Tag: Redistricting

This, Episode 8 of my never-ending redistricting series, is a diary of firsts. It is the first time I have covered three states instead of the customary two (the reason being that I was pairing a larger state with a smaller one, and this diary covers three mid-sized states), and the first time I have covered a state not expected to either gain or lose seats in the next reapportionment (Indiana, which should hold even at 9 seats).

Previous efforts:

Diary 1: Massachusetts and Texas

Diary 2: Michigan and Nevada

Diary 3: Iowa and Ohio

Diary 4: Georgia and New Jersey

Diary 5: Florida and Louisiana

Diary 6: Pennsylvania and Utah

Diary 7: Illinois and South Carolina

Jump below!

First, why these three states? Well, they are three states of contrast. Number-crunchers anticipate that Oregon will gain a seat, Missouri lose one, and Indiana hold even after the 2010 Census and resulting reapportionment. (I should note that Oregon and Missouri are both on the fringes; a slowdown of Midwest-West migration in the next year could easily keep both at their current sizes, preventing Oregon from hitting 6 seats and saving Missouri from dropping its 9th spot). Further, the map in Oregon is likely to be drawn by Democrats, in Indiana by Republicans, and in Missouri through bipartisan negotiation (Republicans dominate the legislature, but the Governor is Democrat Jay Nixon, and his veto authority should force a relatively incumbent-friendly map).

First, Indiana

As if the redistricting process weren’t already enough of an ego-driven, virulently partisan power grab in most states, Indiana makes it worse; even though the Democrats run the state House, Republicans are almost assured to ram through a GOP-friendly gerrymander. This is because Indiana gives the legislature two ways to go about drawing maps: the chambers can work together to pass a consensus map (since the Senate is in GOP hands and the House under Dem control, this would likely mean incumbent protection), or if one party has both the governor’s mansion and one chamber of the legislature, that party has the power to draw the maps regardless of who runs the other chamber. This is a unique provision, from what I can tell, and not one of which I particularly approve (why have two chambers if one of them can bypass the other by dealing with its own party’s governor?). But at least you can’t accuse the Republicans alone of abusing it; Democrats rammed through their own map in 2001, which a large part of why Joe Donnelly and Brad Ellsworth are now in Congress. Since GOP leaders in the Senate are unlikely to want a feel-good compromise after seeing the Dems get their way last round, I’m counting on the most aggressive possible GOP map in the state.

The good news is this: the Democrats have three marginal districts, and because of trends in the state, I believe the Republicans can only dismantle two. Who are the unlucky two? As I see things, they are Donnelly and Baron Hill. (I don’t remember which poster here on SwingStateProject originally suggested such a situation to me, but whoever you are, I now think you’re 100% right!)

“What?”, the astute SSP junkie is thinking. “Obama won IN-02 easily and tied in IN-09…why wouldn’t they go after Ellsworth, whose district McCain won by a modest margin?”

The answer is two-pronged: first, wrecking Donnelly’s seat is not that hard, even if Northern Indiana does lean Democratic nowadays. Dem votes can easily be packed into Pete Visclosky’s already-safe and very slow-growing district, leaving the 2nd District a lot more Republican and small town/rural-dominated. But in Southern Indiana, there is enough Democratic support between the 8th and 9th Districts that both cannot reasonably be cracked. Between Obama nearly winning the 9th, and doing respectably in the 8th, an effective gerrymander will ruin Dem chances in one seat while packing blue-leaning counties into the other. The reason for solidifying Ellsworth and targeting Hill? Ellsworth has a proven track record of hugely over-performing the Democratic base vote, while Hill’s bipartisan popularity is less established. That, and many of the Dem-friendly cities in the region (Terre Haute, Evansville, Bloomington) fit better geographically in the 8th. I believe Republicans see Ellsworth as more capable of surviving an unfriendly map than Hill, which is why they will do the unthinkable by effectively ceding (for the next few cycles, anyway, or as long as Indiana remains a closely-divided state) the famed Bloody 8th to the Democrats.

Here’s what I see in the cards:

District 1 – Pete Visclosky (D-Merrillville) — with all of Lake and Porter Counties, and nearly half of LaPorte, this is a quintessential Democratic seat along the lakeshore.

District 2 – Joe Donnelly (D-Granger) — outside of Dem-leaning St. Joseph County being intact, there’s little for Donnelly to like about this district. The Obama vote is still probably in the mid-40s here, but no doubt this is would be a Republican seat in most election cycles. Donnelly should take a serious look at statewide office if he gets dealt a hand like this.

District 3 – Mark Souder (R-Fort Wayne) — solid GOP seat centered on Allen County.

District 4 – Steve Buyer (R-Monticello) — I thought of diluting this hyper-GOP district a bit to hurt Ellsworth but realized that the lines would start to get bizarre and that, as mentioned in the intro, there are too many Democrats in western and southern Indiana to be cracked up without influencing at least one district.

District 5 – Dan Burton (R-Indianapolis) — I think the current lines in this district are silly and prefer my more compact version, still safely Republican but not so “stretchy”.

District 6 – Mike Pence (R-Columbus) — to help the odious Pence just a tad (he doesn’t need much), I gave Obama-supporting Madison County to Burton to split up the swingy/moderately Dem-friendly Anderson/Muncie/Richmond area between two GOP districts.

District 7 – André Carson (D-Indianapolis) — entirely within Marion County, as before, and still strongly Democratic.

District 8 – Brad Ellsworth (D-Evansville) — all Ellsworth seems to need to win easily is the combined electoral power of Terre Haute and Evansville, so putting on my bizarro world GOP thinking cap, knowing that it would be easier to dislodge Hill, I attempted to give Ellsworth an actual Democratic seat, one that would have voted for Obama. The coup de grâce, both for packing the 8th with Democrats and for cracking the 9th, was the addition of Monroe County (Bloomington) with its Obama-crazed college students. For a Republican mapmaker, making Ellsworth Congressman-for-life is a small price to pay for winning back the 9th (possibly with Mr. Déjà Vu himself, Mike Sodrel).

District 9 – Baron Hill (D-Seymour) — He is likely toast as these lines are drawn, since his tougher battles (2002, 2004, 2006) were all made or broken by Dem GOTV in Bloomington. While the district lacked Bloomington back in its 1990s iteration, southeast Indiana was also very accustomed to Lee Hamilton back then, and Hill was clearly the beneficiary of some lingering Hamilton popularity both in 1998 and 2000. As for this take on the 9th, a couple of its Ohio River counties are traditionally Democratic, but the district is more rural and conservative than ever before, so conditions would be just right for Sodrel to finally triumph after losing three of his last four races against the venerable Hill. With a district this unfriendly, Hill might also consider statewide office. He ran respectably against Dan Coats in 1990…and Richard Lugar will be 80 years old in 2012. I’m just saying!

While this map is bad from a Dem standpoint, its worst possible scenario is a 6-3 GOP edge, not as bad as the 7-2 delegation seen between 2004 and 2006. Back then we fretted about the real possibility of 8-1, given Julia Carson’s repeated underwhelming performance in the 7th…thanks to Indianapolis turning deep blue and most of southern Indiana moving into swing territory (with some clear Democratic strongholds), 6-3 seems bad in the context of Indiana circa 2009. So, from a broad perspective, Obama genuinely changed the game for the Democratic Party in Hoosierland. And who knows…by 2012, maybe even this unfriendly version of the 2nd District could be held.

