Ohio Redistricting Contest

[dpmapper]

Haven't seen any discussion of Ohio yet.  I was looking at the state constitution's requirements for house and senate districts and I believe that they are impossible to fulfill. 

http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/constitution.cfm?Part=11

Any county which is over one house seat but less than one senate seat is required to be kept whole in one senate seat.  Same goes for the "leftovers" from any county that has more than one senate seat - they must be kept whole.  Cuyahoga County has 3 senate seats plus 2/3 of a seat.  Lake County is at 2/3 of a seat, so it can't take Cuyahoga's leftovers.  This means Lake's senate seat has to go into either Geauga or Ashtabula only. 

However, Portage, Mahoning, and Trumbull are all bigger than one house seat and smaller than one senate seat - yet they are all too big to combine two into one senate seat.  Thus Trumbull, being hemmed in by the other two counties, also has to have its senate seat go into Geauga or Ashtabula only.  However, there is not enough population in Lake + Geauga + Ashtabula + Trumbull to support two senate seats. 

So... anyone want to tell me how a state constitution is interpreted when its clauses come into conflict with one another and with reality? 

[dpmapper]

Haven't seen any discussion of Ohio yet.  I was looking at the state constitution's requirements for house and senate districts and I believe that they are impossible to fulfill. 

http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/constitution.cfm?Part=11

Any county which is over one house seat but less than one senate seat is required to be kept whole in one senate seat.  Same goes for the "leftovers" from any county that has more than one senate seat - they must be kept whole.  Cuyahoga County has 3 senate seats plus 2/3 of a seat.  Lake County is at 2/3 of a seat, so it can't take Cuyahoga's leftovers.  This means Lake's senate seat has to go into either Geauga or Ashtabula only. 

However, Portage, Mahoning, and Trumbull are all bigger than one house seat and smaller than one senate seat - yet they are all too big to combine two into one senate seat.  Thus Trumbull, being hemmed in by the other two counties, also has to have its senate seat go into Geauga or Ashtabula only.  However, there is not enough population in Lake + Geauga + Ashtabula + Trumbull to support two senate seats. 

So... anyone want to tell me how a state constitution is interpreted when its clauses come into conflict with one another and with reality? 

You have to draw the House seats first, and then create the senate seats.  The constitution does not require smaller counties to be kept whole, so Ashatabula may get split up in interesting ways.

Otherwise, I think the redistricting board could choose to have 2 senate districts go outside of Cuyahoga County or to split Lake County.

I understand that the senate seats are supposed to be comprised of house seats, and that Geauga and/or Ashtabula may be split.  It's still impossible to be in 100% compliance, for the reasons I described. 

My question is, how is the board supposed to decide which of the provisions are bendable and which are not? 

[dpmapper]

I suppose I could... but it would basically require the same sort of textual explanation to know what was going on.  And the point of my post was not to ask *whether* the constitution requires an impossibility, but to ask the legal question of what the requirements are if it does.  Does the Ohio Supreme Court get to decide what comes "closest" to fulfilling the requirements, does the entire clause become ignorable, do earlier sentences within the clause take precedence over later sentences? 

[dpmapper]

I would draw 11 whole house districts in Cuyahoga and 2 in Lake, and then draw two additional districts (Ashtabula .871, Lake .023, Geauga .081), and (Geauga .720, Cuyahoga .256).   The fractions are relative to the ideal district population of 116,530.

The 15 districts would average .9754 of the ideal population, or 1/2 of the allowed deviation.

When challenged, I would argue that § 11.08 only sets a minimum number of whole districts in Cuyahoga and Lake, and does not prevent creation of another.   If Cuyahoga had 1754 more people, it would be entitled to 11 whole districts plus a fraction; and there is nothing that says the whole districts use up the exact whole-district entitlement.

This plan would totally comply with the spirit of the constitution, since the remnant of the population of Lake and Cuyahoga counties are contained in a single house district.

A variant would keep Lake in 2 districts, and take the bare minimum from Cuyahoga to get Geauga + Ashtabula up to the equivalent of 0.95x2 population (about 26,000), and form the remainder of Cuyahoga into 11 districts.

Agreed.  Creating compliant house districts is relatively easy, especially with the 5% leeway.  It's making sure you can combine them into legal senate districts that is hard. 

