US House Redistricting: New York

[Torie]

That is why we have courts damn it.  

I thought that was just a make-work scheme to keep you and your kind off the streets?

  Man those wigs your barristers wear are expensive!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That is why we have courts damn it.  

I thought that was just a make-work scheme to keep you and your kind off the streets?

  Man those wigs your barristers wear are expensive!

I once read that judge's wigs are made from billy goats beards, though I don't know if that's actually true.

[jimrtex]

While federal courts generally follow the "least change" rule, state courts do not is my understanding. And state courts generally handle this task unless you get that incredible saga that jimrtex described in Texas. I believe a state court drew the NY map in 2001.  It was not a least change map is my recollection - at all. No, it was a sensible map.  And then the legislature cut a deal and drew its monstrosity to protect incumbents. I think I  know what  a state judge would do with the existing map - kill it!  

As I said before, I hope a state judge does draw a map just like last time. That will be the only way to find out of course just whose cyrstal ball is more accurate. In any event, I'm happy with my map now, even if Lewis is not.

I think federal courts will defer to State courts after the tanning the federal district judge in Minnesota received during the 2000s redistricting.  Of course he not only had ignored the Minnesota court, he had enjoined it from doing anything.

My understanding is that State courts are exercising legislative authority on behalf of their States, and the federal courts would just as soon not get involved in interpreting State constitutions for the States.  And in some States, the state courts are given specific authority in redistricting matters (eg California).  This gives the State courts more of a legislative authority, and so they can more actively draw lines.

A map drawn by a state judge in New York would have to be pre-cleared.

[Sam Spade]

Folks, I'd bet quite a lot of money that both sides will come to some agreement under the table that benefits the strongest party bosses of each side, and that, most likely, takes away one Dem seat and one GOP seat (relatively speaking).  That's the way things tend to work in NY.  If a court gets to it, it likely means that the end of the world is at hand.

[krazen1211]

My dream NYC map.




Red: Long Island district for McCarthy
Yellow: Queens/Bronx district for Crowley
Slate Green: Queens district for Meeks
Aqua Green: Downtown/Midtown district for Nadler
Bright Blue: Brooklyn/Queens district for Turner
Pink: Brooklyn district for Towns
Lime Green: Brooklyn district for Clarke
Pale Blue: Queens/Brooklyn district for Velazquez
Peach: Staten Island district for Grimm
Gold: collection of liberal whites for Maloney
Orange: Bronx/Manhattan district for Rangel or primary
Bright Green: Bronx district for Serrano

[Torie]

Does all that comport with the VRA?

[krazen1211]

Well, it maintains 50% black districts in Brooklyn (10, 11), 47% black district in Queens (6), and the 3 Hispanic districts (12, 15, 16).

Swapping precincts between 4 and 6 doesn't change much.  So, more or less

My goal was to equalize districts across the boroughs, and to cut down on borough crossings. Manhattan now has 3 districts for 2 districts worth of population which comes at the expense of the other boroughs.

In my plan Brooklyn gets 3 districts, Queens gets 3 districts, Staten Island gets its 1, Manhattan gets 2.5, and the Bronx gets 1.5, based on the dominant source of population of each district.

I don't like the 14th crossing 3 boroughs but I think there's a theme to that at least.

[minionofmidas]

I guess you could disentangle the 3rd/4th just a wee bit? And same with the (former) 9th Brooklyn part? Oh, and why is Maloney extended to the West Side?
Otherwise... if Nadler and Rangel agree, as they probably should, this is where it's probably heading. Basically merging Crowley and Ackerman and letting Velazquez pick up their most Hispanic Queens bits.
Maloney taking Greenpoint and parts of Williamsburg is what it takes to keep Velazquez' recognizable while pushing her above 50%, is it? Oh well, so be it then.

[krazen1211]

Well, 3 and 4 are merely gerrymandered to put all the Republicans in Peter King's district. And the 9th is very carefully selected into Queens to pluck out Republicans as well; push it anywhere else and you start adding 100k 80% Obama voters. I could probably add Sunset Park and be ok...but Velazquez I think lives there. Hence the awful shape of the 12th.

I shoved Maloney up to Columbia and the other university up there, and general white dominated precincts...could probably give it to Nadler. But I didn't think Nadler should extend from Battery Park all the way to Uptown. I'm not convinced that Greenpoint fits here well, but I suppose it fits nowhere; Astoria does though as it seems is becoming a cheaper extension of the Upper East Side.


Rangel has already issued the 'over my dead body' proclamation on this. He's demanding they keep that district in Manhattan and push it down the Upper West Side...basically taking Maloney's territory both from the north, and the south (if they condense Nadler like this).


Crowley should be thrilled as I gave him a white dominated district. I left the 4 core VRA districts (Meeks, Towns, Clarke, Serrano) exactly the same too.

