State Legislature Redistricting
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Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)
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« Reply #25 on: April 03, 2011, 07:07:13 PM »
« edited: April 03, 2011, 07:11:13 PM by His Excellency Chancellor Vazdul, Senator of Bedford Parish »

The 16th spans four counties to sink Republicans in Hunterdon and Somerset into a Democratic district.



They didn't screw over Codey either, just some Morris County Republicans.




Good information, but a lot of these areas in that 16th are more Republican at the local level than they are at the Presidential. Off-year turnout has a bit to do with it. I'll gather the 2005/2009 data for those districts. But I guess I see the logic.

That's true, Christie broke 60% of the two-party vote in that 16th, and Forrester carried it as well. But the fact remains that they've turned a solid GOP district into a marginal one.
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krazen1211
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« Reply #26 on: April 03, 2011, 07:19:45 PM »
« Edited: April 03, 2011, 07:21:38 PM by krazen1211 »

Cody still has a shot of surviving in his new district just because of his name recognition and residual good will from when he was acting governor.

Possibly. I'm not sure who exactly has residual good will for the early 2000s here, which sourced a lot of the problems that showed up in the late 2000s, but the name recognition at least is valid.

If he does hold on, Essex County will continue to have representation well beyond its actual population, but that's nothing new.

Anything though is an improvement from the current map. At least the 4th is still winnable, and I could see the GOP winning in that 14th and 27th. I'm not seeing any sort of other pickup opportunity elsewhere, though, barring personal problems like Whelan in the 2nd.
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krazen1211
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« Reply #27 on: April 03, 2011, 07:29:07 PM »

On the successful-gerrymandering side, they have successfully created a D or at least more likely to flip seat in Monmouth County in LD11 while at the same time pitting star incumbents Jennifer Beck and Sean Kean against each other there.


I would expect someone to move. The 12th I believe would be vacant and Republican leaning.
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Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)
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« Reply #28 on: April 03, 2011, 07:53:56 PM »

On the successful-gerrymandering side, they have successfully created a D or at least more likely to flip seat in Monmouth County in LD11 while at the same time pitting star incumbents Jennifer Beck and Sean Kean against each other there.


I would expect someone to move. The 12th I believe would be vacant and Republican leaning.

It's actually Kean and Singer paired in the 30th, since Kean (apparently) lives in Wall and Singer in Lakewood. I expect Singer to move to the 12th since it contains much of his old district.

BTW, I see what you mean about overpopulated districts in South Jersey. The 10th is overpopulated by at least 20,000! How far can the deviation be, legally?
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Bacon King
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« Reply #29 on: April 03, 2011, 08:16:18 PM »
« Edited: April 03, 2011, 08:29:09 PM by Bacon King »

On the successful-gerrymandering side, they have successfully created a D or at least more likely to flip seat in Monmouth County in LD11 while at the same time pitting star incumbents Jennifer Beck and Sean Kean against each other there.


I would expect someone to move. The 12th I believe would be vacant and Republican leaning.

It's actually Kean and Singer paired in the 30th, since Kean (apparently) lives in Wall and Singer in Lakewood. I expect Singer to move to the 12th since it contains much of his old district.

BTW, I see what you mean about overpopulated districts in South Jersey. The 10th is overpopulated by at least 20,000! How far can the deviation be, legally?

IIRC the absolute legal maximum deviation for state legislature districts is considered to be a 10% difference a district's population and the population of an "ideal" district, but court cases have been successful in challenging district plans with less of a deviation than that, especially when there's a systematic bias in favor of a specific racial group or some such.

Looking at Johnny's link above, it seems your numbers aren't correct. The 10th is overpopulated by only 4602, which is 2.1% above average. For the record, the maximum deviation present is 2.5% over (in the 9th and 28th) and -2.7% under (in the 40th). This isn't really anything out of the ordinary.
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Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)
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« Reply #30 on: April 04, 2011, 02:08:28 AM »

On the successful-gerrymandering side, they have successfully created a D or at least more likely to flip seat in Monmouth County in LD11 while at the same time pitting star incumbents Jennifer Beck and Sean Kean against each other there.