Missouri

With a GOP legislature and a Dem Governor, this is an entirely different story. The Show Me State should shed a seat if projections are accurate, but actually surprised demographers a bit by growing sufficiently between 2007 and 2008 to regain a notional loss from 2006. So it wouldn’t be too odd if Missouri rebounded enough before the 2010 Census to barely hang on to that 9th seat, possibly depriving a state like Oregon, Washington, North Carolina, or Texas from adding another.

The real question for me was which districts to combine. With power balanced between the parties, it was obvious that one Republican and one Democrat had to face off in a “fair fight” district, leading to an obvious solution: a suburban St. Louis seat forcing Todd Akin (R) and Russ Carnahan (D) together. I tried to draw a district that would be as close to 50-50 as possible for this purpose, knowing the legislature won’t draw anything too friendly for Carnahan’s south-of-the-city base, and that Gov. Nixon would balk at a map too heavy in Akin’s northern suburbs.

The other problem in Missouri was what to do with Ike Skelton’s (D) heavily Republican district spanning the rural areas between Kansas City and Columbia. I figured that a bipartisan plan means incumbent protection, and the Democrats know Skelton will be 81 when the 113th Congress convenes and is not far from retirement. I thus drew a swing district stretching from the close-in Kansas City suburbs to college town Columbia that would not only easily reelect Skelton, but provide a future Dem with a decent shot at holding the 4th District.

I do have one question, though, about this: Missouri redistricting authority was split in 2001, with a Democratic Governor and House, and a narrowly GOP-controlled Senate. Bipartisan plans almost always help incumbents; why on earth didn’t Skelton get a stronger district then? Perhaps mapmakers knew he would be around for the duration of the decade, and didn’t care to gerrymander more friendly territory for future insurance?

Anyway, other than eliminating a St. Louis seat and shoring up the 4th, this map doesn’t do a lot else of interest. As a result of Blaine Luetkemeyer’s inconvenient choice of residence in Miller County, and Ike Skelton’s wholesale capture of Boone County, the 6th is unaesthetic, but the other districts are reasonably shaped.

District 1 – William “Lacy” Clay, Jr. (D-St. Louis) — all of the city of St. Louis as well as 39% of St. Louis County. VRA-protected as a black-majority seat, so if my lines don’t fit those guidelines, ignore them and assume I preserved an African-American majority here.

District 2 – Todd Akin (R-Town and Country) vs. Russ Carnahan (D-St. Louis) — I realize Carnahan lives in St. Louis itself, but compactness suggests keeping the city whole in District 1, so he’d do well to move to the county. The remaining 61% of decidedly Democratic St. Louis County is here, along with 37% of Akin-friendly St. Charles, so clearly I was aiming for a swing seat either man could win.

District 3 – Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-St. Elizabeth) — the loss of Dem-leaning Boone County is counteracted by the addition of most of Jefferson County, but overall the district favors a Republican, ideally from the greater St. Louis area.

District 4 – Ike Skelton (D-Lexington) — you can’t imagine what it took to get a swing seat out of this territory without violating population equality laws! I don’t know why legislators didn’t try to protect the 4th for future Democrats back in 2001, but with Skelton’s exit from Capitol Hill just a cycle or two away, now is the time to dramatically reshape the 4th’s boundaries, whether the rurally inclined Armed Services chairman likes it or not. Between the competitive counties north of Kansas City and the Dem base in Columbia, this district could actually be held when Skelton retires, unlike the current Charlie Stenholm-like rural monstrosity he represents. If Skelton announces his retirement ahead of redistricting in 2011-12, there’s actually a good chance the district will be eliminated entirely, but without that foresight I had to attempt a genuine shoring-up.

District 5 – Emanuel Cleaver (D-Kansas City) — I’m proud that I was able to help “blueify” the 4th while respecting the ideal of compactness in putting Jackson County whole in the 5th. It would have been a lazy solution to split Kansas City itself between the districts, and so I did otherwise, while still moving the 4th’s PVI a good 10 points more Democratic.

District 6 – Sam Graves (R-Tarkio) — because Skelton picks up its Kansas City burbs, this is now a big blob of rural Missouri goodness, as heavily Republican as ever.

District 7 – Roy Blunt (R-Strafford) or his 2010 replacement — still the heavily evangelical southwest Missouri seat, the most conservative district in the state.

District 8 – Jo Ann Emerson (R-Cape Girardeau) — other than a couple exurban St. Louis-area counties, this district is dominated by small towns and is safely Republican.

So there would be four safe Republican seats, two safe Democratic seats, and two swing seats (one of them safe for an incumbent Democrat as long as he chooses to run). Believe it or not, this is probably the closest thing to a Dem-friendly map one could get from today’s Missouri legislature.

Finally, Oregon

While Democrats must defend the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature in 2010, observers tend to agree that they have the upper hand to retain the monopoly heading into redistricting, giving them the opportunity to decide how to configure the state’s likely new seat. The only problem is that Dem strength is already more or less maximized, with a lopsided 4-1 delegation in a 57-40 Obama state.

Is it realistic to try for 5-1, or should Democrats aim to protect what they have and concede a likely 4-2 split? I initially thought that the latter solution was inescapable, but upon crunching the numbers myself, concluded that it was possible (if risky) to carve five Dem-leaning seats and one ultra-Republican district.

Under my plan, one of the five seats could, however, easily switch to the GOP in an unfriendly election cycle. In a downright terrible year like 1994, two easily would. But in a generic stalemate election year, a 1998 or 2000 sort of situation, and certainly in a Democratic wave year like 2006 or 2008, 5-1 would be the expected outcome.

I weakened both Portland incumbents, David Wu and Earl Blumenauer, to help Kurt Schrader and allow for the creation of a new Dem (or swing, at worst) seat based in Washington County. As notanothersonofabush pointed out, diluting Blumenauer’s district may not have been the greatest idea considering his staunchly liberal voting record, but with a strong Portland base mostly intact, he should be okay under my map.

While Greg Walden would probably choose to run in the über-Republican 2nd I drew, I did choose to mess with him a bit too by putting his home, in heavily Democratic Hood River County, in Blumenauer’s 3rd. All in a day’s work…

District 1 – David Wu (D-Portland) — The 37% of Multnomah County included dominates, with 50% of Marion County serving as a secondary population anchor. I wanted to give Wu as diluted a Dem-leaning district as possible given the need to milk every last precinct in Oregon redistricting.

District 2 – Greg Walden (R-Hood River) — Move, Congressman, and get yourself life tenure in Congress under my plan. Medford/Ashland is the only obvious source of Democratic strength anywhere in this vast rural seat.

District 3 – Earl Blumenauer (D-Portland) — I’m actually a little worried about Blumenauer, one of my personal favorites in Congress, in this map. With 31% of Multnomah along with Hood River and Wasco Counties, he should have enough of a Dem base to win, but might he be too progressive for this district? Splitting Portland three ways was meant to “spread the love” and help Schrader, while splitting the more conservative areas around Salem was meant to do the opposite (“share the pain” to lessen its influence), but have I diluted Democratic numbers out of Multnomah too much to give them power in all three districts?

