US House Redistricting: Alabama

[Verily]

On an aside... just read the profile of the new Congresswoman for AL-07. She is ridiculously impressive. Too bad she's in Alabama, so she'll never be anything more than a Representative unless she gets appointed to something (or runs for President, but I'm not convinced any Representative could leap straight from the House to a Presidential nomination these days).

[Verily]

So, how likely is it that Alabama be required to have two black-majority seats? It's 26% black, which is much closer to 2/7 than 1/7, and two black majority seats are not only possible but fairly easy. Map below has seats that are 55% black (the Birmingham seat) and 64% black (the Montgomery seat).

[Verily]

It could probably be cut back from Etowah and Calhoun Counties in exchange for some rural areas to the south if they would be better suited to communities of interest analysis. I don't think you could do a 50% black seat in just the Birmingham MSA, though.

[Verily]

It could probably be cut back from Etowah and Calhoun Counties in exchange for some rural areas to the south if they would be better suited to communities of interest analysis. I don't think you could do a 50% black seat in just the Birmingham MSA, though.

Can the green seat be done without chopping CD-1 in half and forcing water continuity? And I'm not talking a single precinct chain, but rather cutting the Mobile leg out entirely.

Probably. I didn't try it. It has a LOT of wiggle room, though.

You could also get land continuity by just drawing out the southern and coastal parts of Mobile to get the western areas connected to one of the bridges across Mobile Bay while leaving the other black parts of Mobile in the Montgomery black seat. That's definitely feasible, especially because I-10 runs right along the water on the Mobile side so you don't need to cut through the populated areas.