North Carolina Legislative Redistricting
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Kevinstat
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« Reply #75 on: August 09, 2017, 05:31:33 PM »

It occurred to me recently that one could argue that Mecklenburg County should be colored white in those covers (including my Lamoreau 1 cover and your most recent one) that keep it in its own group but change the number of representatives in that group.  In terms of whether things are changing in a group other than the internal division of a group into districts, a change in the number of districts within that group is definitely a change.  That would help the change in Mecklenburg County stand out, as otherwise it just looks like Wake, Cumberland, Durham-Orange, etc.  Of course I'm not sure how many people are looking at this thread.  They're your maps, of course, so you can decide how to color in an 11-member Mecklenburg group.  Having an off-white shading (something kind of halfway between white and yellow) occurred to me, although to be consistent you'd want to do a midway between shading for the current overturned districts in that group also.  A lot of work for a single county.

I can visualize it in my head, but I'd be interested to see a map of the current cover (where everything is in yellow, gold (or whatever that color is) and green).
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jimrtex
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« Reply #76 on: August 09, 2017, 09:33:37 PM »

It occurred to me recently that one could argue that Mecklenburg County should be colored white in those covers (including my Lamoreau 1 cover and your most recent one) that keep it in its own group but change the number of representatives in that group.  In terms of whether things are changing in a group other than the internal division of a group into districts, a change in the number of districts within that group is definitely a change.  That would help the change in Mecklenburg County stand out, as otherwise it just looks like Wake, Cumberland, Durham-Orange, etc.  Of course I'm not sure how many people are looking at this thread.  They're your maps, of course, so you can decide how to color in an 11-member Mecklenburg group.  Having an off-white shading (something kind of halfway between white and yellow) occurred to me, although to be consistent you'd want to do a midway between shading for the current overturned districts in that group also.  A lot of work for a single county.

I can visualize it in my head, but I'd be interested to see a map of the current cover (where everything is in yellow, gold (or whatever that color is) and green).



This is color-coded like a Risk map, with the blue districts forming the 14-district 20-county group. The three BVAP majority districts are in darker shades. There is also a NAVAP majority district in Robeson.

Wilson and Pitt formed a 3-district 2-county group with one VRA district in darker green. And there is a 2-district, 9-county district in the northeast.

I don't know if that group 20-county group was ever actually drawn, but rather was constructed as the non-VRA districts were drawn around around the VRA districts. It appears that they tried to follow county lines when they could, but never were able to match up totally on county lines.

Stanly-...-Columbus has a population of 5.164 and totally contains two VRA districts.

Wayne-Duplin-Sampson has a population of 3.077 and totally contains one VRA district. Add in Johnston and it has 5.202 districts. You will note that the current map has two districts in Johnston and a tiny bit detached at the south, so it is essentially treated as its own group.

Greene-Lenoir-Craven-Beaufort has a population of 2.922 and totally contains one VRA district.

The only flaw is that this leaves out Bladen.

You could merge all the groups and add Bladen for a total of 13.731. But that is problematic since you have only provided for 13 districts. So you add in Pamlico, Hyde, Dare, and Washington (0.831) for a total of 14.548 which can be apportioned 14 districts, albeit with a large error.

You can see where the above proto-groups were blurred across Bladen, Wayne, and Beaufort.

The average deviation for the 19 districts in the above map is 4.1%. All the districts other than the Lenoir-Greene-Craven VRA district (HD-12), and one of the districts in the northeast (HD-3) have a deviation above +4.0%.

For HD-12 it is -3.9%. I suspect they may have had a hard time maintaining the BVAP (currently 50.60%) over 50% if the district were expanded to have a population comparable to the others (around 43% BVAP to add 6200 persons). In many cases, the core may only be around 55-60%, and the reason that the districts are so stretched out is to find areas with BVAP in the high 40s to keep the district overall to drop below 50%.

I think there is a systematic bias in the North Carolina Supreme Court Stephenson guidelines against smaller counties. That is where I'm going with the long essay about the application of the Stephenson guidelines.

Overall the standard deviation of deviations is 3.58%, which is quite high for districts which are supposed to have a maximum deviation of 5.0%.