District 4 – Pete DeFazio (D-Springfield) — Lane County is intact and the conservative reaches of southern Oregon are gone; even the solid liberal that seeks to succeed DeFazio some years down the road will be safe here.

District 5 – Kurt Schrader (D-Canby) — oddly, I probably made it safer than Blumenauer’s district by drawing a district for Schrader that stretches from Lincoln County/Corvallis to Portland. Knowing what I know now, I might not have gone so out of my way to shore up the 5th and instead work to prevent extreme dilution of the 3rd and its Portland base.

And the new District 6 – Washington County and 27% of Clackamas — this is designed to elect a moderate Washington County Democrat; it should be the swingiest of the five Dem seats, but with a narrow yet distinct lean akin to the 3rd’s. Oregonians will be more familiar with the local bench than I.

At the very least, this admittedly flawed map creates five districts that voted for Obama and one that packs McCain votes. But Obama performance does not necessarily equate to Democratic performance at the congressional level. The 3rd, and especially the 6th, could be disposed to a charismatic, moderate Republican in certain cases. The good news is that the entire West Coast from Puget Sound to San Diego has been trending liberal for the past 20 or so years and is getting less and less tolerant of even the most likable Republican candidates. Thus time is working against the viability of GOP candidates in traditional “swing districts” in a state like Oregon, and assuming Democrats retain control of the redistricting process, they will have an unprecedented chance to get aggressive in the Beaver State (even if the legislature deadlocks with the governor on forming a plan, the Secretary of State, Democrat Kate Brown, is authorized to draw her own map). So before too long, even my arguably marginal 3rd and 6th Districts should be out of reach for GOP contenders.

I lived in Oregon from 2006 to 2007 and still have ties to the state. I’ve been wanting to do an Oregon redistricting post for some time, but never quite got around to it. As there’s been a lot of call for one around these parts lately, though, I decided to try my hand. Here’s what I came up with:

Much more over the flip…

Methodology

I started by calculating the 2010 population of each county, as well as certain specific zip codes (especially in Portland). (As CDP’s are such an incredible pain to tally, zip codes are the way to go when splitting counties). From this, I determined that Oregon would most likely pick up a sixth seat as projected by the Census Bureau, with an estimated population of about 3,904,079. Assuming an even number of people in every district as with the 2002 map, the above number divided by 5 is 780,816 – way too many for one district. Divided by 6, however, it yields a very comfortable 650,680. I therefore decided to use this number as a population goal for each district. I then used dKos’s nifty electoral scoreboard tool to calculate new, post-2008 PVIs at the county level.

The good news is that Oregon is definitely trending our way, and with the Dems likely to still be in control of the redistricting trifecta, we’re going to end up with a pretty good map here. As Texas-style spaghetti gerrymandering is frowned upon and I otherwise didn’t have enough solidly Democratic population to make five safe D districts, I focused on incumbent protection first, while trying to make the extra district as swingy as possible.

The Districts

OR-01 (incumbent David Wu, D):

County	Pop. In District	% In District	O	M	K	B	PVI
Clackamas	1,300	.03%	54	44	49	50	D +1
Multnomah	87,677	12%	77	21	72	27	D +24
Washington	561,703	100%	60	38	53	47	D +7

This district more than any other resembles its old form, only much more compressed to account for Washington County’s 17.3% growth between 2000 and 2007. This OR-01 is still based in the west Portland suburbs, including all of Washington County. The major difference is that it’s had to lose all of the exburban and coastal areas of the old district, and instead picks up more of the city itself. While the old district only extended far enough into the city to conveniently incorporate the neighborhood of a certain Representative David Wu, this district includes all of Portland’s southwest corner up to the Columbia River, including the outlying gentrified areas bordering Washington County, inward to the downtown core. I also put in most of Lloyd Center from just across the river to make my totals even, and added the tiny (and statistically negligible) bit of the city of Tualatin that’s technically in Clackamas County.

Overall, this already safe district picks up even more friendly territory. As an added bonus, there’s basically no GOP bench here at all. I could only find three current Republican officeholders in the whole of Washington County, and they’d all be hard-pressed to get over 40% in a general election. By contrast, the Democratic bench in addition to Wu is ridiculously strong, including State Senate Majority Leader Richard Devlin, State House Majority Leader Mary Nolan, State Rep. David Edwards, 8 other state legislators, and pretty much anyone else who wants to run as a Democrat. I would hope that one of them would primary the frankly unimpressive Wu, but unfortunately that probably won’t happen Either way, Wu is now completely safe from the already improbable chance of losing his seat to a Republican, and if Wu can hold this seat as is, his almost certainly more competent successor will be even safer. Safe D.

OR-02 (incumbent Earl Blumenauer, D):

County	Pop. In District	% In District	O	M	K	B	PVI
Clackamas	116,118	29%	54	44	49	50	D +1
Multnomah	432,534	60%	77	21	72	27	D +24
Yamhill	102,028	100%	48	49	42	57	R +6

Like the old OR-03 on which it’s based, this district’s core is in Portland, encompassing most of the city not in Wu’s district. The 2002 Republican gerrymander packed as much Democratic territory into this district as possible in a failed attempt to knock off Darlene Hooley. With Hooley’s retirement giving me access to some choice Republican suburbs (including her hometown of West Linn) I took this one in the other direction.

This district retains the north side of Portland and all of the east side except for a couple of neighborhoods on the Gresham line. It then leaves the rest of Multnomah County to Schrader, and dips down to vacuum up all of Clackamas County west/north of I-205. This includes some reliably Democratic areas (Milwaukie, Gladstone), but it also incorporates the wealthy, extremely Republican towns of West Linn and Lake Oswego. From there, I went southwest to the less Republican but still pretty annoying suburb of Wilsonville, then finished up with all of exburban, R +6 Yamhill County. Overall, I’ve created a district that will be Democratic enough to keep electing Blumenauer, while diluting Portland’s more Republican suburbs as much as possible.

With the addition of West Linn and Lake Oswego, this district picks up about a third of the old OR-05’s unusually large Republican bench, though the Lake Oswego/West Linn portion of this bench is mostly has-beens. There’s OR-05 loser Jim Zupancic and super-loser Mike Erickson, as well as State Rep. Scott Bruun, who lost the OR-03 Republican primary in 1996 and lost again to Blumenauer two years later. There are only two other Republican state legislators in the entire district, neither of whom is viable. Other than the fact that Lake Oswego and West Linn could spawn any number of self-funding multimillionaire wannabe jerks just like Zupancic and Erickson, there’s really not a lot going on here on the GOP side. By contrast, the Democrats have 10 state legislators alone, and, of course, House Transportation Committee Chair Blumenauer – now the most powerful member of the Oregon delegation – isn’t going anywhere. Safe D

OR-03 (incumbent Kurt Schrader, D):

County	Pop. In District	% In District	O	M	K	B	PVI
Clackamas	276,893	71%	54	44	49	50	D +1
Hood River	21,424	100%	64	33	57	42	D +10
Marion	101,191	31%	50	47	45	54	R +2
Multnomah	200,721	28%	77	21	72	27	D +24
Polk	26,490	32%	48	49	44	55	R +4
Wasco	23691	100%	52	45	48	51	R +0

Of course, this district needed a complete redrawing, partially due to 2002 Republican mischief and partially due to the legislative consensus in 1983 that it was supposed to elect a Republican. With the Oregon GOP out of power and West Linn resident Darlene Hooley gone, this district can become a whole lot safer to protect Schrader.

