US House Redistricting: New York

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Senate Republicans' Albany district is really astoundingly awful.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This has a really strange 20th. The 25th is also pretty weird.

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Why would a court dismantle Turner's district instead of some combination of Ackerman, McCarthy, and King? The Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in southern Brooklyn form a pretty clear community of interest. If anything a fair map would unsplit the Jewish pockets instead of cracking them.

because the judge is a democrat appointee who lives in one of the most liberal parts of Brooklyn and probably hates orthodox jews with a passion.

How does the last point follow from the first two even remotely? There are reasons to not want Bob Turner representing the district that he represents that have nothing to do with Jews, Orthodox or otherwise.

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Again, I'm really not sure it's because you guys are Jewish. It sounds more like it's because you lean conservative. Do you really think it would be any different if you were some other religion/ethnicity with the same political leanings?

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It would come across as cynically and shamelessly partisan and venal but I wouldn't view it as motivated by racism in particular, no.

What I'm interested in is why would the New York Democratic Party, much of which is Jewish if the Jewish Democratic US Senator, five Jewish Democratic US Representatives, and Orthodox Jewish Democratic Assembly Speaker are any indication, be motivated by anti-Semitism, and if it's a question, as I suspect it partially is at least to you, of internal friction within Judaism as a religion and Jews as a people, then how on Earth is that anti-Semitic?

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More then liberal jews hate liberal christians they hate Conservative and even more Orthodox Jews.

This is, on several levels, one of the strangest sentences I've ever read, and I study Japanese serial fiction from the 1920s.

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More then liberal jews hate liberal christians they hate Conservative and even more Orthodox Jews.

This is, on several levels, one of the strangest sentences I've ever read, and I study Japanese serial fiction from the 1920s.

edited now

No, it wasn't semantic clarity that the sentence lacked.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

More then liberal jews hate liberal christians they hate Conservative and even more Orthodox Jews.

This is, on several levels, one of the strangest sentences I've ever read, and I study Japanese serial fiction from the 1920s.

edited now

No, it wasn't semantic clarity that the sentence lacked.

I'll make this simple
Liberal jews hate jews who vote Republican
Liberal jews hate right wing Christians
Liberal jews hate Orthodox jews more then they hate other jews who vote Republican .
Liberal jews hate Orthodox jews more then they hate right wing Christians.

I said the problem wasn't one of clarity.

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Mind you by the way I don't have a problem carving up Borough Park either since it's basically the most fascist place in America. A place that votes similar to Iraqi "elections" under Saddam Hussein that is mostly populated by zealots who salivate over murdered Palestinian children and want to massacre Iranians? Terrible terrible place. And that's not even getting started on their views on women...

you don't know the first thing about Borough Park.
though you probably would fit in perfectly in Berlin circa 1942.

I don't have a problem with Jews. I have a problem with cultists who admire people like Meir Kahane and Baruch Goldstein. Wasn't Goldstein actually from Borough Park?

Kahane and Goldstein were both from Brooklyn anyway. Not sure of the neighborhoods.

Coincidentally a friend of mine, who has traveled to and fro between Boston and Jerusalem quite a bit, was just ranting about Kahanism the other day. Seriously, uh, weird stuff.

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Your explanation was good up until the ridiculous ad hominem.

BRTD, he actually is right that Orthodox Jews are far from monolithic. Even if some of the differences seem arcane to Gentiles they're very tempting to miss and very rewarding not to.

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Your explanation was good up until the ridiculous and paranoid ad hominem.

BRTD, he actually is right that Orthodox Jews are far from monolithic. Even if some of the differences seem arcane to Gentiles they're very tempting to miss and very rewarding not to.

and calling BP the most fascist part of the country (while clearly knowing nothing about it) is not anti semtic??

Those question marks are unnecessary, it was certainly ignorant and I'm glad you explained some of the distinctions to him, and it still doesn't mean that one should use ridiculous ad hominems just because other people are.

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What the hell is Kahanism if not fascism? It's Zionist ultra-nationalism and is basically what parties like the British National Party and Front Nationale promote if you change the targets of the rhetoric. Hell it's so extreme even Israel banned it.

Borough Park has, as you said, creepy machinist Kahanist tendencies but it's not totally defined culturally by that. There are things to be admired in the culture there in the senses in which it does not directly intersect with Dov Hikind and his amazing sugoi majokko political machine. It's just that Dov Hikind and his amazing sugoi majokko political machine are...well, very there.

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All right. Since you're Jewish and I'm only vaguely culturally Jewish through one grandparent (not my maternal grandmother), I'll respect that you probably are greater attuned to anti-Semitic language than I am. But I still don't think his opinion of the political machine in Borough Park is anti-Semitic in character. I assume you disagree.

I agree with the point that it seems you're making in your second paragraph in that I doubt that the various things the matter with Baruch Goldstein and Meir Kahane can be attributed in any sense to their education, which from what I know of Jewish education in this country seems to have been pretty anodyne.

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I, uh...we went over this before?

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I, uh...we went over this before?

so you agree we should be included in the voting rights act.