I would expect someone to move. The 12th I believe would be vacant and Republican leaning.

It's actually Kean and Singer paired in the 30th, since Kean (apparently) lives in Wall and Singer in Lakewood. I expect Singer to move to the 12th since it contains much of his old district.

BTW, I see what you mean about overpopulated districts in South Jersey. The 10th is overpopulated by at least 20,000! How far can the deviation be, legally?

IIRC the absolute legal maximum deviation for state legislature districts is considered to be a 10% difference a district's population and the population of an "ideal" district, but court cases have been successful in challenging district plans with less of a deviation than that, especially when there's a systematic bias in favor of a specific racial group or some such.

Looking at Johnny's link above, it seems your numbers aren't correct. The 10th is overpopulated by only 4602, which is 2.1% above average. For the record, the maximum deviation present is 2.5% over (in the 9th and 28th) and -2.7% under (in the 40th). This isn't really anything out of the ordinary.

After taking a closer look at the map, I notice what I did wrong. It seems Point Pleasant is actually in the 30th.
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Brittain33
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« Reply #31 on: April 04, 2011, 08:13:26 AM »

If you look at the map, districts 23, 24, 16, and 15 could have all been drawn to not split counties like that.

I know you know this and also we agree this map is quite the Dem gerrymander in places... do you think it matters if they split counties or not, since county government is relatively weak? It could be even more democratic this way because it keeps the county organizations in competition with each other rather than have a single county party anoint its representative for the race, as happens so often.
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krazen1211
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« Reply #32 on: April 04, 2011, 08:39:56 AM »
« Edited: April 04, 2011, 08:57:18 AM by krazen1211 »

If you look at the map, districts 23, 24, 16, and 15 could have all been drawn to not split counties like that.

I know you know this and also we agree this map is quite the Dem gerrymander in places... do you think it matters if they split counties or not, since county government is relatively weak? It could be even more democratic this way because it keeps the county organizations in competition with each other rather than have a single county party anoint its representative for the race, as happens so often.


The counties in this case share some types of municipal services between them, such as road cleaning,  athletic facilities, libraries, and tax authorities. And you're right in the sense that county parties hold more power, but in that 16th, South Brunswick is really part of the NYC/Turnpike/Route 1 metro. It's just kind of an oddball attached to Hunterdon county like that which aren't; even ignoring county lines it could be made much cleaner than it is. The 11th is at least a bit more consistent; it just happened to pluck all the Dem leaning areas in Monmouth and shove them into 1 district rather than spread them across 4.

Rosenthal has some good points; in order for the GOP to get a majority, they'd have to really gerrymander up Essex/Hudson/Passaic to create a 3rd seat up there. So I can sort of see why they didn't get that But based on that 16th and 11th, the Democrats were able to cherry pick towns in the deep GOP areas and create a pair of more marginal districts (while bleaching and packing the neighboring 30th and 12th); this really is inconsistent with Rosenthal's 'continuity of representation' line, which only seems to have applied in the northeast counties.

Neither the 11th or 16th had to be changed much at all. The fact that they're allowed gerrymander the Republican areas of the state, but not the Democratic areas, kind of stings. I know its sour grapes and all, but it makes you wonder what on earth the point of this commission setup is. I'd much rather have legislators drawing maps which would be much more acceptable.


Oh well, if we get a favorable congressional map (3-6-3), like we got last time, I won't complain.
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Brittain33
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« Reply #33 on: April 04, 2011, 09:03:11 AM »

I won't disagree with the assessment that attaching South Brunswick to Hunterdon County is a gerrymander. (I picked my current avatar a few weeks ago for a reason...)

The commission set-up does appear to be a game theory test case for how not to get the results you seek. The optimum strategy is to design the maximal gerrymander you can achieve that is still less gerrymandered than the other party's, not to achieve a compromise map.
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krazen1211
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« Reply #34 on: April 04, 2011, 09:38:24 AM »

Probably true. I would love to actually see the competing map; I have to figure its something like this, which creates a GOP leaning 27th (sea green?), 2 black districts (28th and 29th), and the at least within reach 35th (other green) where Christie did pretty well.