For a normal distribution, you would expect 95% of districts to be within 2 standard deviations (7.16%). The larger and smaller districts are being squeezed in to get inside 5% limits in order to meet the simpified (dumbed-down) rangle limits.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #77 on: August 11, 2017, 05:14:10 PM »

This is a 6th plan.

It is the least radical that still keeps a large number of current districts. In particular it apportions 12 representatives to Mecklenburg and keeps all groups within 5.0% deviation. Thus, Surry, Johnston, and Pitt are attached to other groups.



Green Unchanged, no overturned districts: 22 groups with 49 districts.

Blue New Groups, no overturned districts: 4 groups with 13 districts.

White New groups, overturned districts: 8 groups with 16 districts.

Yellow Unchanged, overturned districts: 7 groups with 42 districts.

Overall, up to 71 (59.2%) districts may have to be redrawn. If we discount the six single-district groups that are in new groups, up to 65 (54.2%) districts may have to be redrawn. The Union-Anson group in the current plan has Stanly-Montgomery added. The current four districts can be largely maintained with some small adjustments for population. The Chatham-Lee-Harnett group in the current plan has Johnston added. Currently, a tiny bit of Johnston is added to Sampson, to get the population of Johnston (2.125) below 2.100. This represents about 2000 persons. A small area may be added to Harnett. To keep one district wholly in Harnett requires a Lee-Harnett-Johnston district, but that is doable. If we count the 9 districts in these two groups, as minor adjustments then only 56 (46.7%) districts need to be redrawn.

The switch from Onslow-Pender to Cartaret-Onslow would appear to require a massive eastward shift. But if you think of the district that wholly contains Pender and part of western Onslow, detaching the Onslow part, and the current Cartaret-Jones district, dropping Jones and adding a small part of eastern Onslow, then the two Onslow districts just need a medium shift westward.

Standard deviation assuming perfect splits of multi-district groups: 2.80%. This is substantially better than the Hofeller plan's 3.29%. That large of a deviation suggests there was not a good faith effort to equalize population, but rather merely pushing groups within the 5% limits.

Forced county cuts (9 total):

(1) Haywood. One fragment with Jackson-Swain, one with Madison-Yancey.

(2,3) Wilkes. One fragment with Alexander-Yadkin; one with Surry; most of county with Alleghany.

(4) Granville. One fragment with Person, one with Vance-Warren.

(5) Stanly. One fragment with Anson-Union, one with Montgomery.

(6) Robeson. One fragment with Hoke; one with Columbus; one entirely in Robeson.

(7) Lee. One fragment with Chatham, one with Harnett-Johnston. Alternatively, Harnett could be split in to, one fragment with Lee, one with Chatham-Johnston, and one entirely in Harnett.

(8) Pender. One fragment with Bladen, one with Duplin.

(9) Wayne. One fragment with Sampson, one with Duplin-Pender, one entirely in Wayne.

There are alternatives for (8) and (9), but the above provides for one district that is identifiably Bladen-Pender, one Sampson, one Duplin, and one Wayne, which is the most equitable to divide four districts among five counties (Bladen and Pender are the smallest).

Number of groups per number of counties (ie there are 14 2-county groups)
1: 12
2: 14
3: 4
4: 7
5: 4

There are fewer two-county groups than Hofeller, while eliminating the monster groups.

Number of groups per number of districts (ie there are 10 2-district groups)
1: 13
2: 10
3: 5
4: 7
5: 3
6: 1
11: 1
12: 1

The three largest groups are for the three largest counties of Mecklenburg, Wake, and Guilford, two of the five-district groups are associated with Forsyth and Durham, the largest counties that can not form single-county groups, and the third is only nominally a 5-district group.

30 counties are in 10 single-member, multi-county groups. All such groups/districts are consistent with the North Carolina constitution. There are an additional 3 single-member, single-county groups.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #78 on: August 12, 2017, 04:34:05 PM »

On Thursday a joint meeting of the redistricting committees adopted guidelines for redistricting (I think though they were in a joint meeting, that they were acting separately, and were just approving the same procedures.

Senate Redistricting Web Site Click on 8-10-2017 folder to see adopted criteria and proposed criteria that were rejected.

(1) Equal population within +/-5%.

The Stephenson court said that they were simply complying with federal law, but the +/- 5% is simply the dumbed-down version for lawyers and schemers. There is plenty of case law about going outside 5% to conform to legal requirements such as political subdivisions. Anyhow, this criteria is the reason for my latest map.