[Torie]

Well, it maintains 50% black districts in Brooklyn (10, 11), 47% black district in Queens (6), and the 3 Hispanic districts (12, 15, 16).

Swapping precincts between 4 and 6 doesn't change much.  So, more or less

My goal was to equalize districts across the boroughs, and to cut down on borough crossings. Manhattan now has 3 districts for 2 districts worth of population which comes at the expense of the other boroughs.

In my plan Brooklyn gets 3 districts, Queens gets 3 districts, Staten Island gets its 1, Manhattan gets 2.5, and the Bronx gets 1.5, based on the dominant source of population of each district.

I don't like the 14th crossing 3 boroughs but I think there's a theme to that at least.

Is Velasquez going to be happy with a 50% Hispanic CD?  Is Meeks going to be happy with 47% black?  Those two issues explain most of the major differences between my "court drawn" map and your map, putting aside the Long Island gerry.  The walls are so strong in NYC, that somethings don't change much no matter who is drawing what and why.

I doubt a court will do some of the things that you are doing. But that is nit picking. Well done. If I were a Pubbie I would still let the courts do it, because it generates a lot more Dems in marginal CD's, or semi marginal, that can be possibly knocked off in 2012.  You saw my matrix chart. It could be very sanguinary for the Dems in 2012 with that kind of map. And the idea of electing more moderate to semi-moderate Pubbies gets me particularly all hot and bothered.

[minionofmidas]

Well, 3 and 4 are merely gerrymandered to put all the Republicans in Peter King's district.

Yes, yes, I figured that much.

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100k of them? Are you sure? Just how Republican is your version?

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That is what I would do.

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Crowley doesn't care whether he gets Whites or Hispanics, as long as it's not, say, 60% or whatever of them. Crowley decides who Queens Democrats get to vote for.

Is Velasquez going to be happy with a 50% Hispanic CD?  Is Meeks going to be happy with 47% black? 

Why the hell shouldn't she? That's more than she's ever had, and she's safe as houses. (Now, whether that stops a court... different story. You can always point to Rangel's and Crowley's district not electing any Hispanics on similar shares.) And Meeks' district is 50% Black that way. As you know. And again, he too is safe as houses.

[Torie]

Krazen says his Meeks CD is 47% black.

[minionofmidas]

Krazen says his Meeks CD is 47% black.

Non-Hispanic Black Only I presume.

[Torie]

Krazen says his Meeks CD is 47% black.

Non-Hispanic Black Only I presume.

Whatever number the DRA generates I presume, which does not make this distinction does it? Does it count Hispanic blacks as black or Hispanic or both? If both, then the answer is presumably no.

[krazen1211]

Well, 3 and 4 are merely gerrymandered to put all the Republicans in Peter King's district.

Yes, yes, I figured that much.

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100k of them? Are you sure? Just how Republican is your version?

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That is what I would do.

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Crowley doesn't care whether he gets Whites or Hispanics, as long as it's not, say, 60% or whatever of them. Crowley decides who Queens Democrats get to vote for.

Is Velasquez going to be happy with a 50% Hispanic CD?  Is Meeks going to be happy with 47% black? 

Why the hell shouldn't she? That's more than she's ever had, and she's safe as houses. (Now, whether that stops a court... different story. You can always point to Rangel's and Crowley's district not electing any Hispanics on similar shares.) And Meeks' district is 50% Black that way. As you know. And again, he too is safe as houses.

Here is brooklyn by partisan breakdown.



Now, I presume the Staten Island District gets first pickings, so it takes Bay Ridge and some of Bensonhurst. Then I removed all the nonminorities (ie Republicans) from districts 8, 10, 11, and gave them to 9.





That's 580k people, at 58% McCain, leaving about 140k to go. Where else can you route that district? You can't add the Brooklyn blacks to the north.

[krazen1211]

Krazen says his Meeks CD is 47% black.

A big problem with yanking Nassau county blacks out of the 4th is that it makes it, well, not vulnerable, but not a snoozefest either.

This drops it to 57% Obama.




Not in a million years will that district go to Hempstead (imo). The GOP is certainly better off if Peter King is not heavily packed, but now that Israel is DCCC chair...

[minionofmidas]

Krazen says his Meeks CD is 47% black.

Non-Hispanic Black Only I presume.

Whatever number the DRA generates I presume, which does not make this distinction does it? Does it count Hispanic blacks as black or Hispanic or both? If both, then the answer is presumably no.

As Hispanic. We've been over this two pages ago in this thread IIRC.

[Torie]

Krazen says his Meeks CD is 47% black.

Non-Hispanic Black Only I presume.

Whatever number the DRA generates I presume, which does not make this distinction does it? Does it count Hispanic blacks as black or Hispanic or both? If both, then the answer is presumably no.

