Would fair maps in Illinois result in an indirect Republican gerrymander?

[Virginiá]

I was looking for some opinions on this:

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/8/30/1551530/-Illinois-Supreme-Court-blocks-redistricting-reform-initiative-Here-s-why-that-s-good-for-democracy

It is a long article, so here are select parts:

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What are your thoughts on this? I find myself torn as I despise gerrymandering, yet the reason I despise it is because a party can lock in majorities even when a majority, even large majorities of the state vote for the other party. In this situation, if Mr. Wolf is correct, fair maps could indirectly result in consistent Republican legislative majorities despite consistently losing the popular vote. That is not fair at all. It's like Illinois has only 2 options with the current election scheme: Democratic gerrymander or indirect Republican gerrymander.

Thoughts? What about proportional representation? And most importantly, is Madigan & friends actually going to address this? If they do not act first, "reform" will come from the people (or Rauner & friends?). Ideally, he should pushed viable reforms this cycle.

[Gass3268]

Illinois would be a great place to first implement proportional representation/mixed system at a large scale in the United States.

[muon2]

A neutral map would be very unlikely to result in a Pub gerrymander in IL. VRA decisions make it impossible to pack minorities to the extent required to get a Pub win with an intentional gerrymander barring a wave election. A neutral map would obviously not do as well as an intentional Pub gerrymander, so it would be less likely to give Pubs an advantage.

We had some threads on this when the data and maps came out in 2011.

edit: The article totally misses the genesis of the Amendent. It was backed by Rauner, but hardly originated with him. It originated in 2009 as an initiative of the League of Women Voters in the aftermath of the Blagojevich impeachment and followed the then recently passed CA initiative. That failed to get enough signatures. The effort was renewed in 2014 with somewhat revised language that lost in court. The 2016 language was crafted from the 2014 amendment with modifications based on the 2014 court ruling.

[Virginiá]

A neutral map would be very unlikely to result in a Pub gerrymander in IL. VRA decisions make it impossible to pack minorities to the extent required to get a Pub win with an intentional gerrymander barring a wave election. A neutral map would obviously not do as well as an intentional Pub gerrymander, so it would be less likely to give Pubs an advantage.

Would neutral maps result in frequent situations where Republicans win a majority in one or more chambers even while losing or possibly tying the popular vote for said races? This is sort of why I wanted to ask - an "indirect gerrymander" seemed sort of extreme, but given how densely packed voters appear to be in Illinois, the idea that Republicans would have a consistent advantage and thus more frequently win large amounts of seat with comparatively less effort seemed likely based on his assertions.

So are you saying Democrats would likely retain varying levels of majorities, but possibly be more apt to lose them in bad years?

At this point, I'm rather surprised IL Democrats have not put their own initiative on the ballot. They could even delay it until 2031, while also having the amendment prohibit further initiatives from modifying the process. Yes, it is scummy, but I'm just musing here. Someone in the leadership there had to have realized by now that at some point before 2021, those groups are going to get it right and get an initiative on the ballot. I do wonder how they could be so strategically inept after all this.

[DC Al Fine]

A neutral map would be very unlikely to result in a Pub gerrymander in IL. VRA decisions make it impossible to pack minorities to the extent required to get a Pub win with an intentional gerrymander barring a wave election. A neutral map would obviously not do as well as an intentional Pub gerrymander, so it would be less likely to give Pubs an advantage.

Would neutral maps result in frequent situations where Republicans win a majority in one or more chambers even while losing or possibly tying the popular vote for said races? This is sort of why I wanted to ask - an "indirect gerrymander" seemed sort of extreme, but given how densely packed voters appear to be in Illinois, the idea that Republicans would have a consistent advantage and thus more frequently win large amounts of seat with comparatively less effort seemed likely based on his assertions.

That sounds correct. If you look at presidential elections results, you notice that major cities concentrate large number of Democratic votes in a way that GOP leaning areas don't. To use your Illinois example, 2 million+ votes came from Cook County, which voted over 70% Democrat. Even in a 50/50 election, nowhere near that many GOP votes will come from 70%+ or even 60%+ GOP counties.

Since the GOP is so much less concentrated it tends to show up more in counties where they win 55% of the vote. This in turn suggests that Illinois itself is something of a Democratic pack. You can repeat this example across states with major metros. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean GOP majorities as most of these states aren't 50/50.