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Dividing Portage, you mean.  I guess that's a reasonable application of the principles - if you have to violate the constitution, do so by dividing the smallest county possible. 

[dpmapper]

jimrtex put it well.  I'd quibble with one thing, which is that Cuyahoga's excess could theoretically be paired with Medina.  If the first 10 house districts in Cuyahoga are drawn 5% larger than average, then they take up 10.5; the remaining ~.5 of a district can be paired with Medina's .5 excess.  Then one full Cuyahoga district, one full Medina district, and the Cuyahoga/Medina split district will make one Senate seat.  Not that this solves the Lake/Trumbull problem, though. 

If I were the GOP I'd go to the court *before* drawing any maps and ask them to decide which clauses take precedence, and how.  That way you get rid of all uncertainty and Democrats don't get to pick and choose their arguments. 

[dpmapper]

OK, here's a first draft of a GOP gerrymander in which the only constitutional violation is that Portage will be in two separate senate districts. 

Orange Cleveland blob is 6 house seats which will be turned into 2 senate seats, all safe Dem. 

Blue/Purple/Green are 3 house seats, to be turned into 1 senate seat, all various degrees of lean GOP.  Blue is 50.7-48.3 Obama, and basically did not change from its current incarnation.  Purple is 48.6-50.1 Obama-McCain.  Green is 52.0-46.5 Obama-McCain. 

Teal seat in east Cuyahoga is 58.2-41.0 Obama-McCain.  Whoever had that seat for the GOP is probably screwed; apologies (unless they lived in the part that got sliced off and put into the green seat).  The cyan seat that snakes from Cleveland down the west side of Akron is 50.0-48.7 O-M.  The bronze Akron suburbs seat is 47.1-51.7 O-M.  These three seats together (which are barely contiguous by going all the way around Akron!) form one senate seat which is a very slight GOP lean at 51.8% Obama - which might not be that different from the current Summit-only GOP-held senate seat but that's just a guess.  In the middle of Summit county in bluish gray is one senate seat to be divided into 3 house seats (probably 2 of which will be solid Dem and 1 at a very slight lean Dem - I think I can get one at 53.9% Obama). 

All of the aforementioned house seats are 4%+ above ideal. 

The aquamarine Geauga-Portage seat is safe GOP at 54.6% McCain.  It gets matched with the two Lake County districts (not drawn; probably one is lean GOP and one is a toss-up) for a lean GOP senate seat. 

The purple Geauga-Ashtabula seat is lean GOP at 51.2-46.9 O-M.  Probably a better seat for the GOP Ashtabula rep than his current one.  The grey Ashtabula-Trumbull district is actually a tossup at 52.7-45 O-M (currently held by a Democrat) since I was able to stuff the pink district with Niles, Warren and Sharon.  These three seats form one senate seat that will be safe D. 

Red Portage district is safe D, and will be combined with the two Mahoning house seats to form a safe D senate seat. 

From here on out things are pretty easy to draw.  One additional benefit is that the Dem-held senate seat based in Jefferson County might be able to be made swingier since Republican Carroll County is no longer tied to Mahoning. 

Final analysis: Dems go from 11 in Summit/Cuyahoga to 9.5-10, though, and lose one Senate seat.  They also get a weakened outer Trumbull house district and a weakened Jefferson Cty senate seat.  GOP trades their S+E Cuyahoga district for a swingier district that's strictly South Cuyahoga, and makes one of their Summit districts a toss-up/lean D (although how strong their previous Summit districts were, I have no idea), but otherwise is unaffected. 

Now someone is going to tell me that I've placed 4 GOP incumbents in the same district...

[dpmapper]

I think you may get challenged under the VRA for creating all of the Cuyahoga and Summit districts at the upper end of the population limit at 4.2% deviation, and you still have not avoided violating the Ohio Constitution.  The districts to the east are 2.8% under, so you have a concentrated 7% differential.   It may be particularly contentious if you appear to have packed blacks into overpopulated districts.

The Summit-Cuyahoga house district, and the eastern Summit house district are not compact (Ohio Constitution 11.07(A)).  I'm not sure about the Geauga-Portage district.  Could the town south of Ravenna be shifted to the salmon district?  While senate districts are not required to be compact under the Ohio Constitution, it could be an issue under a VRA challenge.

Do the Cuyahoga and Summit house districts comply with 11.07(B) and 11.07(C) regarding splitting of towns and cities?