The new district remains centered in Clackamas County and the eastern Portland suburbs, only without Lake Oswego, West Linn, and Wilsonville to weigh it down. It instead picks up the remainder of Portland, as well as Gresham, Troutdale, and the rest of eastern Multnomah County. It continues east along the Columbia River to take in solidly Democratic Hood River and R +0 Wasco counties, and also goes south to include most of upper Marion county down to Salem, as well as the West Salem neighborhood of Polk County. Overall, this is much friendlier territory than Hooley was used to representing. With Hood River and the bluest part of D +24 Multnomah counties compensating for Schrader’s lack of seniority and with Clackamas and Wasco counties rapidly bluing, there’s plenty of room to grow here.

This all, of course, is assuming that Schrader doesn’t lose his current, much less favorable district in 2010 (and really, if he does an even halfway decent job, he’ll be fine). Should Schrader be defeated, however, the Democratic bench in this new district is strong, including State Senate President Peter Courtney, Deputy Senate President Laurie Monnes Anderson, Senate President Pro Tem Rick Metsger, and House Speaker Dave Hunt, as well as seven other viable legislators (not counting Schrader’s wife). The GOP also isn’t short on potential candidates, including State Senators Vicki Berger, Vic Gilliam, Bill Kennemer, and Kim Thatcher, as well as disgraced former House Republican leader Wayne Scott and even more disgraced former Speaker Karen Minnis. The good news is that while almost all of them (except for Minnis and maybe Scott) would’ve been viable in the old OR-05, none of them have any special qualities that make them particularly likely to be elected in this new, more Democratic district. We can chalk this one up for Team Blue. Safe D

OR-04 (new district, no incumbent):

County	Pop. In District	% In District	O	M	K	B	PVI
Benton	81,917	100%	64	33	58	41	D +10
Clatsop	39,979	100%	58	39	55	44	D +6
Columbia	51,642	100%	54	42	51	48	D +3
Jefferson	10088	47%	44	53	40	59	R +8
Lincoln	45491	100%	60	37	57	42	D +8
Linn	118021	100%	43	54	38	60	R +9
Marion	222405	69%	50	47	45	54	R +2
Polk	55,549	68%	48	49	44	55	R +4
Tillamook	25,138	100%	53	43	49	50	D +0

Having accomplished my goal of making all three Portland-area districts Safe D, and wanting to keep Lane County (Eugene) whole to shore up Peter DeFazio, there wasn’t a lot of friendly territory left that wasn’t spoken for. I had to start with a major population center, and chose R +2 Salem, which is growing so quickly that it’s temporarily surpassed Eugene as the state’s second-largest city several times in the last decade. The problem is that, while modestly Republican on paper, in practice Salem is the crazy fundie capital of Oregon. I therefore decided to pit the fundies against a different segment of the GOP base by drawing in R +9 Linn County (Albany) to get it away from DeFazio. With these two population centers established, I packed in every bit of Democratic territory that wasn’t already spoken for, including the coastal Lincoln and Clatsop counties, the D-leaning Portland exburbs of Columbia County, and Benton County, home of Oregon State University. I also grabbed some of rural, R +8 Jefferson County to the east to meet my population quota.

This district on paper looks like it will elect a Republican, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it did at first. The Republican bench here is strong, including State Senators Brian Boquist, Fred Girod and Jackie Winters, as well as five other Republican state legislators. It also includes Oregon fundie leader and perennial political loser Kevin Mannix, last seen kneecapping Mike Erickson in the 2008 OR-05 primary. As the Oregon GOP is at its lowest point since 1864, a brand new, Republican-leaning Congressional seat is going to cause every kook in the district to throw their hats in at once. My hope is that, with so much desperation to advance their careers and with Mannix and his network of loyal sheep followers kneecapping everyone else, the GOP candidates will all annihilate each other. Meanwhile, though the Democratic bench in this district is very sparse, one name that stands out is State Rep. Brian Clem. Clem represents Salem, giving him instant name-rec with most of the district’s swing voters. He’s young, relatively progressive, grew up in a Republican town, and seems pretty likeable, giving him lots of crossover appeal. He’s the only viable Dem I could find here, but, on the bright side, if he runs he’s probably got the primary field to himself while the GOP candidates all nuke each other. Lean R for now, but circumstances might make this a D seat anyway.

OR-05 (incumbent Peter DeFazio, D):

County	Pop. In District	% In District	O	M	K	B	PVI
Coos	63,600	100%	47	50	43	55	R +4
Curry	21767	100%	42	54	41	58	R +8
Deschutes	175592	100%	49	49	42	57	R +4
Douglas	5,000	5%	38	58	33	66	R +14
Jackson	29369	14%	49	49	44	56	R +4
Josephine	3,000	4%	41	55	36	63	R +10
Lane	352,868	100%	62	35	48	44	D +9

Though the 2002 Republican gerrymander was, of course, worst in Schrader’s district, the legislature also made a pretty obvious effort to screw DeFazio by packing in more Republican territory here while swapping out some D/swing territory into Walden’s district. Though the joke was, again, on them, DeFazio won’t be around forever (he’s currently thinking about running for Governor), and the current district will be hard for any Democratic successor to hold. I decided to soften it up as much as I could with the friendly/swing territory I had left under the assumption that, after waiting 20 years for his subcommittee gavel, DeFazio will stay in Congress.

This district has two population centers – Lane County, which remains in its entirety, and Deschutes County, which comes in from Walden’s old district. At D +9 and accounting for over half of the district’s population, Lane County is the obvious place to start. Deschutes County, meanwhile, is the fastest growing county in the state, having expanded a whopping 33% between 2000 and 2007. This is because Bend has become a trendy resort/retirement town and is filling up with liberals – mostly Portland transplants who bring their politics with them – faster than you can say “gerrymander”. In just four years, Deschutes County went from 57-42 Bush to 49-49 McCain, and will probably be narrowly blue by 2013 if the current trend holds. Not putting it into this district would be nuts.

With the base established, the rest of the district was pretty much just filler, focusing on drawing in the least unfriendly territory that I could. While the old district incorporated all of R +14 Douglas County, this one follows Highway 101 through a tiny, sparsely populated sliver to get to much friendlier R +4 Coos County. Continuing along 101, the district picks up R +8 but small Curry County. It then runs parallel to the California border, picking up another sparsely populated part of R +10 Josephine County to get to Ashland, the last liberal town in the entire state left unaccounted for. Going north, I finished up by taking the remainder of my quota from Republican-leaning Medford, the only place in this part of the state with any notable population at all.