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PulaskiSkywayDriver
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« Reply #35 on: April 04, 2011, 10:37:04 AM »

The new 38th will be a toss-up as well.
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Brittain33
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« Reply #36 on: April 04, 2011, 12:03:20 PM »

I wonder if people who consider Obama's visit to the IOC a massive failure will say the same about Chris Christie's attempt to personally lobby Rosenthal into choosing the R gerrymander over the D gerrymander.
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krazen1211
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« Reply #37 on: April 05, 2011, 09:40:13 AM »

I wonder if people who consider Obama's visit to the IOC a massive failure will say the same about Chris Christie's attempt to personally lobby Rosenthal into choosing the R gerrymander over the D gerrymander.

There's no doubt in my mind that such is true. Christie himself would probably admit it; he's going to be paying the price for it most likely.
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JohnnyLongtorso
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« Reply #38 on: April 28, 2011, 06:11:14 PM »

Here's the revised Virginia Senate map:

http://redistricting.dls.virginia.gov/2010/RedistrictingPlans.aspx#26

Basically caps the Democrats at 22 seats (the Republican-held 10th would be competitive if it were open, but not as long as the incumbent remains in it), so they can afford to lose one seat at most. Good job, Senate Dems. The major changes: the second seat in Virginia Beach is restored, a new district is created east of Lynchburg (the 22nd), and there's a new district in Loudoun (the 13th).
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Dan the Roman
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« Reply #39 on: April 29, 2011, 02:05:14 AM »

Here's the revised Virginia Senate map:

http://redistricting.dls.virginia.gov/2010/RedistrictingPlans.aspx#26

Basically caps the Democrats at 22 seats (the Republican-held 10th would be competitive if it were open, but not as long as the incumbent remains in it), so they can afford to lose one seat at most. Good job, Senate Dems. The major changes: the second seat in Virginia Beach is restored, a new district is created east of Lynchburg (the 22nd), and there's a new district in Loudoun (the 13th).
[/quote

Looks like 19 or so Safe D seats. The final three will be tougher.
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krazen1211
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« Reply #40 on: May 03, 2011, 12:08:13 PM »

Minnesota maps

http://www.gis.leg.mn/redist2010/plans.php?plname=L1101_0



I don't know enough about the area, but clearly seems GOP favored, and going nowhere.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #41 on: May 03, 2011, 09:08:32 PM »

Minnesota maps

http://www.gis.leg.mn/redist2010/plans.php?plname=L1101_0

I don't know enough about the area, but clearly seems GOP favored, and going nowhere.

I noticed that they included KML files.  Can these be used directly with Google Maps?
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« Reply #42 on: May 03, 2011, 09:52:00 PM »

Yeah Dayton's not going to sign that. But it's much closer to a dummymander than a gerrymander and could easily backfire in many places.

Take my old home of Mankato in district 20. They split it in half in House seats, probably figuring that'll make the current 23B more winnable by removing heavily DFL parts of downtown Mankato and replacing them with rural areas. But it's still not much more than a fool's gold seat, and that's at the expense of turning a true swing seat in the current 23A into another fool's gold type seat. But that's a district where the DFL already holds all the seats anyway. But also look at Mower and Freeborn counties. It splits them, but Mower is still DFL enough to carry the new district 26 (the two other counties are swing anyway). So you just end up with a currently GOP seat getting heavily DFL Freeborn county attached. And they split the DFL town of Faribault down the middle which does make sense, but not attaching the eastern half to heavily DFL Northfield and adding that to the seat of teabagger extremist Sen. Mike Parry. It's easy to see what they were doing with the west (creating a GOP seat by extending it up to the exurbs), but it could cost them in the east. And I can't make heads or tails what they were doing in Rochester. Or St. Cloud for that matter.