What happens if you simply put the Summit senate district in Akron and the southern part of the county, and then push the green district northward, making the cyan a simpler cross-border district, and the bronze district to the east or south of that.

Well, OK, compactness... but that's entirely subjective, and there are quite a few current districts that are almost as bad.  Similarly VRA violations are subjective as well.  It is true that the Cleveland and Akron black districts are larger than ideal... but so are the white districts.  

I believe I followed the township/city rules to the letter, but I suppose there might some splits that one could avoid with more cleverness.  

Re: your suggestion, I think the green district becomes very marginal for the GOP if it gets pushed any farther north and it might endanger the senate seat.  Meanwhile, exchanging south Summit for the Cuyahoga Falls and Twinsburg areas would probably tip the border-crossing senate seat into lean D territory.  So if that really was required I think the GOP would look to go in another direction.  

[dpmapper]

The contest rules include the following paragraph:

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You heard it here first, folks! 

On a related topic, is it just me or does the DistrictBuilder software tool really suck?  It looks pretty but I hate having to wait 15 seconds every time I add an area to a district for it to recalculate the stats (which I don't even use most of the time).  I'd have entered already if they just used DRA, but I don't think wrangling with DistrictBuilder is worth anybody's time. 

[dpmapper]

Not really.  I had decided not to bother unless their software improves.  But running with your numbers, it does seem impossible.  If blacks total 307.2% of a house district in Cuyahoga then you need to "waste" at most 7% of a house district of blacks outside of the two senate seats.  If your 4 south/west suburban house seats are 3% black each, that's already 12% "wasted" with one more seat to go.  Will shrinking the VRA seats by 5% each be enough to make up for this?  Seems unlikely...

[dpmapper]

Final Cuyahoga Map

The senate districts will be:

16, 6, 7
8, 9, Geauga-Ashtabula
10, 11, 12
13, 14, 15

Your second senate district doesn't seem to be majority black.  Did they change the rules so that it's only majority-minority that is required? 

[dpmapper]

Is your district 23 divisible into 2 house seats in one county and 1 in the other?  If not then this violates more provisions of the Ohio constitution than is necessary. 

[dpmapper]

I plan to split Trumbull in three parts, with part placed with Ashtabula.

So that gives:

Cuyahoga(1) 2 + Geauga-Ashtabula
Lake(2) + Ashtabula-Trumbull
Portage(1) + Trumbull(1) + Portage-Trumbull-Stark

I don't think you can draw a district that is 80% in Trumbull, 20% in Ashtabula, and yet connects Lake to Trumbull by going along the PA border and the lakeshore.   

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There's a lot more Portage in this plan than in reality...

[dpmapper]

That is an elegant solution, muon!  For extra credit, how do you adapt it to make it a GOP gerrymander?   

[dpmapper]

I plan to split Trumbull in three parts, with part placed with Ashtabula.

So that gives:

Cuyahoga(1) 2 + Geauga-Ashtabula
Lake(2) + Ashtabula-Trumbull
Portage(1) + Trumbull(1) + Portage-Trumbull-Stark

I don't think you can draw a district that is 80% in Trumbull, 20% in Ashtabula, and yet connects Lake to Trumbull by going along the PA border and the lakeshore.   

Splits wpuld be:

Geauga 801-Ashtabula 216
Ashtabula 655-Trumbull 362
Trumbull 426-Portage 368-Stark 223

These assume that I can get enough from SE Ashtabula, so as to not cut off the population along Lake Erie, nor a corridor down the Pennsylvania line.

And also that I can create the link across Portage, between Stark and Trumbull

Ah, missed that Trumbull would be divided 3 ways. 

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There's a lot more Portage in this plan than in reality...
[/quote]
That is because you didn't anticipate me editing the whole seat back into Trumbull.  There is no whole seat in Portage under this plan.

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Sneaky.   

[dpmapper]

krazen, that was my thought exactly for Columbus - make a packed Senate district and then add the most dem house district that remains to a senate seat outside.  I'm a little surprised you can't pack them even further into the 4 house districts, though.  

Here's my take on Cincinnati:



Butler + Hamilton = 10 house districts.  I took the reddest possible leftovers from Butler to help Hamilton.  Green, Blue, Purple districts in Butler are all 58-60% McCain and will obviously form a safe senate seat.  