As Hispanic. We've been over this two pages ago in this thread IIRC.

IC. And nobody knows how the courts will count them I presume. Do they vote as blacks or Hispanics?  Or is it not possible to tell?

And isn't the black or Hispanic thing just self identification in the census? In other words, the black Hispanic can - and must - pick one or the other? Or does the census provide for picking both?

[minionofmidas]

Krazen says his Meeks CD is 47% black.

Non-Hispanic Black Only I presume.

Whatever number the DRA generates I presume, which does not make this distinction does it? Does it count Hispanic blacks as black or Hispanic or both? If both, then the answer is presumably no.

As Hispanic. We've been over this two pages ago in this thread IIRC.

IC. And nobody knows how the courts will count them I presume. Do they vote as blacks or Hispanics?  Or is it not possible to tell?

And isn't the black or Hispanic thing just self identification in the census? In other words, the black Hispanic can - and must - pick one or the other? Or does the census provide for picking both?

The census does, of course, provide for picking both. Which is why we have a figure for them at all.
And the courts count them as Blacks for Black-opportunity districts and as Hispanic for Hispanic-opportunity districts. As they should. (They also count the people who check multiple races including Black. New York just is the only place where it makes more than a percentage point or so of difference. At least on a level as far up as congressional districts.)

The Census asks two questions (as you should know since you recently filled one out) - which and how many of these races do you identify with? Black, White, Native, etc? And secondly and independently, are you of Hispanic Origin?

[NY Jew]

Krazen says his Meeks CD is 47% black.

A big problem with yanking Nassau county blacks out of the 4th is that it makes it, well, not vulnerable, but not a snoozefest either.

This drops it to 57% Obama.




Not in a million years will that district go to Hempstead (imo). The GOP is certainly better off if Peter King is not heavily packed, but now that Israel is DCCC chair...

if you want to make this fair move (jewish) Far Rockway to the 4th

[Torie]

I have zero memory as to what was on the census form. 

Thanks for the reply. That was very informative Lewis.

[minionofmidas]

if you want to make this fair move (jewish) Far Rockway to the 4th

Yeah, there's a funny six-precinct or so enclave of 90%+ Hasidic precincts ... that's split in two by the city line. I always thought that detail hilarious.

[Torie]

if you want to make this fair move (jewish) Far Rockway to the 4th

Yeah, there's a funny six-precinct or so enclave of 90%+ Hasidic precincts ... that's split in two by the city line. I always thought that detail hilarious.

Back to the Hispanic black thing one more time. I take it that the DRA then is counting the black Hispanics in the Meek CD as Hispanic, even though the courts would count them as black (cuz it's a black "opportunity" CD). If so, that is not good! 

[minionofmidas]

I have zero memory as to what was on the census form.  

Thanks for the reply. That was very informative Lewis.

I hope you understand now why moving all the partly Black areas in Long Island out of McCarthy's district is not going to happen unless the judge is either a complete Republican hack who also has no ties to Long Island, or is someone who has a personal axe to grind with McCarthy (who, from all I hear, is not exactly a particularly valuable member of congress.)

The DRA figures are set up the way they are because nobody can make up heads or tails on why which Hispanics identify as White or Other. Obviously Latin American Whites, that Anglos would recognize as White, identify as White. But so do many Mexican Mestizos... and people who're probably European but look swarthy enough for Anglos to class them as "Browns" (think Ciro or Grijalva). While others of the same color identify as Other. So the White (Hispanic or Not) figure is quite useless wherever there are many Hispanics around, and doesn't correspond to a reality on the ground.
Meanwhile, where there are Dominicans or Afro-Cubans or also on some southwestern reservations, what the DRA does creates a problem as it makes it appear as if the people who check Hispanic origin are not Black / Native. (On most Southern Arizona reservations, there are more people checking both Native and Hispanic than there are who check neither. In many of these places, Spanish was used as the lingua franca to communicate with the surrounding anglo world for several generations, and Spanish skills are still very widespread even though English skills are near-universal now.)
Meanwhile, the question is set up the way it is on the Census because when Hispanic is considered a "race" (or called something else but asked in the same breath anyways) Latin American Whites don't check it, and hey presto, there's far fewer Hispanics in the US than there really is.

[Torie]

That would not explain why the DRA calls Hispanics who checked "black" Hispanic rather than black. Or visa versa. The only problem with the the DRA is that it is not subtle enough to call black Hispanics in existing black opportunity CD's "black," while calling the very same black Hispanic folks in Hispanic opportunity CD's "Hispanic." In any event, the DRA could have had a subcategory of black Hispanics separate from just Hispanic or black alone, and that way the map makers could add the two-fer category to either the Hispanic or black group as appropriate.

Make sense?