There are some pretty logical choices here (targeting Denise Dittrich by attaching her hometown of Champlin to some uber-GOP areas in NW Hennepin County and chopping up the rest of the district, they also shored up that new GOP incumbent in Cottage Grove as well as they could), but a lot of this just strikes me as "We don't know exactly what to do with this town so we'll just chop it up in a weird way and hope things work out." Honestly it wouldn't shock me if this map is voted down if every Democrat votes against it as well as more endangered Republicans.
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freepcrusher
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« Reply #43 on: May 03, 2011, 10:09:14 PM »

doesn't the current Minnesota map favor wild swings? I believe at one point earlier in the decade, the Republicans had a 60% majority in the state house and by 2010, only had 35% of the seats. The after 2010, they regained a majority (albeit less than 60%).
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Mr.Phips
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« Reply #44 on: May 03, 2011, 10:36:39 PM »

doesn't the current Minnesota map favor wild swings? I believe at one point earlier in the decade, the Republicans had a 60% majority in the state house and by 2010, only had 35% of the seats. The after 2010, they regained a majority (albeit less than 60%).

Yes, there are a lot of swing districts in the current map.  Its likely that the current map or something similar will stay in place for next decade.  I would be surprised if there wasnt another big swing in 2012. 
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« Reply #45 on: May 04, 2011, 02:53:08 AM »
« Edited: May 04, 2011, 02:57:06 AM by J'ai change cent fois de nom »

I just plugged some numbers into Dave's Redistricting App, and I doubt Mike Parry, a hardline Tea Party type is going to be too happy with an almost 53% Obama district. Or that Julie Rosen is going to like going from a McCain by 7 to Obama by 4 seat.

And I have no clue what they were doing in Mankato. They changed the core Mankato seat from 58% Obama to 55% Obama, and changed the North Mankato-St. Peter seat (now also with a large chunk of Mankato proper, and the most Democratic chunk too), from a 51% Obama seat to a 58% Obama seat. Uh...
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krazen1211
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« Reply #46 on: May 04, 2011, 11:09:34 AM »

doesn't the current Minnesota map favor wild swings? I believe at one point earlier in the decade, the Republicans had a 60% majority in the state house and by 2010, only had 35% of the seats. The after 2010, they regained a majority (albeit less than 60%).

The state looks to be kind of like that. The Democrats have a bunch of strong districts in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and the Iron Range, and the GOP has a few in the exurbs, but the suburban areas look inherently swingy.

I think the GOP tried to pack the Dem suburbs and hold the rest of them. They probably have to gamble a bit to hold a majority.
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« Reply #47 on: May 05, 2011, 02:07:04 AM »

But they're taking the gambles in the wrong places. They did some pretty clever and downright evil things in northern and western Minnesota (Putting Bemidji in a McCain House seat is the most notable example), but the way they drew southern Minnesota gives the impression that they seem to expect every election to have the same turnout figures as 2010. A lot of it seems like attempts to target certain incumbents by basically carving up the district, without taking into account that they haven't exactly eliminated any friendly district. They seem to have targeted Kory Kath in this manner without realizing that the two new seats split from his old are both MORE Democratic than his current seat.

The most obvious example is 22A. It's clear they're trying to target current 26B incumbent Patti Fritz who barely held on in 2010 by cutting her hometown of Faribault in half. This makes sense, as does running the western half up to the exurbs. But the eastern half is ran up to the college town of Northfield, resulting in a seat that gave Obama about 10 points more than Fritz's current seat. And this seat is also more Democratic than the current 25B which narrowly elected a Republican in 2010 and includes Northfield now. Now I can understand the GOP realizing they can't really shore that guy up and have to just let the chips falls where they are for a Republican from Northfield, but the result is a Dem pack district for no real reason. And they've added this seat to Mike Parry's Senate district as stated before. Kath could easily get elected in 22B, 22A is the most Democratic seat south of the Twin Cities and together the Senate seat is Dem-leaning. So you probably end up with a DFL trifecta in a region where that really shouldn't happen under a GOP gerrymander all because of a very clumsy half-assed attempt to eliminate two DFL incumbents who'll both probably survive anyway AND flip the Senate seat to boot.