Overall, the Democratic bench in this district is strong, though disproportionately concentrated in Eugene. (Due to its reputation as a hippie bastion, most Eugene legislators would be DOA trying to appeal to the retirees and timber workers who make up the rest of the district’s population.) The strongest contender for a vacancy that I found would probably be House Speaker pro tem Arnie Roblan from Coos Bay, who has DeFazio’s populist bona fides but is unlikely to want to move up. Rep. Chris Edwards of Eugene is more of a wildcard and will have a harder time selling himself, but he’s young enough to be ambitious and I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran for higher office at some point. Also in the district are eight other Democratic State Reps. and six State Senators. By contrast, there are only two Republican legislators in the entire new district, neither of whom seems to be particularly distinguished. As drawn here, this seat will remain Democratic indefinitely. Safe D.

OR-06 (no incumbent, formerly Greg Walden, R):

County	Pop. In District	% In District	O	M	K	B	PVI
Baker	14,809	100%	32	64	29	70	R +19
Crook	24830	100%	35	62	30	68	R +17
Douglas	5,000	95%	38	58	33	66	R +14
Gilliam	1605	100%	39	58	33	67	R +19
Grant	6510	100%	26	71	19	79	R +27
Harney	6442	100%	26	70	23	76	R +25
Jackson	178296	86%	49	49	44	56	R +4
Jefferson	11406	53%	44	53	40	59	R +8
Josephine	80,488	96%	41	55	36	63	R +10
Klamath	66911	100%	32	65	26	72	R +20
Lake	7233	100%	26	72	21	78	R +27
Malehur	30,948	100%	28	69	24	75	R +24
Morrow	11669	100%	35	62	33	66	R +16
Sherman	1586	100%	37	61	35	63	R +16
Umatilla	74,814	100%	37	60	34	65	R +14
Union	25,644	100%	37	60	33	66	R +15
Wallowa	6577	100%	33	64	33	66	R +14
Wheeler	1338	100%	25	61	28	70	R +17

The token Republican super-district based on the old OR-02, this district packs in everything that’s left. Naturally, it’s as Republican as they come, with an estimated PVI of about R +18. Note that my population totals here are slightly off, but as it’s only by 652 and re-checking my math several times (even adjusting by 652) yielded the same result, I decided not to worry about it, as I’m not getting paid for this.

You’ll also notice that I don’t list Greg Walden as the incumbent, as he would be ineligible to run in this district. Why? Walden lives in Hood River, which I put into Schrader’s district. Why the Congressman for Oregon’s sole Republican district lives in one of the most Democratic counties in the state I have no idea, but frankly, I didn’t think there was much point in wasting a D +10 county here when it could be better used to help Schrader. Meanwhile, Walden has been chafing in the minority and has actively expressed interest in running for Governor. If he goes that route in 2010, his successor will most certainly be from somewhere that’s still in this district. Even if he sticks around in 2010, he’ll probably find something else to do by 2012. Either way, I’m assuming no Walden by then because his staying put royally screws up my map.

Of course, with or without Walden, this district will still elect a Republican. Its bench of viable GOP candidates is absolutely huge, including Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferroli, House Minority Leader Bruce Hanna, and State Senator and perennial nutjob candidate Jason Atkinson. The district is also the home of 3 other GOP State Senators and 9 other State Representatives, any of whom could want a promotion. Finally, former US Senator Gordon Smith also lives here. Smith, of course, is most likely saving himself for his 2014 grudge match against Jeff Merkley, but has the gravitas to play kingmaker in this race if he wants to. For all of his troubles in the rest of the state, eastern Oregon still loves them some Gordo, and whoever he gives his backing to will probably win the primary. Either that, or he runs for the seat himself, wins in a landslide, and keeps it for life, along with automatically becoming the most senior freshman Republican in his class thanks to his 12 years in the Senate. The good news is that either way, Smith is likely to help either himself or one of his golfing buddies over an anti-establishment nut like Atkinson. Where “more and better Democrats” just isn’t possible, saner Republicans will have to do. Smith’s crowd may be sleazy and disingenuous, but at least they’re not insane. Safe R

Conclusion

Overall, I think almost everyone can be happy with this map. Democrats will be happy with the new 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th districts. If Republicans can get over losing all hope at ever knocking off Schrader, they’ll get a brand new, much more favorable district with a strong GOP bench to the south, though it will also come with a built-in Kevin Mannix, and will only be Republican for the next decade or so. Bend and Ashland will be happy because they no longer have to be represented by a Republican, while Albany and most of Salem will be happy because they’re likely to be represented by someone more conservative. The biggest losers from this map are West Linn and Lake Oswego, which are increasingly drowning in a sea of blue. Given my personal experience with most of the people who live in those towns, I’m hardly sympathetic. Meanwhile, the only Democrats who might be missing out are the solidly Democratic but sparsely populated coastal regions, which may very well end up saddled with some awful Republican from Albany or Salem. On the other hand, they could still end up with a Democrat if the GOP candidates all nuke each other, and they wouldn’t be Republicans if they didn’t.

I think that in keeping with my knowledge of Oregon and realistic political and geographical considerations, this is a good map that accomplished everything I set out to do. If I’m unhappy with one district, it’s the new OR-04, mostly because it includes Linn County. If I were going tweak this again, I might try including all of Jefferson County in OR-04, swapping out parts of southern Linn County into OR-05, and leaving the entire city of Medford to OR-06; either way, though, it wouldn’t make much of a difference in PVI, so I haven’t tried it here.

If you’ve made it through the whole of this (incredibly long) post, feel free to offer feedback.  

Here is Episode 7 in my redistricting series. Episode 7 was meant to be Arizona & New York, but with NY-20 undecided and likely to be for a time, I thought it was time to press ahead with other states I’ve drawn. So here we have it: the Land of Lincoln and the founding state of the Confederacy, wrapped together at last in one diary!

Previously covered:

Diary 1: Massachusetts and Texas

Diary 2: Michigan and Nevada

Diary 3: Iowa and Ohio

Diary 4: Georgia and New Jersey

Diary 5: Florida and Louisiana

Diary 6: Pennsylvania and Utah

Jump below to read what I was doing at 3:00 AM last night!

Illinois

First, the basics about Illinois: the Democrats control the redistricting trifecta and, I believe, still will after 2010. The state should lose a seat for a total House delegation of 18; though the current slowdown in migration may just save the state its 19th spot, most number-crunchers believe Illinois will just miss out on holding steady.

With Democrats in control of the process, I got to draw my first bona fide hypothetical Democratic gerrymander for 2011. The first key was to ensure that the lost seat was a Republican one, and since this decade, it looks like Chicago will suffer the loss rather than downstate, I chose the ever-frustrating Mark Kirk of Highland Park. His district is cracked in this map between the new seats of Melissa Bean (D-Barrington) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston), both of which would decidedly favor Democratic incumbents. Kirk’s home would be in Schakowsky’s district, FWIW.

Knowing the dangers of overreaching or “getting too greedy” in gerrymandering, I don’t believe Democrats will or should go after every last GOP seat in metro Chicago, particularly with the need to protect Bean, Bill Foster (D-Geneva), and Debbie Halvorson (D-Crete). So I pushed Foster and Halvorson into Cook County and made their districts more compact/urban/suburban and less sprawling. While Obama’s popularity in his home state makes it very easy to put GOP incumbents in “Obama districts”, that kind of thinking all too easily leads to spreading Dem votes thinly and often backfires.