The Yellow district is 54.2-44.8 McCain and hopefully should be enough to dislodge a Dem incumbent, it will get attached to two house seats not yet drawn (perhaps Clermont+Brown) to form a safe R senate seat.  
 
Cyan: 60.9% McCain, teal: 65.1% McCain, and grey: 60.3% McCain are all safe and form one senate seat, while the hole in the middle will be filled with 3 Dem house seats/one senate seat.  It might not be a VRA senate seat but I'm not sure if one is required.  If it is then the gerrymander might actually be easier to accomplish, since the city boundaries of Cincinnati will need to be breached by senate lines (and potentially, one could make one of the last three house seats a toss-up at least).   

[dpmapper]

Districts 94, 95, and 99 form Senate District 5. If necessary I will add the 1 precinct to connect that touch point. District 99 is 80% Democratic while 94 and 95 are 60% Republican. Tossup Senate district with a Democratic (black) incumbent.

District 96, 97, 98 form Senate District 6. District 98 is a tossup while 96 and 97 are 55 and 60% Republican. Safe R Senate district.

80% D plus two 60% R's is a lean D district, 53-47ish.  Also, are you sure there is a D incumbent?  The 5th district elected an R in 2010.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Beagle

[dpmapper]

Hmm, I suppose you are right.

Either way, Greene County is growing faster than Dayton, and more importantly, the Democratic primary would be dominated by urban blacks. It's a decent shot to hold the seat.

Looking back, I wish that Montgomery could be linked to Warren County, but it fits so nicely with Greene.

Beagle is from Miami County, so in an effort to keep him in that seat, I'd put the Montgomery leftovers with Preble and then make a Darke-Miami house seat (splitting one of them).  Added benefit is that these areas are even redder than Greene County is, and this puts the western/northwestern counties to some good use other than simply vote-sinking them.  I'll work on a map doing that. 

What are the stats on your Hamilton house seats, particularly 2 and 6? 

[dpmapper]

Drafts of Columbus, Dayton, and a tweak of Cincinnati:

First, Columbus:



Similar to krazen's plan, numbers are slightly more favorable: 

The puke green finger is 37% Republican, and will be attached to two outer county districts that krazen had at 64 and 60 GOP.  Still a likely GOP senate seat. 

Bright green in the NE: 54% Republican
Blue E/SE: 46.4% Republican
Purple south: 51.4% Republican. 
These three together are a very slight lean GOP senate seat. 

Orange west: 45% Republican
Blue west: 53% Republican
Magenta NW: 53.8% Republican. 
Again, a very slight lean GOP senate seat. 

So the GOP goes from having 3 house seats in Franklin to potentially 4, and has probably improved shots at keeping their senate seats, at the cost of weakening a senate seat in the collar counties. 

Cincinnati:



The yellow district is the same as before: 56.6% Republican, should be enough to take out the Dem incumbent. 

I noticed that the current map divides Cincy proper up into 5 districts (in fact, one GOP incumbent lives in Cincy) so there's no need to be too delicate, apparently.  My map only has 4, so it's an improvement.  One can unpack the western suburbs enough to flip one more house seat: the pink river district is now at 56.3% Republican.  The teal, grey, and cyan are still overly safe at 61.1, 59.8, 61.9 respectively.  The two remaining Dem districts are majority black.  Goes from 4-3.5 Dem to 5-2 GOP in the House delegation (senate stays 1-1 + a GOP leftover), and doesn't even need to use part of blood-red Warren County. 

Dayton:


Here's one way to do it. 

Yellow is 52.3% Republican
Pink is 50.1% Republican
Green is 60.9% Republican
Together this should be a safe senate seat.

Orange is a majority black, 20.9% Republican seat.
Bronze is a 60.8% Republican seat
and green up top (Darke, Mercer, and part of Miami) is 66.4% Republican.  Together this is a tossup senate seat. 

Currently in Montgomery there are 3 GOP seats to 2 Dem seats.  This endangers one or two of the GOP house seats (eviscerating one Dem seat) in exchange for making the second senate seat (Beagle's: the one that takes in inner city Dayton + the outer counties) quite a bit safer (but not safe) for the GOP incumbent. 

If the Ohio GOP decides that protecting house seats takes priority, then I'd unpack the bronze district a little bit.  Beagle still gets a safer district than his current one but it will be lean D strictly by the numbers.  One D house district still goes poof, and the other seats will be lean R at least.