(2) Contiguity, including water contiguity.

I assume that it is now understood in North Carolina that point contiguity does not count.

An alternate definition was proposed that different areas within a district should accessible to commerce, and a member should not have to drive through other districts. I don't know how this would be practically enforced, and someone could object if they thought a district was too convoluted. Democrats probably don't realize that Republicans benefit from more compact districts.

(3) Districts shall be drawn within county groupings. Within county groupings, county lines may only be crossed as authorized by Stephenson and Dickson v Rucho. These decisions are as clear as muck, and they switch back and forth between "traversals" and "cuts". Looking at maps, I can figure out counts that are similar in magnitude to those cited in Stephenson, but it is unclear what is the overall being minimized.

If I were interpreting the constitution, I'd define a county fragment as an area of a county that is smaller than a district. County fragments must be assembled to form districts. A small county has one county fragment. Ideally, larger counties would have no country fragments, if they could have whole districts covering the county. Otherwise, they would ideally have one county fragment, with the rest of the county formed into whole districts. It is the additional creation of county fragments beyond the minimum necessary that should be minimized in delineating county groupings.

(4) Compactness. Reasonable effort to improve compactness. May use "minimum" Reock and Polsby-Popper scores identified by a law journal article. Reock measures the area of the district to the area of a circumscribing circle. A circular district scores 1.00; a square district 0.64; long skinny districts score lower. Protrusions may kill the score (e.g. a district that includes Key West, or dredging spoils in Toledo Harbor. The old NC-12 would have a very low score, since it had such small area relative to its length. Polsby-Popper compares the area of a district to its perimeter squared. A normalizing factor of 4*pi is applied so that a circle will have a score of one, a square a score of 0.78. Polsby-Popper is sensitive to irregular boundaries. If a unit square, has 5 meanders inward and 5 meanders outward, along each side, with heights of 0.1, the score will drop from 0.78 to 0.09. It will also be sensitive to natural features used for boundaries such as rivers or mountains.

From the wording of the guideline, it sounds as if the law journal article suggested a lower limit for reasonable compactness. The discussion involved what other compactness measurements are available. Maptitude has nine. It is difficult to produce a composite compactness score, so comparing two different versions of a district may be difficult since they by definition are equally compact.

(5) Split fewer precincts than current plan. For some districts, every precinct in a county are split, so this could be akin to "stop beating your wife between noon and three - on Fridays - of alternate weeks".

The alternative proposed limiting the splitting of precincts for reasons of population equality, and to forbid splitting of precincts for partisan reasons.

(6) Municipal boundaries may be considered.

Many of the criteria are written in a way that makes them appear as setting a standard, but no actually setting one. An alternative would permit use of "communities of interest, as drawn by the member"

(7) Incumbency protection. A reasonable effort may be made to avoid pairing incumbents.

(8) Political results and election data may be used.

(9) Racial data may not be used.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #79 on: August 13, 2017, 01:21:45 PM »

While districts are required to be within +/- 5%, there does not appear to any effort to actually hit the ideal population. In the 2003 plan drawn by the legislature after Stephenson 2, 65 districts (54.2%) have an absolute deviation greater than 4.5%, and a remarkable 39 (32.5%) have an absolute deviation greater than 4.9%. That is, almost 1/3 of districts were squeezed into deviations in the range (-5.0% to -4.9%, and 4.9% to 5.0%).

In the chart below, each buck corresponds to an interval of 0.5%, centered on the axis value. For example 3.75% includes districts with a deviation of 3.5% to 4.0%.



The 2011 plan is a little better, with 36 (30%) with absolute deviations greater than (4.5%) and 12 districts (10%) with absolute deviations greater than 4.9%.



This chart for 2017 is based on an assumption that whole county groups will be divided into equal population districts. Thus it more spiky. For example, 12 of the 20 districts in the -3.75% bucket (-4.0% to -3.5%) are from Mecklenburg County, which has a deviation of -3.56%.