[muon2]

A neutral map would be very unlikely to result in a Pub gerrymander in IL. VRA decisions make it impossible to pack minorities to the extent required to get a Pub win with an intentional gerrymander barring a wave election. A neutral map would obviously not do as well as an intentional Pub gerrymander, so it would be less likely to give Pubs an advantage.

Would neutral maps result in frequent situations where Republicans win a majority in one or more chambers even while losing or possibly tying the popular vote for said races? This is sort of why I wanted to ask - an "indirect gerrymander" seemed sort of extreme, but given how densely packed voters appear to be in Illinois, the idea that Republicans would have a consistent advantage and thus more frequently win large amounts of seat with comparatively less effort seemed likely based on his assertions.

That sounds correct. If you look at presidential elections results, you notice that major cities concentrate large number of Democratic votes in a way that GOP leaning areas don't. To use your Illinois example, 2 million+ votes came from Cook County, which voted over 70% Democrat. Even in a 50/50 election, nowhere near that many GOP votes will come from 70%+ or even 60%+ GOP counties.

Since the GOP is so much less concentrated it tends to show up more in counties where they win 55% of the vote. This in turn suggests that Illinois itself is something of a Democratic pack. You can repeat this example across states with major metros. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean GOP majorities as most of these states aren't 50/50.

The most dramatic part of the current gerrymander is around Chicago. To fully utilize all of the Dem voting power in Chicago there are lots of fingers out from the city into the nearby suburbs. From 2000 to 2010 Chicago lost about 200 K in population equal to two house seats. The gerrymander kept the size of Chicago's delegation unchanged.



The flip side is that Dems are also concentrated in downstate cities like Rockford, Rock Island, Champaign, Springfield, and a lot of Metro East (across from St. Louis). The populations are small on the congressional scale but can dominate legislative districts. A neutral map that respects political boundaries would protect those areas, as the Dem map already does, so they wouldn't be washed out by the rural Pub counties around them.



In Chicagoland Pubs might have seats in excess to their vote share, but downstate Dems would get seats beyond their share. Keep in mind that in order to guarantee minority representation, there will be a certain amount of Dem packing in Chicagoland. The VRA would keep it from rising to a point that overly favors the Pubs.

[Virginiá]

@muon2: Chicagoland looks like a complete and utter mess!

Anywho, thank you very much for your input. I appreciate it!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's a good way to visualize this:



The blue is generally what's considered the exurban and outer suburban belt of the Twin Cities. It's heavily Republican and voted 56% for McCain vs. about 42% for Obama.

The red is an area in south Minneapolis. It voted 84% Obama-14% McCain.

The two areas in terms of raw votes basically cancel each other out and together all colored precincts are close to 50/50. However in terms of State House districts the blue has enough population for almost 11, all of which would vote Republican. The red has only enough population for two.

Yes there are plenty of other districts you can drawn in Minneapolis (and St. Paul) but point is at a 50/50 rate you're already starting at that much of a disadvantage. And overall that blue area has more population than both Minneapolis and St. Paul combined, so they'll never be able to outvote in a legislative election even though combining the two would give you an area that voted about 58% for Obama and 40% for McCain. Those are the only Democratic voting areas in the state, or even the metro obviously, but the point is clear.

[muon2]

@muon2: Chicagoland looks like a complete and utter mess!

Anywho, thank you very much for your input. I appreciate it!

As I said it's done to protect Chicago's power and insure a supermajority. Chicago had 21% of the state's population in 2010 which would translate to 25 out of 118 reps and 12 out of 59 senators. Based on street addresses Chicago has 28 in the House and 14 in the Senate, so those fingers matter.

The southwest Cook Senate districts 14, 15 and 18 are instructive of the technique. SD 14 and 15 are black majority districts. SD 18 is anchored in the white Chicago enclave of Beverly and Mt Greenwood. SD 14 and 15 would still be black majority and more compact if they took Beverly and Mt Greenwood, but that would cost Chicago a seat. So instead SD 18 stays white and stretches out to the burbs to get enough population. SD 14 and 15 wrap on either side of SD 18 to allow it to exist. The HDs are nested in the SDs are also string outward to keep 4 of the 6 anchored in Chicago (instead of 3) and avoid swing districts in the SW Cook suburbs.