US House Redistricting: Georgia

[minionofmidas]

I think the point is that the VRA becomes an issue when there are this many seats to play around with. When you have fourteen seats, can you really argue against drawing a black majority seat in southern Georgia if you're supposed to if you can?

As long as you're not obviously targetting him, you ought to be fine no matter the percentage. There's only one thing that ought to be very very clear: No map attacking both Bishop and Barrow is going to withstand any sort of judicial scrutiny. You want to dismantle Barrow's seat (and you'll have to do either that or give him all the Augusta exurbs, as in the first plan here, to be sure of victory; he's dug himself in well. That Broun is not from Augusta is thus a boon to R mapmaking), you better throw a bone by nudging Bishop's percentages up.

[minionofmidas]

Bishop lives in Albany, which you split between the 2nd and 12th.

The problem with trying to make Barrow safer is that he's already vulnerable to a primary challenge; that black state Senator who raised no money got about 40% running against him last year. Heck, putting Macon in the district could cause Jim Marshall to run and split the white vote.

The GOP is drawing the lines; it's not really a problem. It's just sort of meanness for meanness' sake, with no benefits to the GOP of any kind. But no real drawback (unless they somehow manage to make people angry.)

[minionofmidas]

What makes you think you could abolish a VRA seat while gaining a seat overall? Unless the Black pop. dropped, that seems just perfectly obviously imposs.

[minionofmidas]

Why wouldn't the second district be protected by the VRA? And maybe you're thinking of the 2002-6 version of the thirteenth or something.

[minionofmidas]

Why wouldn't the second district be protected by the VRA? And maybe you're thinking of the 2002-6 version of the thirteenth or something.

Well, its a plurality, not a majority district.

I thought we'd been over that... random cutoff points have no real relevance to the Voting Rights Act. The relevant question is whether South Georgia has enough Blacks to "deserve" a Representative of their choice, and whether the district boundaries are drawn in such a fashion as to give it to them. There are no two plausible answers on either question.

[minionofmidas]

Why wouldn't the second district be protected by the VRA? And maybe you're thinking of the 2002-6 version of the thirteenth or something.

Well, its a plurality, not a majority district.

I thought we'd been over that... random cutoff points have no real relevance to the Voting Rights Act. The relevant question is whether South Georgia has enough Blacks to "deserve" a Representative of their choice, and whether the district boundaries are drawn in such a fashion as to give it to them. There are no two plausible answers on either question.

Didn't the Supreme Court decline to require such a district in South Georgia in the 90s?

That was, precisely, a not-at-all-compact district. That actually anchored into the Atlanta Metro. When the state had fewer districts to go round.

Though yeah (and somewhat bizarrely) it was Republicans who wrote the anti-gerrymandering caselaw connected to the VRA, in a series of partisan 5-4 decisions in the 90s. Basically, you can't legally discriminate Black voters, or Hispanic voters, or Native voters, *either positively or negatively*. Though you have to do so fairly badly to actually be called on it. This is really just Kennedy's and O'Connor's position; Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Ginsburg and Breyer have no record of ruling anything beyond "this is bad for my party and therefore I'm vetoing it because I can", and the Obama appointees haven't been on the court for any VRA case.
The court has been careful never to go so far as to say you can't gerrymander VRA states at all (or, only the areas of the state where race doesn't have anything to do with it - you certainly still can  with Austin liberals all you like), and it will be careful not to in the future either, but it would have been the logical conclusion to its argument.

[minionofmidas]

I was just about to say, Verily. "Are you guys sure you can't draw a Black district out of Columbus, Macon and Albany? I have a hard time believing that."

[minionofmidas]

But if it's plurality it's not a VRA district. Gingles test.

No, that applies to semi-sorta-community-of-interest areas of district size that a district absolutely must be drawn based on, unless there's more of those than would be strictly proportional to the overall Black population. In other words, moot point with these fantasy maps.
Even then the district itself doesn't need to be 50.1, it only needs to safely elect a candidate of the Black community's choice.

[minionofmidas]

But if it's plurality it's not a VRA district. Gingles test.

No, that applies to semi-sorta-community-of-interest areas of district size that a district absolutely must be drawn based on, unless there's more of those than would be strictly proportional to the overall Black population. In other words, moot point with these fantasy maps.
Even then the district itself doesn't need to be 50.1, it only needs to safely elect a candidate of the Black community's choice.

Ah, thanks for the info

Mind you, you'll probably want to make your districts 50.1 just to be sure in case you are foreseeing a court battle. Especially if it's a court battle against denied preclearance. Though not in those parts of the Atlanta Metro with sizable Hispanic populations - Black plurality is going to be absolutely fine there, and is all Scott's ever had. I would assume there will still be a district for Bishop, and unlike some of its former versions it will be Black VAP majority. I haven't drawn it myself yet though, so I may be wrong here, but I would look at getting some of those far southwestern areas out and some of the area east of Macon in, compared to Verily's versions. Not just because there might be a tad fewer Republican votes wasted, but also because we still want to fit a seat for Scott between it and Kingston's seat.

[minionofmidas]

I somehow completely missed this. Not that the end result is surprising in any way.

[minionofmidas]

http://buckhead.patch.com/articles/lindsey-praises-u-s-approval-of-georgia-redistricting-maps

Precleared.

I believe that wraps up the South?

SC, NC, MS, AL, LA area all finished.

I would have thought the DOJ would object to GA-12.  Rather surprising they didn't.  Maybe they feel that GA-02 now provides sufficient opportunity in south GA?

Georgia also had a secondary lawsuit in place to overturn S5.

Is that the real reason DOJ has been so accommodating to the southern state review? By accepting the plans it negates any section 5 challenge. Many observers think that the court could be ripe to overturn section 5 and this way DOJ maintains its authority without challenge.

Not much of an authority though, is it, in that case?