If we use four buckets of 2.5% (-5.0%, -2.5%); (-2.5%, 0%); (0%, 2.5%); and (2.5%, 5.0%) the difference is dramatic:

2003 46, 17,  9, 48
2011 43, 23, 15, 39
2017 31, 28, 36, 25
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jimrtex
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« Reply #80 on: August 14, 2017, 09:31:53 AM »

Comment submitted to North Carolina redistricting committees.


Criteria 1, population equality, is both inadequate and too restrictive.

The NC constitution requires that districts have "as nearly as may be, an equal number of inhabitants". This is the target, what you are aiming for. The 5% limits, based on equal protection clause of the US Constitution, is not a target, but simply a suggested outer limit that a state might achieve when taking things such as counties into account.

In the 2003 Post-Stephenson 2 plan, 63 of 120 (52.5%) districts had a deviation of greater than 4.5%, and 39 of 120 (32.5%) had a deviation of more than 4.9%! Instead of the ideal population, the legislature was trying to get the worst possible score that would be accepted. It would be like a student who instead of striving for test scores of a 100 or at least in the 90s, deliberately tried to score 71 on every test.

In 2011, the legislature did somewhat better, but still had 36 of 120 or 30% outside 4.5% deviation. A reasonable, statistical, expectation would be half as many.

Whole County Groupings force the deviation one way or another. For example, the 12 Mecklenburg districts will have an average deviation of -3.56%, while the 11 Wake districts will have an average deviation of 3.08%.

Under the North Carolina Constitution it is presumed that each representative for a district (whole county grouping) will represent identical numbers of persons. An effort should be made to put this into practice.

Proposed addendum:

"Within a Whole County Grouping, the maximum deviation range shall be less than one percent of the average population for that Whole County Grouping. A map drawer shall provide written justification for any variation beyond this limit."

As a legal matter, it is the North Carolina legislature drawing the districts. While it might be expected that outside experts do the drawing, they are doing so on behalf of, ultimately, the legislature. The above would simply permit the legislature to adopt or reject the reasoning of the map drawer.

In the Stephenson cases, the North Carolina Supreme Court adopted the 5% limit, saying that this was a federal standard. This was simply the dumbed down version, given by lawyers to politicians who want to know how much they can get away with.

Federal courts have upheld occasional deviations outside the 5% limit when it is for purposes of an important state interest. One of those interests is adherence to county boundaries.

For example, in North Carolina, Pitt County could have two districts with +5.8% deviation; Johnston County could have two districts with +6.2% deviation; and Surry County could have one district with -7.3% deviation. Compare to the  current map, where a gratuitous nibble from Wilkes is added to HD-90 to make it "equal", or similar tidbit of Johnston is added to Sampson, so that residents of Johnston are not "underrepresented".

Proposed Addendum:

"Whole County Groupings may be divided into smaller Whole County Groupings with a deviation up to +/- 7.5 percent, so long as no more than six districts so created have a deviation greater than five percent."

Note: 6 districts represent 5% of the total of 120. If the district deviations were normally distributed with a standard deviation of 2.5%, we would expect 95% of districts to be within two standard deviations 5%).

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jimrtex
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« Reply #81 on: August 16, 2017, 07:28:18 PM »

The legislature will have public hearings at 6 locations around the state next Tuesday (or possibly telecast from Raleigh, with opportunity for comments at the remote sites). This suggests the maps will be drawn by then. The court order said that if they have maps by then, the deadline for passage will be extended to September 15.

Locations:

Hudson (Caldwell). Caldwell is a single member, single county district.

Charlotte (Mecklenburg). 12-district, single county.

Fayetteville (Cumberland). 4-district, single county, plus Robeson County to the west, and the 3-headed monster to the east.

Jamestown (Guilford). Jamestown is between Greensboro and High Point, and close to Winston-Salem.

Weldon (Halifax). Weldon is on the Halifax-Northhampton line, and the two counties form a one-representative two county district.

Raleigh.
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krazen1211
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« Reply #82 on: August 19, 2017, 01:40:42 PM »

What a great gerrymander.

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jimrtex
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« Reply #83 on: August 19, 2017, 11:55:16 PM »


It is interesting that the flaw in the Stephenson algorithm shifted a district (79) from West to East.

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krazen1211
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« Reply #84 on: August 20, 2017, 08:23:58 PM »

What a great gerrymander.