I didn't say that. I don't see why there's any particular need for Jews (or just Orthodox Jews? You're not being very clear) to be included in the VRA and I also don't think there's any particular reason for Jews not to be included in the VRA. It's not something I'm inclined to be up in arms about considering that, among other things, Congress is much more Jewish than the country as a whole even without the, what, one or two plurality-Jewish districts it's possible to draw?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I, uh...we went over this before?

so you agree we should be included in the voting rights act.

I didn't say that. I don't see why there's any particular need for Jews (or just Orthodox Jews? You're not being very clear) to be included in the VRA and I also don't think there's any particular reason for Jews not to be included in the VRA. It's not something I'm inclined to be up in arms about considering that, among other things, Congress is much more Jewish than the country as a whole even without the, what, one or two plurality-Jewish districts it's possible to draw?

except right now Orthodox Jews feel better representation from someone like Allen West then every single Jewish member of congress.

and most Jewish Representative are people that are very high on our list of people who we wish were out of congress.

Well that's just tough. The Voting Rights Act does not and should not be contorted to guarantee representation by specific members of a minority group who other members of that minority group happen to like. Political ideology does not incur status as a protected minority for purposes of elections. That is why we have elections in this country. Do you think I approve of every Episcopalian or every Italian-American or Russian-American in Congress? Do you think I feel the need to?

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I don't take kindly to insinuations that I'm prejudiced against elements of my own ethnic and cultural background. Also 'anti-Semite' does not mean 'prejudiced against Jews who practice what NY Jew considers 'acceptable' Judaism'. It means 'prejudiced against Jews'.

Why do you assume I would 'sell you down the river for a dollar'? I have no interest in keeping Borough Park and Flatbush split as they are. Almost every aspect of the division of New York City at present is absurd. There is a difference between wanting a more reasonable split and insisting that a specifically Orthodox Jewish district be created just because you personally don't like the Jews currently in the US House, which is frankly ridiculous. It is not equivalent to insisting that an LGBT district be created (which is absurd anyway. If it looked like it was being intentionally split up to dilute representation of a specific group and not other groups that would be one thing, but in this case almost the entire City of New York looks like grass script and there are plenty of other pissed-off groups, I assure you) but rather to saying that even though LGBT people are in Congress at several times the rate of their preponderance in the population (which they are not, for what it's worth), they're the wrong kind of LGBT people and the VRA needs to be exercised to ensure representation of specific interest groups within that set of people.

This is certainly a horrible and uncalled-for gerrymander, but it's political, not ethnic or religious. The things that you're complaining about and feel persecuted based on are political in character.

What you're asking for isn't ridiculous or even particularly unreasonable but it hasn't got terribly much to do with the VRA and the way you're going about asking for it is...well, yeah. I can try to draw a district for you of the sort that you'd want (it actually might be a lot of fun looking over demographic stats to see how the 'white' areas of southern Brooklyn break down ethnically), but I'd like an apology first.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't take kindly to insinuations that I'm prejudiced against elements of my own ethnic and cultural background. Also 'anti-Semite' does not mean 'prejudiced against Jews who practice what NY Jew considers 'acceptable' Judaism'. It means 'prejudiced against Jews'.

Why do you assume I would 'sell you down the river for a dollar'? I have no interest in keeping Borough Park and Flatbush split as they are. Almost every aspect of the division of New York City at present is absurd. There is a difference between wanting a more reasonable split and insisting that a specifically Orthodox Jewish district be created just because you personally don't like the Jews currently in the US House, which is frankly ridiculous. It is not equivalent to insisting that an LGBT district be created (which is absurd anyway. If it looked like it was being intentionally split up to dilute representation of a specific group and not other groups that would be one thing, but in this case almost the entire City of New York looks like grass script and there are plenty of other pissed-off groups, I assure you) but rather to saying that even though LGBT people are in Congress at several times the rate of their preponderance in the population (which they are not, for what it's worth), they're the wrong kind of LGBT people and the VRA needs to be exercised to ensure representation of specific interest groups within that set of people.

This is certainly a horrible and uncalled-for gerrymander, but it's political, not ethnic or religious. The things that you're complaining about and feel persecuted based on are political in character.

What you're asking for isn't ridiculous or even particularly unreasonable but it hasn't got terribly much to do with the VRA and the way you're going about asking for it is...well, yeah. I can try to draw a district for you of the sort that you'd want (it actually might be a lot of fun looking over demographic stats to see how the 'white' areas of southern Brooklyn break down ethnically), but I'd like an apology first.

actually it is 100% based on religiosity (the gerrymandering started before we started voting Republican ) and there is no area in the country that comes even close to this in terms of gerrymandering and it is done even for relatively small communities.

All right, fine. I'll take a crack at doing a New York redistricting and we'll see if the resulting district  makes sense. My prediction is that I can get it up to about 40-42% Jewish before it starts getting ridiculous.

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The reasons why I'm not immensely fond of Borough Park and 'Flatbush' have nothing to do with the religion of the people there, even if I take your word for it that the gerrymander does.