From this map, Democrats can expect a 12-6 majority, with an outside shot at 13-5. Which district did I soften up? Actually, Aaron Schock’s downstate…making his district more competitive was fairly easy compared to the tortuous work that would be required to dislodge Peter Roskam while protecting Foster, Halvorson, and Bean.

Voilà:

By the way, don’t pay too much attention to my boundaries in the urban Chicago districts; the granularity at this level is absurd, and I drew these boundaries crudely, since I’m using Paint and a calculator rather than any real redistricting technology.

District 1 – Bobby Rush (D-Chicago) — VRA black-majority, South Side.

District 2 – Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Chicago) — VRA black-majority, South Side.

District 3 – Dan Lipinski (D-Western Springs) — entirely within Cook County, working- and middle-class close-in Chicago suburbs.

District 4 – Luis Gutierrez (D-Chicago) — VRA Hispanic-majority, takes in the heavily Latino areas of Chicago, Cicero, etc.

District 5 – Vacant — the North Side seat should be rock-solid for Quigley or any other Democrat.

District 6 – Peter Roskam (R-Wheaton) — entirely within DuPage County, Obama-supporting but traditionally Republican. Believe me, as one of Tammy Duckworth’s most active volunteers in 2006, I would have loved to draw Roskam a district he can’t win, but couldn’t find a way to do so without endangering Foster and Halvorson, and in partisan gerrymanders, safety comes first.

District 7 – Danny Davis (D-Chicago) — VRA black-majority seat: downtown Chicago, Oak Park, Maywood, etc.

District 8 – Melissa Bean (D-Barrington) — dominated by its 64% portion of Lake County, but takes in 5% of Cook to help Bean a bit.

District 9 – Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston) vs. Mark Kirk (R-Highland Park) — the remaining 36% of Lake (including Kirk’s home base) and 9% of Cook (which dominates population-wise). With Schakowsky’s North Shore base intact and stronger numerically than Kirk’s turf in southern Lake County, I’d feel good about our chances in a match-up.

District 10 – Debbie Halvorson (D-Crete) — all of Will and a tiny, heavily black South Side portion of Cook is meant to protect Halvorson by allowing her to shed all that GOP-leaning exurban country to the west.

District 11 – Jerry Costello (D-Belleville) — the most Democratic downstate district, centered on metropolitan St. Louis and other traditionally Democratic areas like Carbondale. I caused a little mischief by putting John Shimkus’ home in this district, though I think he’d do well to move to the 18th since Costello would be a solid fit here.

District 12 – Judy Biggert (R-Hinsdale) — this monster reminds me of Lamar Smith’s 1990s district in Texas, designed to grab every possible Republican voter for the sake of Democratic incumbents in the area. This comprises the southern 23% of DuPage, 6% of Kane, 62% of Kankakee, and exurban counties DeKalb, Grundy, Kendall, LaSalle, and Lee, dramatically reshaping the district to remove GOP areas that would otherwise be represented by Foster and Halvorson. In a way, having one sprawling seat like this makes more sense than the previous incarnation that had Foster and Halvorson writhing all over the place in positively serpentine fashion.

District 13 – Bill Foster (D-Geneva) — 94% of Kane (Foster’s base) and 5% of Cook (to push his district bluer) = the likelihood of holding this seat when Foster retires.

District 14 – Timothy Johnson (R-Urbana) — other than Johnson’s native Champaign County, this could be the state’s most Republican district; if not, it’s nearly as much so as Shimkus’. Why make Johnson so overwhelmingly safe? Well, I was interested in weakening Schock a bit (or a lot), and it seemed logical to pack Republicans into Johnson’s district due to pure geography. Also, if I was going to help solidify a GOP seat, why not reward Johnson’s relative sanity compared to people like Schock?

District 15 – Donald Manzullo (R-Egan) — due to growth up there, Manzullo’s district becomes more compact and probably remains Obama-supporting, though I suspect it tilts quite Republican in most years.

District 16 – Phil Hare (D-Rock Island) — I’ve always disliked the current 17th and its embarrassingly gerrymandered lines, so sought to clean it up without hurting Hare. By losing its southern “Springfield leg”, it took in some normally GOP-leaning counties in the northwest, though the Obama numbers are probably better than before due to Obama’s superb performance in even exurban and rural northern Illinois. This is now something of a north-south Mississippi River seat, but should still favor a Moline-area Democrat.

District 17 – Aaron Schock (R-Peoria) — To hurt one GOP incumbent without rendering the must-protect Chicago-area Democrats, Schock was an obvious choice: he’s young, new, and rather obnoxious. This district still leans Republican, but is a heck of a lot more moderate, anchored by the Peoria area, Springfield, and Bloomington-Normal, with a small sliver of Champaign County. This district would have voted for Obama, and Schock would be vulnerable to a strong challenge from a conservative Democrat. Without hurting Hare and Costello, that’s the best I could do.

District 18 – John Shimkus (R-Collinsville) would run here — As I said, his home would be represented by Costello, but he’d choose to run here, a very strong GOP seat with only traces of moderation (Springfield and Decatur, mostly).

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this map. I think I handled the Chicago area fairly well (and after all, I did live there for four years), not overextending Democratic strength by getting greedy about Roskam or Biggert. I’m decently happy with my downstate reconfiguration, but am curious if Hare would still be safe enough. Obviously no Democratic gerrymander would result in a much-weakened seat for Hare, so perhaps I should have preserved Springfield and Decatur for him (then again, northwest Illinois needs to go somewhere!).

Anyway, an average year would result in a 12-6 split under this map, and a good year could see 13-5 should Schock fall. What about a bad year? Do you think Hare, Foster, Bean, and Halvorson would all be fine in a difficult year? Input needed!

South Carolina

And now for something completely different: this Deep Southern state experienced the highest domestic migration rate in the nation between 2007 and 2008. Monopolized by Republicans, I sought to draw a GOP gerrymander here that would protect the four current Republican seats and add a new one, while weakening John Spratt (D-York) if at all possible.

Knowing how Republicans love to pack minority votes, I drew Majority Whip Jim Clyburn the most heavily African-American district imaginable. It looks like a crab, actually, and yes, it’s exactly the kind of racial gerrymander Republicans would draw (interesting that we saw so many Democratic maps in the South that aimed for maximizing black representation thrown out by the courts as “racial gerrymanders” in the 1990s, but recent Republican racial packing in states like Florida and Texas has gone unnoticed).

One nit: with the state’s black population around 30%, the Justice Department might want a map that creates two VRA black-majority seats (two seats out of seven = 29%). That would involve diluting Clyburn’s seat a little and trading some turf with Spratt, rendering Spratt’s district a lot safer.

But I presumed only one VRA seat, so with that in mind:

District 1 – Henry Brown (R-Hanahan) — More compact and less coastal than Brown’s current district, it loses Charleston to aid him and prevent a future close call like he faced in 2008 from Linda Ketner.