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Nyvin
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« Reply #85 on: August 21, 2017, 08:38:05 PM »
« Edited: August 21, 2017, 08:39:47 PM by AKCreative »

Going by 2016 numbers it looks like the safe dem seats in the Senate map are

3 northeast AA seats (3, 4, 5)
3 Wake County (14, 15, 16)
2 Durham (20, 22)
1 Cumberland (21)
1 Orange/Chatham (23)
1 Guilford (28)
1 Forsyth (29)
3 Mecklenberg (37, 38, 40)
1 Buncombe (49)

Total of 16 seats,  which is one more than they hold now, but that's just the vote sinks that are pretty much unavoidable using whole county groups.

The tossups in the map are probably 7, 9,  17, 18, 19 (meh...), 39, and 41.    A few others are probably lean R'ish, like 27.

Two of those (17, 18) are in Wake County, which is moving left at 100mph, so prospects there look really good.

This is an improvement for dems,  it was obvious this wasn't going to be a big win for them from the start.

The House map is too much work to go through now.

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jimrtex
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« Reply #86 on: August 23, 2017, 07:31:29 PM »

The redistricting plans have been put into bill form a passed 1st reading and referred to the respective senate and house redistricting committees. The House map is in a House bill, while the Senate map is in a Senate bill.

The Senate redistricting committee will meet at 2 PM Thursday (August 24), while the House redistricting committee will meet at 9:30 AM Friday (August 25). At this point, the bills are just shells with no districts specified.

The General Assembly is in session this week. The House tomorrow meets to consider overriding several of Cooper's vetoes. It is conceivable that the legislature will approve the redistricting bills in the next couple of days. The last court order suggested that if the legislature made the maps public, the deadline would be extended until September 15, but it now appears that they will simply meet the September 1 deadline.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #87 on: August 24, 2017, 02:08:31 PM »

It is going to be a tough sale to a district court that the new House map is a racial gerrymander.

There are 28 districts with a BVAP over 35%, but only three over 50%. Two of those are whole county districts that were not challenged, and are unchanged. The 55%+ district is in Greensboro.

55%+ 1
50%+ 2
45%+ 7
40%+ 7
35%+ 11

Note, the legislature has not released racial data. The above numbers are derived from census data (I used single race, non-Hispanic blacks; the legislature apparently has included Hispanic blacks, and some multi-racial blacks).

Under the current plan there are 25 over 35%, and they are highly concentrated above 50%.

55%+ 1
50%+ 17
45%+ 5
40%+ 2
35%+ 0

In a 35% BVAP district, if blacks vote 95% Democrat, they need 25.8% whites voting Democrat to have a majority. In a 30% BVAP district, they need 30.7% white support, and in a 40% BVAP district they need 20.0% white support.

HD-1 and HD-5 in northeastern North Carolina are currently18.6% and 53.5% BVAP. HD-5 was overturned. Under the new map they are 39.2% and 43.5% BVAP (both districts are now whole county districts). HD-1 was a 61% McCain district, and is now a (2012) 51% Obama district. In 2016, the new HD-1 was a 53% Trump, 54% McCrory district. HD-1 is currently represented by a white Republican, who likely will be re-elected but with a more competitive race.

HD-7 and HD-25 in Franklin and Nash are currently 50.0% and 15.7% BVAP. HD-7 was overturned. Under the new plan they are 40.0% and 24.5% BVAP, with HD-7 now entirely in Nash, with a Rocky Mount focus. HD-25 includes all of Franklin and the southern portion of Nash (closer to Raleigh). The new districts were 54% and 44% Obama in 2012, so there should be no partisan switch, but the two representatives have been swapped between the two districts, so it appears that both may be defeated.

HD-8 and HD-24 in Pitt and Wilson counties were 27.3% and 56.7% BVAP. HD-24 was overturned. Under the new map, HD-8 is entirely in Pitt and is 43.9% BVAP, while HD-24 is all of Wilson and 37.4%. The incumbents in both districts are from the city of Wilson, and are paired. The Democrats swept the entire Council of State in 2016, as did Clinton, in Wilson County. The black Democrat representative, Jean Farmer-Butterfield, is the ex-wife of Congressman G.K. Butterfield (NC-1). Presumably her name will be of benefit. The current congressional map splits Wilson County, so that Butterfield would not be drawn out of the district (the county is on the southern edge of the district). HD-8 is an open seat and should be an easy pickup for a black Democrat.

to be continued.





