Ohio Legislative Redistricting

[jimrtex]

Part I: Cuyahoga County

HD-8 (was mostly HD-7): Armond Budish (D)  23.17 (was 24.99), 50.3% VAP Black: This combines the districts of term-limited Democrat Kenny Yuko with Democratic minority leader Armond Budish. It loses Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood in favor of heavily African American East Cleveland and Cleveland’s Euclid Green neighborhood as well as wealthy liberal Beachwood. I can’t imagine Budish likes being thrown into a more working class district instead of his old wealthy liberal one but he actually does lose some black% (Budish is white) so perhaps he doesn’t mind too much.

What are the term limits in Ohio, and how many more terms does Budish have?

If it is two years, he could get a pass and then be replaced by a black representative then.  If it is longer, then someone else who wants to be minority leader could provide some assistance to a challenger.  Is there someone like a mayor of East Cleveland who could run?

[jimrtex]

Part II: Northeast Ohio
Lake County
The GOP was also encouraged to make this seat as Democratic as possible because it has to be connected to two Cuyahoga County HD’s in a very safely Democratic senate district.

It wasn't mandatory to connect a Lake HD with two Cuyahoga HD in a senate district.  In fact, it violates the constitution to put the Lake HD in different senate districts.

But there is actually no way to comply with the Ohio constitution with regard to senate districts - both nesting house districts and not unnecessarily splitting counties.

So it comes down to a policy choice, maybe dictated by trying to keep a Republican senate district in Cuyahoga?

Geauga/Portage/Ashtabula Counties:

HD-76 (was HD-98): Richard Hollington (R) 66.22 (was 59.86): This district moves south into fairly Republican northern Portage County, mostly to try and make neighboring HD-99 more Republican.

This map appears to be chopped.

[jimrtex]

This map appears to be chopped.

Does this look any better? Maybe I need to make them smaller?

Yes.   Can you convert them to 8 bit?

[jimrtex]

Part III: North-Central Ohio


HD-57 (was HD-58): Terry Boose (R) 54.16 (was 53.27): Boose looses his arm into western Lorain County for a more Republican arm into eastern Lorain County. The GOP likely wanted to make use of the growing Republican pocket in the northeast corner of Lorain County, which is similar to the Republican-trending pocket in the northwest corner of Cuyahoga County. Boose also loses eastern Seneca County for population reasons.

Where is Boose from?   This seemed to be one of the more uglier districts.  Lorain and Huron make real good sense for population reasons, but couldn't you just keep southern parts of Lorain County with Huron?

[jimrtex]

Part III: North-Central Ohio


HD-57 (was HD-58): Terry Boose (R) 54.16 (was 53.27): Boose looses his arm into western Lorain County for a more Republican arm into eastern Lorain County. The GOP likely wanted to make use of the growing Republican pocket in the northeast corner of Lorain County, which is similar to the Republican-trending pocket in the northwest corner of Cuyahoga County. Boose also loses eastern Seneca County for population reasons.

Where is Boose from?   This seemed to be one of the more uglier districts.  Lorain and Huron make real good sense for population reasons, but couldn't you just keep southern parts of Lorain County with Huron?

Boose lives in Norwalk in Huron County, so thet theoretically could have attached any part of Lorain County they wanted as long it is contiguous, has population equity, etc. The reason why the southern part alone won't work is that there aren't enough people in just the southern part, unless you include Oberlin, which is like 90%+ Democratic. It needs to absorb some population center somewhere in Lorain County and the most Republican population center they could have chosen is Avon. So they basically said, 'screw how it looks, we're making it as Republican as we can'.

That makes sense for someone from Huron County, especially he would be much more aware that the eastern part of Seneca County was being lost (where I just see it as a slightly smaller area being divided into 3 districts).

The part that bugged me is that they had to split North Ridgeville to get to Avon.   So basically their compliance with the constitution was "it was "not feasible" to connect Avon to Huron County, and not cut off the southeastern corner of the county, and stay within popularion limits, without splitting North Ridgeville", whereas I would read the constitution as requiring such a split if there was no feasible way of staying within population limits and not cutting townships or municipalities.