District 2 – Joe Wilson (R-Springdale) — Heavily Republican, takes the white areas around Columbia from Clyburn, acting as a sort of Alabama 4th to Clyburn’s Alabama 7th.

District 3 – Gresham Barrett (R-Westminster) — also heavily Republican, with the cleanest lines I could possibly draw.

District 4 – Bob Inglis (R-Travelers Rest) — due to growth in the Greenville/Spartanburg area, this district is getting positively small!

District 5 – John Spratt (D-York) — while carving out GOP turf for Brown, Inglis, and Barrett, I tried my best to keep Spratt’s seat potentially GOP-friendly should he retire. But if the Justice Department demands two VRA seats, this could turn out very differently, with Spratt getting a solid Dem district for the first time in recent memory.

District 6 – Jim Clyburn (D-Columbia) — dominated by Columbia, taking every possible black-majority county. Truly a lawsuit-worthy gerrymander, but Republicans seem to get away with those (look at how the courts have reacted to Corrine Brown’s FL-03 versus their decisions in the 1990s about Cynthia McKinney’s GA-11, Cleo Fields’ LA-04, and Mel Watt’s NC-12).

The new District 7 – Designed for a Charleston/Beaufort County Republican due to growth along the coast. This seat would be GOP-friendly but trending Dem long-term and might need to be reconfigured in 2021 to stave off Democratic gains.

Overall, Republicans could hope for a 6-1 majority when Spratt retires, but in the mean time would have to settle for 5-2. When Spratt does go, the coast may be blue enough for a Democrat to win either District 1 or District 7. And if the state creates a new VRA seat, Republicans will make it Spratt’s to avoid ceding more territory. I do wonder how that map would look…

EDIT: It was brought to my attention that the current 5th is as heavily Democratic as any VRA district, and is essentially wasting votes. So I adjusted the lines a bit based on someone’s suggestion to create two skinny DuPage-Cook mix districts; the 5th would be Quigley land, and the 6th would be a more Democratic seat for Roskam. Thus this map could easily produce 13-5, not counting Schock.

Someone else suggested softening up Lipinski, but since that district is already somewhat socially conservative, and doesn’t link easily with Roskam’s, I chose to leave it alone. The 5th is needlessly packed in the current map, while the 3rd is significantly less solid. Here’s the adjusted map:

Which one do you folks like better? In this version, Roskam’s district has about 415K from DuPage and 301K from Cook, while Quigley’s district has precisely reversed numbers.

• NY-20: One day left to go in the special election. The district’s most popular politician, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, is appearing in GOTV robocalls blanketing the district.

The Times-Union finds that there’s been a flood of money into the race in the last few weeks from Republican third party groups. Of the $1.1 in independent expenditures since last Tuesday, $300K were Democratic, while $800K were Republican.

Also, Libertarian candidate Eric Sundwall, who got kicked off the ballot last week because of a challenge to his petition signatures originated by Republicans, has endorsed Scott Murphy (seemingly more out of spite than out of agreement on the issues). His dozens of supporters may not make a big impact on the election, but it’s yet another news story that’s a black eye for Jim Tedisco.

• KY-Sen: Lt. Gov Dan Mongiardo picked up an important endorsement in the Kentucky senate primary: from his boss, Gov. Steve Beshear. (Important in the sense that it would be kind of awkward if he didn’t get that endorsment.)

• OH-Sen: Two big endorsements for SoS Jennifer Brunner in the Ohio senate primary: one from a major union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and one from Caroline Kennedy, who hosted a NYC fundraiser for Brunner.

• AK-Sen: With the possibility of a Lisa Murkowski/Sarah Palin primary in the 2010 Alaska senate race looming, here are some numbers that might give Palin some pause. A primary against Murkowski wouldn’t be the cakewalk for Palin that some had supposed. Hayes Research didn’t test a head-to-head, but they found that Palin’s approve/disapprove (among all voters, not just GOPers) is 60/35, while Murkowski is even better at 72/21. Palin’s “very negative” is 21%, while Murkowski’s is only 7%.

• OR-05: In response to the news that two-time loser Mike Erickson is considering another race, Blue Oregon comes up with a helpful list of somewhat more credible candidates as the GOP tries to dislodge Kurt Schrader before he gets entrenched. Former and current state legislators that get a mention include former majority leader Wayne Scott, as well as Bill Kennemer, Kim Thatcher, Vicki Berger, and Vic Gilliam.

• Redistricting: Believe it or not, the state of Ohio is hosting a “redistricting competition” to see who can come up with the best map for the state. Some of the criteria they’re using to judge entrants (like “compactness”) might be anathema to hardcore partisans, but the contest could still be fun nonetheless. The sign-up form is here. (D)

• CT-Sen: Looks like Robbie Simmons is going to have some company in the GOP primary for the nod to take on Chris Dodd; state Sen. Sam Caligiuri, the former mayor of Waterbury, is expected to announce his candidacy tomorrow. (J)

I know redistricting diaries are a dime a dozen these days, but I’m going to do one that has never been done before: Michigan (assuming full Democratic control of the process).  Nathaniel90 already drew a split control compromise map found here: http://www.swingstateproject.c…  

Michigan will be losing a seat in 2012, going from 15 to 14.  I think the chances of full Democratic control is about 50-50 or maybe slightly better.  It looks like we have a very good shot at taking back control of the State Senate, while the Governors race is still pretty much up in the air, with presumptive nominee John Cherry lagging in the most recent poll.  But this far out, no one can predict this one yet.

By this map Democrats would presumably hold a 9-5 advantage in Representation.  They currently hold a 8-7 Advantage.  In 2002, when Republicans drew the map, they (Rs) held a 9-6 advantage.  My map protects freshmen Gary Peters and Mark Schauer, while throwing Dave Camp and Mike Rogers into a district together.  It also draws a much more Democratic district for Thaddeus McCotter (or his Democratic successor), presumably eliminating him if he isn’t already gone by 2012.

My map was drawn on microsoft paint, and some of the more detailed borders aren’t exact.  Also my computer has some kind of problem with pixelation or something, so it may appear a little blurry.  Without further ado, here’s my map with district profiles down below the flip.  

District 1– (Bart Stupak D) mostly the same but expands to include Kalkaska, Roscommon, and the rest of Bay County.  Overall becomes slightly more Democratic.

District 2– (TBD[successor of Pete Hoekstra]R) gives up Allegan County in the south, as well as Eastern portions of Ottawa County and the North-West corner of Kent County that was formerly in the district.  Gains Leelanau, Grand Traverse, Missaukee, and Osceola Counties.  This district becomes a bit more Democratic (mostly because it loses strongly conservative parts of Ottawa and Kent Counties) and Barack Obama would have carried this district narrowly, but it should still favor Republicans in the future.

District 3– (Vern Ehlers R) Drops Barry and Ionia County in exchange for some very Conservative areas of Kent and Ottawa Counties.  Becomes more Republican.

District 4– (Dave Camp R + Mike Rogers R) I decided that I would throw these two together because I did not want to eliminate Thad McCotter in case he is defeated by a Democrat in 2010. I put Livingston County (Rogers base and home) in with most of the current 4th District. Dave Camp should be the favorite considering it includes his base of Midland as well as most of his old turf, but I wouldn’t count Mike Rogers out.  The inclusion of Livingston County makes this district more Republican.  Barack Obama would have lost here.