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Virginiá
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« Reply #88 on: October 26, 2017, 01:33:46 PM »
« Edited: October 26, 2017, 01:36:02 PM by Virginia »

Special master appointed to (possibly) help revise 3 Senate districts and 7 House districts in the new maps

http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Special-master.pdf

Rules are rules, but this happening seemed pretty obvious. Would be nice if they could just do this from the get-go. It is not reasonable to think that the same people (more or less) who gerrymandered the first maps are not going to try and do it again.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #89 on: October 27, 2017, 07:19:08 PM »

Special master appointed to (possibly) help revise 3 Senate districts and 7 House districts in the new maps

http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Special-master.pdf

Rules are rules, but this happening seemed pretty obvious. Would be nice if they could just do this from the get-go. It is not reasonable to think that the same people (more or less) who gerrymandered the first maps are not going to try and do it again.
Two senate districts.

Five of the House Districts are based on an interpretation of the North Carolina Constitution against mid-decade redistricting.

HD-36, 37, 40, and 41 are in outer Wake County, and HD-105 is in far southern Mecklenburg County. The claim is apparently that these districts did not have to be modified in order to remedy the districts more central to Raleigh and Charlotte.

If you take the four Wake districts back to the 2011 districts, then the 2017 versions of HD-34 and HD-49 will be underpopulated.

HD-38 and HD-39 would not have to be changed. There would be a block of unassigned precincts in north Raleigh, and a smaller block on the eastern Wake County line. HD-45 needs a few minor tweaks.

So HD-33 slides east a bit, followed by HD-11. HD-34 moves north, as does HD-49.

This might flip HD-34, and might possibly knock off the House minority leader in a primary.

"Please Federal District Court judges, and Special Master, Please don't throw me into that dummymander patch", pleaded the Republican legislators.

The legislature redid Wake County, eliminating split precincts and making the districts more compact, while not using race, curing the problem with HD-33 and HD-38. Maybe the court will require the restoration of HD-34 and HD-49.

The court had originally found problems with 28 districts, that is now reduced to four:

(1) HD-57 in Guilford County. The current map had three districts (HD-57, HD-58, HD-60) at just above 50% BVAP. It was understood that was a requirement of the VRA and the North Carolina Constitution. To get all three districts to 50% meant to balance the BVAP population between the three districts, including that hideous connector to High Point.

The districts are now 58.9%, 41.1%, and 38.9% BVAP. HD-57 is compact and follows the Greensboro city limits. The court apparently believes voters should be assigned to districts based on race.

(2) HD-21 Wayne/Sampson. It is not really clear what the concern is with this district.

(3) SD-21 Cumberland. This will be meaningless.

(4) SD-28 in Guilford County. See HD-57 above.

The district court is still smarting from being slapped down by the SCOTUS and is acting out.
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Kevinstat
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« Reply #90 on: October 30, 2017, 12:43:46 PM »

Special master appointed to (possibly) help revise 3 Senate districts and 7 House districts in the new maps

http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Special-master.pdf

Rules are rules, but this happening seemed pretty obvious. Would be nice if they could just do this from the get-go. It is not reasonable to think that the same people (more or less) who gerrymandered the first maps are not going to try and do it again.
Two senate districts.

Five of the House Districts are based on an interpretation of the North Carolina Constitution against mid-decade redistricting.

HD-36, 37, 40, and 41 are in outer Wake County, and HD-105 is in far southern Mecklenburg County. The claim is apparently that these districts did not have to be modified in order to remedy the districts more central to Raleigh and Charlotte.

If you take the four Wake districts back to the 2011 districts, then the 2017 versions of HD-34 and HD-49 will be underpopulated.

HD-38 and HD-39 would not have to be changed. There would be a block of unassigned precincts in north Raleigh, and a smaller block on the eastern Wake County line. HD-45 needs a few minor tweaks.

So HD-33 slides east a bit, followed by HD-11. HD-34 moves north, as does HD-49.

This might flip HD-34, and might possibly knock off the House minority leader in a primary.

"Please Federal District Court judges, and Special Master, Please don't throw me into that dummymander patch", pleaded the Republican legislators.

