shall be divided into districts, corresponding in number with the representatives to which it may be entitled; which districts shall be formed of contiguous counties, and be compact. Each district shall contain, as nearly as may be, an equal number of population, to be determined according to the rule prescribed in the constitution of the United States."

For senate districts it says:

"For the election of senators, the state shall be divided into twelve senatorial districts, which number shall not be diminished, but may be increased as hereinafter provided. Every district shall elect two senators, but, where the district is composed of more than one county, both shall not be chosen from the same county. The districts shall be compact, formed of contiguous territory, bounded by county lines, and, as nearly as practicable, equal in population, to be ascertained by the census of the United States. After every such census, the Legislature shall alter the senatorial districts, so far as may be necessary to make them conform to the foregoing provision."

The court decided that because the constitution specified "county lines" for the senate, that the founders intent was to distinguish the rules for the senate from that for Congress.  A simpler explanation is that because of the distribution rules (senators must live in different counties, though there are no subdistricts), that a different construction was specified.

It is truly bizarre to think that a provision that was in the 1863 Constitution and absolutely followed for the past 150 years, is just a custom.

I think the judges simply wanted to quote Bob Dylan in an opinion.

[jimrtex]

One question for the WV legislature is what map a federal panel would impose. I wouldn't rule out Lewis' plan in that case. The state has shown a strong policy interest in keeping counties whole, and Lewis' deviation is well within the acceptable limits when there is other compelling state interest. Also the state hasn't objected to a combination of the Panhandle and Charleston, so I see no reason why there would be an objection to the linking the Panhandle with Beckley instead.

The opinion said that they would likely impose either the "perfect plan" (ie zero deviation plan) or Cooper 4.

The court considered whether the district was compact, but declined to make a decision because they had already decided that there was too much population decision.  Nonetheless, they noted that it was almost 300 miles between Charleston and Martinsburg, the county seats of the (now) two most populous counties.

The original plaintiffs are the Jefferson County board of commissioners; who likely weren't that overly concerned about a 0.5% overpopulation of their district.  The intervenor plaintiff was from Kanawha County, who argued that he had a separate interest from that of the Jefferson County plaintiffs.

[jimrtex]

Stayed? So that means in this case... what, exactly? The Feds will hear the case, but the state map is used for 2012?

It means the federal district court went off the deep end simply because they wanted to quote Bob Dylan in a decision, and the Supreme Court is trying to curb the use of the courts as a weapon in redistricting.

There is no real harm if West Virginia uses districts quite similar to what they have been using for the past 10 years and only have a 0.8% deviation.

The SCOTUS will eventually rule whether "practicable" is a synonym for "devoid of common sense".

[jimrtex]

In science classes we teach that one should not use more precision than the data warrants. After two and a half years the precision of the map drawn to a single person is irrelevant with its first use in a general election.

Well yeah. Frankly anything below 5% is pretty sick imho. Making districts as even as possible was a weapon against reasonably drawn maps and for gerrymandering, and nothing else really.

If you want to address the issue of America's massive and fast population shifts, the answer is redistrict more often...  although you are going against the founder's will to an unusually express degree with that.

How so?  When Congress was considering the first apportionment, they added language that would have resulted in another census.  It didn't make it into the final version.  The every 10 years is a maximum, not a minimum.

And since there is more change within states than among states more frequent districting makes sense.  Many states had provisions in their constitution for mid-decennial censuses in order to have more up to date districts.

[jimrtex]

It means the federal district court went off the deep end simply because they wanted to quote Bob Dylan in a decision, and the Supreme Court is trying to curb the use of the courts as a weapon in redistricting.

There is no real harm if West Virginia uses districts quite similar to what they have been using for the past 10 years and only have a 0.8% deviation.

The SCOTUS will eventually rule whether "practicable" is a synonym for "devoid of common sense".

They seem to be moving back towards some population latitude when the state makes a case for a neutral consistent factor like county lines. I've found the argument for any precision beyond 0.5% deviation largely meaningless. Analysis of typical mobility shows that 0.5% deviation is consistent wit the change in a congressional district population in April 2010 and November 2012. In science classes we teach that one should not use more precision than the data warrants. After two and a half years the precision of the map drawn to a single person is irrelevant with its first use in a general election.

That being said, I do think the state erred in using a map with the deviation they did when many others with whole counties were available that were within the 0.5% mark. They should at least have had better justification of why they would pass over those other alternatives.

Keeping incumbents in separate districts and keeping the districts the same seems like justification enough.

Many other options kept incumbents separate. The districts were similar, but not the same. The state never really rebutted the objections from the eastern panhandle that they had the most growth, not reflected in the plan.

They moved one county (which incidentally was the furthest from the Eastern Panhandle) and has about 9 times the population of the deviation (ie they reduced the deviation by 90%).

There is no reason that a federal court should be interpreting a state constitution.

[jimrtex]

Eh. If it were all up to me, I'd set some target range - say 15% deviation maximum - and redistrict whenever my data suggest a district is in urgent danger of violating it (or when the feds decide to allocate me a new district).
And I'd try to have some very accurate data on what people consider their legal primary residence (with the definition broadly up to them as long as they have only one)... preferrably some form of compulsory registration.
But it's not, so all of this is neither here nor there.

