US House Redistricting: Maine

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Maine, like Connecticut, requires a 2/3rds vote in the legislature to approve a map, so it will likely be drawn by the courts. This happened last time, and they minimized the shifting around of towns between districts.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

So what, they desperately want a chance to try to gerrymander a 2-district state? How Republican could you make ME-02, really?

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Yeah, I never really understood why Maine waits the extra two years to redistrict.

They have an abnormally early filing deadline or something.

It's later than some other states that are redistricting this year (like Illinois, where filing will be in November).

[JohnnyLongtorso]

So I take it the court is going to either choose the map they like best or draw the lines themselves?

[JohnnyLongtorso]

So they passed the 2/3rds requirement for next time (when the Democrats will probably have control of the legislature again) but don't have to follow it this time?

[JohnnyLongtorso]

So they passed the 2/3rds requirement for next time (when the Democrats will probably have control of the legislature again) but don't have to follow it this time?

Yes, and necessarily by a 2/3 margin as it is a constitutional amendment resolution.  In otherwords, the first part of what you wrote above (and the implied prohibition on redistricting between 2011 and 2021) couldn't have gone through without Democratic support in each chamber.  There were no roll calls but the divisions on final passage were 132-7 in the House (so 11 Representatives absent or excused with 1 vacancy) and 34-0 in the Senate (so 1 Senator absent or excused).

I tried to point that out to Janet Mills, the Vice Chair of the Maine Democratic Party (also the previous Attorney General and the attorney who represented the Democrats in the lawsuit), whom I have had a sporadic e-mail correspondence with going back to when the lawsuit was first announced.  She questioned me about the deadlines in House Amendment "A", thinking I might have written it, and I replied that I was surprised the wasn't more concerned about the "Beginning in 2021" part.  A couple days later, she posted me a link to House Amendment "B" and when I asked if she had anything to do with it she said that she had mentioned to my State Representative (a Republican) in the hallway (presumably of the State House) "that the earlier floor amendment was not consistent with the timeline in the underlying bill."  The next week, a couple weeks ago, after the bill had been finally passed in the House and just needed appropriations committee (for the potential referendum costs, presumably, as the moveup in redistricting isn't until 2021) and final Senate approval, I forwarded her a copy of an e-mail I had sent to my two Legislators and my Republican cyberfriend I mentioned earlier in this thread who now works in the Governor's office that had my proposed amendment to the resolution attached.  In that e-mail to Janet Mills, I wrote the following, with italics added here (not in the e-mail) for emphasis:

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I haven't heard back from her since then.

Yeesh, that's pathetic.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

No, it's the sheer level of naivete and incompetence that the Democrats in the legislature are showing by letting the Republicans roll over them.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

My solution is just to move Sidney from ME-01 to ME-02. That makes the population roughly equal (127/-126). Why make things complicated?

[JohnnyLongtorso]

My solution is just to move Sidney from ME-01 to ME-02. That makes the population roughly equal (127/-126). Why make things complicated?

Moving just Vassalboro yields a closer result (-5/6, or -5.5/5.5 if you're me or -5/5 if you're Lewis Trondheim (he considers the fractional average district population rounded either up or down to be ideal district populations; I use the pure, not necessarily integer average populations per district; not that I favor chopping people into halves or other fractions, mind you).  Moving Sidney, Unity UT (Unity Township) and (in Knox County) Isle au Haut from ME-01 to ME-02 yeilds 10.5/-10.5 .  Most of the residents of Unity Township probably live on route 139 or dead end roads off of it and would have to go through Benton or Unity (both in ME-02) to get anywhere else.  And Isle au Haut is connected by public ferry only to Stonington in Hancock County.

Even better. I figured since Kennebec County was the only one split in the current map, it would be best to maintain that, so I didn't try moving anything around elsewhere.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Your Bangor Daily News link is broken.

Here are the maps (from Daily Kos) for those too lazy to click through:



The Democratic plan is what was discussed above -- it just moves Vassalboro from ME-01 to ME-02.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Democrats incompetent, there's a new headline for you...

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Compromise plan approved nearly unanimously.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

If I've got my sums right, here are the new numbers on Maine's districts:

ME-01 - 61.0 Obama, 37.3 McCain; 55.6 Kerry, 42.7 Bush
ME-02 - 54.2 Obama, 43.8 McCain; 51.6 Kerry, 46.7 Bush

The old ones were:

ME-01 - 60.5 Obama, 37.7 McCain; 55.1 Kerry, 43.1 Bush
ME-02 - 54.6 Obama, 43.3 McCain; 52.1 Kerry, 46.2 Bush

So, ME-02 gains about 1% of Republican performance.