The legislature redid Wake County, eliminating split precincts and making the districts more compact, while not using race, curing the problem with HD-33 and HD-38. Maybe the court will require the restoration of HD-34 and HD-49.

The court had originally found problems with 28 districts, that is now reduced to four:

(1) HD-57 in Guilford County. The current map had three districts (HD-57, HD-58, HD-60) at just above 50% BVAP. It was understood that was a requirement of the VRA and the North Carolina Constitution. To get all three districts to 50% meant to balance the BVAP population between the three districts, including that hideous connector to High Point.

The districts are now 58.9%, 41.1%, and 38.9% BVAP. HD-57 is compact and follows the Greensboro city limits. The court apparently believes voters should be assigned to districts based on race.

(2) HD-21 Wayne/Sampson. It is not really clear what the concern is with this district.

(3) SD-21 Cumberland. This will be meaningless.

(4) SD-28 in Guilford County. See HD-57 above.

The district court is still smarting from being slapped down by the SCOTUS and is acting out.

How were they slapped down by SCOTUS?  Are you referring to the 2017 special elections in the redrawn districts being scrapped, or something else?
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BigSkyBob
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« Reply #91 on: October 30, 2017, 05:22:38 PM »

Special master appointed to (possibly) help revise 3 Senate districts and 7 House districts in the new maps

http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Special-master.pdf

Rules are rules, but this happening seemed pretty obvious. Would be nice if they could just do this from the get-go. It is not reasonable to think that the same people (more or less) who gerrymandered the first maps are not going to try and do it again.

But, they weren't accused of "gerrymandering." They were accused of using race-based redistricting.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #92 on: October 31, 2017, 06:31:09 AM »

The district court is still smarting from being slapped down by the SCOTUS and is acting out.
How were they slapped down by SCOTUS?  Are you referring to the 2017 special elections in the redrawn districts being scrapped, or something else?
I lost the long version, but see the SCOTUS decision in North Carolina v Covington.

The plaintiffs did not file suit until 2015. Their lawyers had pursued a similar case unsuccessfully in North Carolina courts. The lawyers had to recruit a separate set of plaintiffs to get around pursuing the case in federal court after losing in state court. In addition, the 2011 map had been precleared by the Obama USDOJ.

The federal court did not issue their ruling until August 2016, too late for the 2016 election. But then they ordered maps to be drawn for a 2017 special election - which would have the effect of truncating terms for those elected in 2016 even though the candidates and voters had expected them to serve two-year terms. The districts had already been used for two elections 2012 and 2014 without the plaintiffs raising a challenge.

My gloss of the SCOTUS decision is "your extraordinary decision appears to be based on the flimsiest of pretexts after a cursory and superficial analysis" But they remanded the case to the district court for their review.

The district court and Roy Cooper then tried to push the legislature into quickly drawing new boundaries (or more likely hoping that they would fail to do so, and the court would intervene like happened in Virginia). The legislature's lawyer had to explain that SCOTUS decisions are not final until published (about a month after they are announced). The plaintiffs tried to push the SCOTUS which refused.

The district court then had to issue a decision that there would not be special elections. But it then forced the legislature to hurriedly redistrict.

After the legislature met the deadline, the court found that they had largely eliminated the problematic districts (they simply ignored race).
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Virginiá
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« Reply #93 on: November 13, 2017, 08:46:03 PM »

Special Master Nate Persily releases new maps for districts ordered redrawn under NC redistricting lawsuit

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p5bEpSqEL1DXmip1HmIm18iRNNwjdJG2/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JKzvR3v-d-G5fHMnQXXKXXJY0Zy0GlxK/view
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jimrtex
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« Reply #94 on: November 14, 2017, 03:25:46 PM »

The federal court has not ordered any districts redrawn.

They're really skating on thin ice with violations of due process and state sovereignty, and appointing a special master who apparently has links to the plaintiffs.
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Kevinstat
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« Reply #95 on: November 18, 2017, 08:19:24 PM »

The federal court has not ordered any districts redrawn.