Then there's 21B. This is an obvious attempt to shore up the Republican in the current 27A, who narrowly won only because certain types didn't turn out in Freeborn county and the DFL foolishly nominated someone from Mower County to run in that seat. The seat has gone from about 57% to about 54% Obama which is probably the best that can be done for a district containing all of Freeborn County. But for some reason they separated it from Mower County, putting the latter in a Senate district with those two other counties that should easily re-elect Dan Sparks, and giving Freeborn to what's basically Julie Rosen's current seat, flipping it to an Obama district. So they're endangering Rosen without making Sparks really all that vulnerable. I think they're also trying to shore up State Senator Jerry Miller by removing those two south eastern counties and giving him more conservative territory to the north and east of Winona. But that's not a guarantee as that's still not enough to full cancel out Winona especially in an election where the college kids actually turn out, which 2010 was not. So they could go from 2 out of 3 State Senators among those 3 seats to 0 quite easily. Dumb dumb dumb.
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BigSkyBob
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« Reply #48 on: May 05, 2011, 02:15:11 AM »

But they're taking the gambles in the wrong places. They did some pretty clever and downright evil things in northern and western Minnesota (Putting Bemidji in a McCain House seat is the most notable example), but the way they drew southern Minnesota gives the impression that they seem to expect every election to have the same turnout figures as 2010. A lot of it seems like attempts to target certain incumbents by basically carving up the district, without taking into account that they haven't exactly eliminated any friendly district. They seem to have targeted Kory Kath in this manner without realizing that the two new seats split from his old are both MORE Democratic than his current seat.

The most obvious example is 22A. It's clear they're trying to target current 26B incumbent Patti Fritz who barely held on in 2010 by cutting her hometown of Faribault in half. This makes sense, as does running the western half up to the exurbs. But the eastern half is ran up to the college town of Northfield, resulting in a seat that gave Obama about 10 points more than Fritz's current seat. And this seat is also more Democratic than the current 25B which narrowly elected a Republican in 2010 and includes Northfield now. Now I can understand the GOP realizing they can't really shore that guy up and have to just let the chips falls where they are for a Republican from Northfield, but the result is a Dem pack district for no real reason. And they've added this seat to Mike Parry's Senate district as stated before. Kath could easily get elected in 22B, 22A is the most Democratic seat south of the Twin Cities and together the Senate seat is Dem-leaning. So you probably end up with a DFL trifecta in a region where that really shouldn't happen under a GOP gerrymander all because of a very clumsy half-assed attempt to eliminate two DFL incumbents who'll both probably survive anyway AND flip the Senate seat to boot.

Then there's 21B. This is an obvious attempt to shore up the Republican in the current 27A, who narrowly won only because certain types didn't turn out in Freeborn county and the DFL foolishly nominated someone from Mower County to run in that seat. The seat has gone from about 57% to about 54% Obama which is probably the best that can be done for a district containing all of Freeborn County. But for some reason they separated it from Mower County, putting the latter in a Senate district with those two other counties that should easily re-elect Dan Sparks, and giving Freeborn to what's basically Julie Rosen's current seat, flipping it to an Obama district. So they're endangering Rosen without making Sparks really all that vulnerable. I think they're also trying to shore up State Senator Jerry Miller by removing those two south eastern counties and giving him more conservative territory to the north and east of Winona. But that's not a guarantee as that's still not enough to full cancel out Winona especially in an election where the college kids actually turn out, which 2010 was not. So they could go from 2 out of 3 State Senators among those 3 seats to 0 quite easily. Dumb dumb dumb.


Why exactly, should I assume that you are more intelligent than the consensus of the Republican caucus was?
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cinyc
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« Reply #49 on: May 05, 2011, 02:51:36 AM »

The Alaska Maps are out, with two official alternatives.  (Alternative 1, Alternative 2)  Let's just say that because of attempts to keep Senate District C a minority-majority district and incumbents in their seats, the results are... interesting.    Ketchikan will end up in a Senate District A with either Kodiak Island and Seward or a huge swath of the railbelt stretching from Valdez to Cordova to Delta Junction and even Talkeetna.  Neither alternative creates a contiguous Senate District A.  And due to relative population loss in the Bush, one or more of the HD37-40 bush HDs intrude on part of the railbelt.

There are also links to plans proposed by others.
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