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...Jews have the most hate crimes against them in the country? Where are you getting these statistics? Is this reported hate crimes, convicted hate crimes, accused hate crimes, or suspected hate crimes? Is it absolute or per capita? Because...I mean, I don't think you're lying, but I'd appreciate more specificity and some sources because I have a difficult time believing that some of these categories aren't dominated by Mexicans by a country mile.

All right, fine. It's a gerrymander by somebody who wants to dilute the voting power of Orthodox Jews. It took a while because I couldn't understand why exactly that would be the case but you've convinced me of that; congratulations. I never said I supported the current state of affairs in Brooklyn and I still don't. I also still don't know that there would be an inherent anti-Semitic, rather than political, motivation for the gerrymander, considering the Judaism of many of the people doing the gerrymander. If it's internal friction within the Jewish community, which I actually think is quite likely considering the differences between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews in New York, fine, but calling that anti-Semitic is somewhat nonsensical. It's certainly unfair to the Orthodox Jewish community, but I don't think it can be fairly described as inherently anti-Semitic  even if some of the people doing it are, because there are also people involved in doing it who far from being anti-Semitic are Jews, just not a kind who your kind of Jews likes or is liked by. Or, rather, the process can perhaps be described that way but not all of the people doing or supporting it can be.

The numbers of Jews in South Brooklyn you're quoting are enough for somewhere in the low forties if we don't do a total pack, high forties if we do, which is an Orthodox-opportunity district and in which the Orthodox community could probably elect the candidate of their choice in most years (the only exceptions would be if all the non-Orthodox parts of the district supported someone else or if the Orthodox community was itself split), but not Orthodox-majority. The ideal size for a CD in New York has risen to about 717,000.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

...Jews have the most hate crimes against them in the country? Where are you getting these statistics? Is this reported hate crimes, convicted hate crimes, accused hate crimes, or suspected hate crimes? Is it absolute or per capita? Because...I mean, I don't think you're lying, but I'd appreciate more specificity and some sources because I have a difficult time believing that some of these categories aren't dominated by Mexicans by a country mile.

per capita (sorry I should have stated that)
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses
now figure out the rates per capita (though this most likely will lead to a discussion of what% of Americans have had homosexual relations)

This seems to be reported. A lot of hate crimes against Mexicans are unreported. It's also the overwhelming majority of religiously-motivated hate crimes, which are a minority of all hate crimes, but it does seem like per capita you're probably right. That surprises me a little (and upsets, since a quarter of my family and probably a greater proportion of my friends and colleagues are Jewish). Thanks for citing the source. (Being gay can be measured so many different ways and is so much easier for people to not tell the truth about when asked that that's really not a conversation I'm interested in having, especially since the numbers that you and I would probably quote are actually the opposite, relatively speaking, of the ones that would help our respective cases.)

if I pack to make a Jewish majority district in Southern Brooklyn (by the way my southern Brooklyn numbers didn't include bay Ridge) it would be the 2nd most compact district in the state after Serrano (keep in mind that the Jewish demographics here live very close to one another and there are blocks that may be 100% jewish)

Try it. I'd be interested to see what you come up with. I'm skeptical that you can get it over 50%, especially if we're using VAP, but I'd definitely like to see.

When I tried to eyeball a compact South Brooklyn CD earlier, I was using DRA so it wasn't clear how much of 'white' was Jewish, and also I ended up having to include more Democratic parts of Brooklyn in Grimm's district such that it actually shifts several points Democratic, so it seems likely to me that were you to successfully create the district that you're talking about we'd still end up with only the one Republican CD in the city most years (possibly zero if some hawkish, religiously conservative Jewish Democrat got elected from the hypothetical district that we are discussing).

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That's still a couple points more marginal than the current NY-13 but using the Rockaways is an interesting idea. I hadn't considered that. Do you route him through Coney Island or something?

ETA: Oh. Water contiguity through Raritan Bay. I didn't know state waters went out far enough for that. Interesting.

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muon, about what's the PVI on your NY-09?

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The thing is, I'm not sure how you can keep NY-13 R+[non-zero] if you do that. The district that I'm making right now is partway between muon's and what you seem to be describing. I had to use Mill Basin and Coney Island to keep NY-13 Republican. I'll keep trying, though; I might just run NY-13 further up through Queens to see if I can make it go to Parkside or thereabouts. How wedded are you to Bay Ridge?

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I have NY-13, which is about tied or R+1, take in only Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, and the Rockaways, Howard Beach, and some of Ozone Park in Queens. Dyker Heights and Bath Beach are in the Jewish district, which is hence probably a little less Jewish than yours, but it means that I was able to get it all the way up to what I'm pretty sure is R+11. I might switch some of Dyker Heights and Bath Beach into the Grimm district and put whatever that Asian area just north-east of Bay Ridge is in with the Jews.

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NY Jew, would you happen to know anything about southern Williamsburg? Is that heavily Orthodox also? I ask because it's an incongruous patch of McCain territory in North Brooklyn on the maps I'm looking at