They're really skating on thin ice with violations of due process and state sovereignty, and appointing a special master who apparently has links to the plaintiffs.
I remember reading somewhere back shortly after the Republicans captured the North Carolina Legisalture that "We'll take 10 years of revenge" and then get a non-partisan commission or something, which is something they advocated for before 2010 (although to be fair the Democats were opposed to it when they had a majority).  There seems to be a lot of legal wrangling for just a few years of gerrymandered vs. less gerrymandered districts, which suggests to me that Republicans are no longer planning on ever giving up their ability to draw lines to benefit them, as long as they continue to hold the Legislature, which is likely if they get to draw the lines.  Does anyone here have any insight as to what the long-term plans of the Republican majority in the North Carolina Legislature are regarding redistricting?

Not that any of this excuses violations of due process and state sovereignty on a court's part, but it's tough to feel too bad about that if NC Republicans are trying to cement themselves in power forever.
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Virginiá
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« Reply #96 on: November 18, 2017, 10:43:09 PM »

Does anyone here have any insight as to what the long-term plans of the Republican majority in the North Carolina Legislature are regarding redistricting?

I don't have any special insight, but I don't see any reason to believe they won't do exactly what everyone expects, which is to never give up control without a nasty, ugly fight. Looking at all of the changes they have made and are still making to consolidate every last sliver of power (and they have done *quite* a lot..), those are not the actions of a party that would willingly give up gerrymandering after 10 years of 'revenge.' Those are the actions of a party that not only is greedy for power, but almost seems to believe their political opponents have no right to any power despite North Carolina being only a Leans R state that is highly polarized.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #97 on: November 19, 2017, 01:09:24 PM »

The federal court has not ordered any districts redrawn.

They're really skating on thin ice with violations of due process and state sovereignty, and appointing a special master who apparently has links to the plaintiffs.
I remember reading somewhere back shortly after the Republicans captured the North Carolina Legisalture that "We'll take 10 years of revenge" and then get a non-partisan commission or something, which is something they advocated for before 2010 (although to be fair the Democats were opposed to it when they had a majority).  There seems to be a lot of legal wrangling for just a few years of gerrymandered vs. less gerrymandered districts, which suggests to me that Republicans are no longer planning on ever giving up their ability to draw lines to benefit them, as long as they continue to hold the Legislature, which is likely if they get to draw the lines.  Does anyone here have any insight as to what the long-term plans of the Republican majority in the North Carolina Legislature are regarding redistricting?

Not that any of this excuses violations of due process and state sovereignty on a court's part, but it's tough to feel too bad about that if NC Republicans are trying to cement themselves in power forever.
Remember that the current lawsuit was not filed until 2015, after the plaintiff's lawyers (but not the plaintiffs) had lost the same case in North Carolina courts. The issues are not so clear cut as one would believe, especially when the VRA is involved.

In the Ohio redistricting contest, one of the absolute requirements was that there be two black majority senate seats in Cuyahoga County. It was impossible, if one respected other aspects of the Ohio Constitution, such as equal population, nesting of House districts, and respect for city, township, and ward boundaries. This was true even when you sorted all cities, and made a decision whether to add Parma or Lakewood to a black district. The NAACP was a sponsor of that contest.

North Carolina was also face with complying with both Section 5 and Section 2 of the VRA, which contradict each other.

The reason that the Republican took control of the legislature in 2010 was in part due to the Stephenson decision which required respect for county lines in drawing districts. G.K.Butterfield, now US Representative, but then a Supreme Court justice, dissented in that decision because he said that the US Constitution's requirement of drawing race-based squiggly lines obviated any need to respect county lines.

The Stephenson decision said that squiggly line districts should be drawn first, and then other districts around them. The legislature drew squiggly line districts to 50.01% black everywhere they could. The USDOJ did not interpose any objection. The North Carolina Supreme Court upheld the maps. It was later that the federal court said you could not set a target.

After the SCOTUS upheld the district court decision, the legislature redrew the districts, totally disregarding race. Of the 27 districts which the district court had found fault with, they apparently agree that there is no problem with all but four of them.

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jimrtex
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« Reply #98 on: November 27, 2017, 09:43:18 AM »

The district court has ordered a hearing on the special masters report for January 5, 2018. There is no indication whether they will make an actual finding in the case before then, which would permit the legislature to appeal or remedy any supposed faults.

Filing for 2018 is February 12-18, so it appears a sulking court may be planning to issue its order, and then order the special masters districts being used because there was no time for the legislature to change them.
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