Here is a possible scenario for redistricting in Oregon. I followed county lines and geographical areas as close as possible and something like this could actually pass the legislature.
CD1: PVI of D+4 – David Wu ultimately could have gone down in this configuration or barley squeaked by, if not in 2012 due to current events. I took out all of Multnomah County and added Tillamook County, which went for Dudley in the 2010 gubernatorial election. Dudley would have won this district by a small margin.
CD2: PVI of R+8 – This district is perfect for Greg Walden, it is a few points less Republican than before as the district includes east Lane County and Springfield. A tea partier might struggle if Walden decides to retire but this is still a solid GOP district for years to come.
CD3: PVI of D+26 – This district is even more Democratic than before and contains only Multnomah County and parts of liberal Clackamas County (Gladstone, Milwaukie). There should be no shortage of electing Democrats in the future.
CD4: PVI of EVEN – The district is a true swing district as I have eliminated Springfield and east Lane County from the district and added Jackson County and the the entire Benton County to it. As it stands Peter DeFazio would have to run against Greg Walden, but he could easily move to Eugene. Art Robinson would have possibly won in 2010 but would be in trouble in 2012 if it is a strong Dem year. A moderate like Rick Dancer would be win election after election if he chose to run.
CD5: PVI of R+2 – This district includes the entire Clackamas County except with the poor parts of Gladstone and Milwaukie, but also includes a more liberal Lincoln County on the coast. Scott Bruun would have won against Kurt Schrader in 2010, and is no longer considered a swing district.
Clearly very well thought out. But the legislature would never pass it, and Gov. Kitzhaber would never sign it.
the current OR-01 needs to shed voters, while OR-03 and OR-04 need to gain them. Given a split legislature, they could very well just make minor population corrections to the current map. Move the rest of Benton County into OR-05, have OR-03 take in more of Clackamas, and have OR-04 pull in some of the Multnomah portion of OR-01.
from a nonpartisan commission. Likewise if a computer generated it like the Iowa board this would be a likely scenerio.
For better or worse the current map neatly divides up the Portland area to maximize democratic strength plus it arranges CD4 is a way to divide GOP voters.
So given the lineup of players in Oregon at Governor & legislative levels I see no reason why the current arrangement of seats will change.
Glad to see you got the image HTML working. It can be daunting the first time.
Any redistricting plan that strives to divide counties as little as possible in Oregon only serves Republican interests. In 2008 Jeff Merkley was elected to the Senate while winning only 8 of Oregon’s 36 counties. He won a majority of the vote in only FIVE counties in the entire state (13.8%). Obama won its electoral votes by winning an actual majority in only 11 of 36 counties (30.5%).
I agree with the other posters that Governor Kitzhaber would never and should never sign this plan. It is basically an aggressive Republican gerrymander which strives to pack Democrats into as few districts as possible, using the guise of adhering to county lines to appear fair. I know you did not attempt to do this. However, when Democrats are able to win elections in Oregon by simply winning a very small number of counties it doesn’t make sense for Democrats to ever agree to a plan whose principal aim is to preserve county lines as much as possible.
And here’s what I came up with. It’s a fairly safe 4-1 (OR-05 [yellow] probably remains the swingiest, but it should be a bit more Democratic under this configuration) but it draws Reps. Wu and Walden out of their districts (Wu into Rep. Blumenauer’s turf, Walden into Rep. Schrader’s). If the Democratic establishment in Salem decides Wu is a liability (Suzanne Bonamici is spearheading the Senate Democrats’ redistricting efforts, and she represents part of Washington County) and the Republicans decide to punish Walden for being too moderate (potentially clearing the way for Ted Ferrioli or Chris Telfer – both members of the legislature – to win in OR-02), we could see a map like this. Scott Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun is also drawn out of OR-05, in case he was contemplating a rematch; that southern arm of OR-03 also serves to soak up the most conservative Portland suburbia, probably nudging the PVI of OR-05 a couple points more Democratic.
Drawing OR-02 into western Oregon is necessary because Eastern and Central Oregon together make up slightly less than 2/5th of the state population, but it makes a lot more sense to do that in the culturally, geographically, and politically more congruous south, rather than in the Willamette River Valley.
But there is a certain air of bipartisanship in the Oregon legislature as the GOP came close to tying it up. The Dems will not get as good as a deal as they did before with the current configuration. Under my plan, Dudley would have won the 1st District (133,517 to 129,029), 2nd District obviously, 3rd not, 4th District (53-47), and 5th District (roughly 55-45). There is no way by losing the governorship by under 20,000 votes that Oregon will only be represented by one Republican, not going to happen.
is what’s going to happen.
But yes, Oregon is gerrymandered to a small extent. a 3/2 split is 60%-40%, which is much closer to the actual partisan split of the state than 80%-20%.
That said, the lesson the Democrats should take from almost losing control is they can’t expand the map, not that they need to take one of their own seats off the table. Remember, they have to redraw legislative districts too, and shoring up Republican incumbents here is where they can throw a bone.