That is the basic approach taken in Australia.  Whenever a state's apportionment changes, there is a redistribution.  Apportionment of divisions (Aussie for "riding") is based on population (estimates), while delineation of the divisions is based on enrollment - which is compulsory.  This of course gives them excellent small scale data.

There is also a redistribution if more than 1/3 of the divisions for a state are out of wack by more than 10%, or if it has been 7 years since the last redistribution.

When they do the redistribution, it is so that 3.5 years out, that divisions will be within 3.5%, so faster growing areas are deliberately underpopulated, and slower growth or declining areas are overpopulated.  If the full redistribution period is used and the projections accurate, the areas spend some times underpopulated and some times overpopulated.

[jimrtex]

Woah. That third is hilarious. Nick Rahall ought to like it though.

It looks like a dinosaur.

[jimrtex]

Why on earth would SCOTUS take this case, particularly since it would not be heard and decided this year, which means a redraw for the next election, and all over basically nothing (there is hardly a pressing need to find if a population deviation of more than a few people but less than 1% is Constitutional)?  I don't think so.

The SCOTUS was irritated that the lower court quoted Dylan, and used absolutely absurd logic regarding the splitting of counties.  And population equality had nothing to do with the original complaint, which was filed by Jefferson County, which is the easternmost county in the eastern panhandle, which was tired of being in a district with Charleston.

Justice Harlan in his dissent in the OMOV cases warned that the courts would forever be stuck adjudicating redistricting cases, and he was right.  The Supreme Court has tried to to stop the use of the courts as a weapon in redistricting, which was what happened here.

[jimrtex]

The Supreme Court has unanimously approved the population deviation present in the WV remapping plan.

Here's the text of the decision. This is a big win for states that wish to apply neutral criteria and avoid arbitrary splits or groupings solely to minimize population deviation. It reverses the trend towards the need for computers to minimize population deviations. In principle, a commission like in CA could have avoided a number of municipal splits that were needed for exact equality.

This is the key part of the decision where the Court quotes from Karcher v Daggett:

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Most States are going to have difficulty demonstrating that they have consistently reflected those interests, both over time and within a plan.

[jimrtex]

The Supreme Court has unanimously approved the population deviation present in the WV remapping plan.

Here's the text of the decision. This is a big win for states that wish to apply neutral criteria and avoid arbitrary splits or groupings solely to minimize population deviation. It reverses the trend towards the need for computers to minimize population deviations. In principle, a commission like in CA could have avoided a number of municipal splits that were needed for exact equality.

This is the key part of the decision where the Court quotes from Karcher v Daggett:

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Most States are going to have difficulty demonstrating that they have consistently reflected those interests, both over time and within a plan.

That's why I think the decision may lend itself to use by commissions such as CA. They had a number of principles that were consistently applied and had to violate them to achieve exact population equality. If the population deviations were small otherwise the burden would shift to the plaintiffs to show that there was another viable plan that met the principles, but reduced the deviation.

As the WV case shows the plaintiff's burden requires meeting all of the state's valid criteria, which in their case included minimal population shifts between districts. Meeting only the historically consistent goal to keep counties intact was not sufficient to overturn the WV map.

The California Constitution itself makes a distinction between congressional and legislative districts.

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It is plausible that a California court would read the distinction as having a specific purpose.

I think the simplest solution would be for Congress to establish limits:

(1) Maximum 1% deviation;
(2) Maximum standard deviation 0.5%;

Neutral criteria approved by the legislature 5 years before the Census.

[jimrtex]

The California Constitution itself makes a distinction between congressional and legislative districts.

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It is plausible that a California court would read the distinction as having a specific purpose.

I think the simplest solution would be for Congress to establish limits:

(1) Maximum 1% deviation;
(2) Maximum standard deviation 0.5%;

Neutral criteria approved by the legislature 5 years before the Census.

I assume the CA SC would read the language as SCOTUS has, which is that there is a distinction, but as just decided practicable must take into account other neutral factors used to make the map. The use of practicable is now taken to mean that another plan that meets the criteria but achieves lower deviation should be considered instead.

I like the suggestion for Congress to set some guidelines to constrain redistricting for that body. By deviation, I assume you mean the total deviation from largest to smallest. You might substitute average deviation for standard deviation since that has been the practice in those states that explicitly use that criteria. I would also add a fallback provision in the law outlining neutral criteria to be used if that state failed to meet its timely obligation.

California senate districts are larger than congressional districts, and assembly districts are over 50% as large.   If "practicable" means more exact than "reasonable", then congressional districts would be expected to be more precisely equal in size than legislative districts.

When the California constitution was amended, "practicable" was understood to mean almost exactly equal, even if that understanding was based on an erroneous reading of Karcher v Daggett - or alternatively a poorly articulated standard by by the SCOTUS.

So a California court could go either way - determining that authors had a particular standard in mind, or they intended to recognize an ever-evolving standard.

I think that error should be measured from the mean (I would permit ±1%, rather 1% maximum minus minimum).   Use of standard deviation rewards aiming for the mean, while permitting deviation for more exceptional cases.   Use of average deviation says that +max deviation is just as good as zero deviation.  It suggests that one really wasn't shooting for the center of the target.

A State would not be obligated to define a neutral criteria.  They would be given the opportunity to define a neutral criteria, which would permit them greater flexibility.