5th District– (Dale Kildee D)  Looks like a combination of James Barcia’s old District and Dale Kildee’s current district.  It drops all of the territory it held in Bay County but gains the more Republican thumb counties of Huron and Sanilac.  However, with Flint as the base of this district and Genesee County making up more than half of the population, this District stays Democratic.

6th District– (Fred Upton R) This is the most gerrymandered district in the state, and yet it only splits one County!  This district looks quite a bit different from it’s current shape  It’s base of Kalamazoo is taken out to make Mark Schauer safer.  In exchange it gets all of Allegan, Barry, and Branch counties and about half of Eaton County.  The loss of Kalamazoo makes this district a lot more Republican, although Barack Obama may have won here, depending on exactly what parts of Eaton County are included.

7th District–  (Mark Schauer D) I think that I succeeded in making Mark Schauer safe from any Republican challenge, but I fear that I may have set him up for a primary challenge from a Lansing area Democrat, as Lansing becomes the new base of this district.  The only part of the old 7th district that I left was Calhoun County (Battle Creek) which is Schauer’s home.  I put in all of Ingham and Kalamazoo Counties and about half of Eaton.  Barack Obama won every county in this district and probably came close to 60% here.

8th District– (Gary Peters D)  It is hard to tell on my map, but according to my plan for the 8th district, Gary Peters would get Madison Heights and Southfield, both extremely Democratic cities (Barack Obama got 88% in Southfield), while dropping the strongly Republican cities of Rochester, Rochester Hills, and Berkley.  The addition of Southfield probably brings Barack Obama to around 60% here.

9th District– (Candice Miller R)  Instead of a “Thumb” district, this district becomes a “Detroit suburbs and exurbs district.” It loses Sterling Heights and Utica in Macomb County, and Huron and Sanilac Counties in “The Thumb,” While picking up some seriously Republican turf in Oakland County, including the suburb Novi that is currently in Thad McCotters 11th District.  It still includes the Republican leaning Exurb St. Clair and Lapeer Counties.

10th District– (Thad McCotter R [Should favor Democrat])  Includes all of Thad McCotter’s current portion of Wayne County, plus the cities of Inkster, Romulus, and part of Dearborn Heights.  The current part of Wayne County in the 11th gave Obama 57%.  That probably bumps up to just under 60% Obama.  Also includes Monroe County, which Obama won 51-47.

11th District– (Sander Levin D)  Changes very little, except that it swaps out Southfield for the rest of Sterling Heights.  Becomes a bit less Democratic, but still favors Levin or his successor.

12th District– (Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick D)  One of two VRA protected districts in Michigan.  Population loss will force this district to expand, but it still stays within Wayne County and is majority Black.

13th District–  (John Conyers D)  The other VRA district expands into Dearborn but stays heavily Black and heavily Democratic. (Note that John Dingell’s home is in this new district, but I expect that he’ll have retired by 2012 and if frankly, if Debbie Dingell is holding his seat by then, I really don’t care if she gets stuck in Conyer’s district)

14th District– (John Dingell D)  This district moves out of Wayne County and now takes in all of Washtenaw County as well as Jackson, Lenawee, and Hillsdale Counties.  It is now completely based in Ann Arbor and should elect a liberal, Ann Arbor Democrat.  Barack Obama won three out of the four Counties in this new district.

Questions? Comments? Errors to point out?  Leave ’em in the comments.  

So I decided to have a look at how my state’s congressional districts could be redistricted come 2010. It looks like we’ll miss getting a 14th seat by about 100k people (so close…), so I had to make a plan with 13 seats. This was interesting because based on the 2008 census estimates, each seat would have over 700,000 people

In NC, redistricting is done solely by the legislature, which is now under Democratic control. While it could hypothetically shift to the GOP in 2010, our numbers are good enough that that would be unlikely.

I focused mainly on protecting the 8 Democratic incumbents (espescially Kissell and Shuler), seeing as the 5 districts still in GOP hands are pretty Republican for the most part.

Here is my map:

1st District – G.K. Butterfield (D-Wilson). This is a solidly Democratic, black majority district that covers much of northeastern North Carolina. I didn’t make many big changes to this district, mostly because it was hard to pinpoint specific black areas and how much the black populations there have changed.

2nd District – Bob Etheridge (D-Lillington). This mainly rural district narrowly went for Obama after voting for Bush in 2000 and 2004. I added more black areas in Wake County to make it somewhat more Democratic and moved some Republican parts of Johnston County to the nearby 3rd district. Etheridge has been elected 7 times so he is probably safe here.

3rd District – Walter Jones (R-Farmville). This is a solidly Republican coastal district where Obama got only 37% of the vote, and Jones is fairly popular so I didn’t change very much, Just for kicks, I drew Jones’ home into the 1st district, but he can still run in the 3rd.

4th District – David Price (D-Chapel Hill). This rapidly growing district includes much of the Triangle and RTP. Obama won 62% here mainly thanks to Durham and Orange counties. I transferred some of the populous Wake County parts of this district to the 13th and 2nd districts to make them more Democratic.

5th District – Virginia Foxx (R-Banner Elk). This is GOP country. It would have been a challenge to make this district more Democratic without harming some of the neighboring districts. The 5th lost Democratic Watauga County, but I added Republican parts of Guilford County (Greensboro) from the 6th district and most of Rockingham County from the 13th district.

6th District – Howard Coble (R-Greensboro). Coble is NC’s longest serving congressman, first elected in 1984. I kept his Republican district mostly the same but gave some of his Guilford territory to Virginia Foxx. Coble will keep his job for as long as he wants.

7th District – Mike McIntyre (D-Lumberton). This district went for McCain by 6 points, but on the state and local level it is mostly Democratic. I added some more areas in Sampson County but didn’t change very much. McIntyre is a conservative Blue Dog who matches his district well and the 7th has only had 3 congressmen in the the last 50 years, so he is safe.

8th District – Larry Kissell (D-Biscoe). After narrowly losing to Robin Hayes in 2006, Kissell finally defeated him in 2008, while Obama won the district by 8 points. To make it more Democratic, I gave parts of Republican-leaning Union County (Jesse Helms grew up there) to Sue Myrick’s 9th district. In return, the 8th picked up some Democratic urban areas of Charlotte from the 9th.

9th District – Sue Myrick (R-Charlotte). This district is made up of the Republican-leaning suburbs of Charlotte and it has been held by former Myrick since 1995. McCain won the 9th by 10 points and Myrick will be safe for a long time. In addition to trading urban areas of Charlotte with Republican parts of the 8th district, I put all of Gaston County into the 9th district (I will explain).

10th District – Patrick McHenry (R-Cherryville). This is the granddaddy of GOP districts in NC and has been in Republican hands since 1969. I took in all of Rutherford and McDowell counties from Heath Shuler’s 11th district. I also drew McHenry’s lifelong Gaston County home into the 9th just to annoy him 🙂

11th District – Heath Shuler (D-Waynesville). I gave McHenry Rutherford and McDowell counties, but in return I took in Mitchell and Avery counties from the 10th. I added Democratic trending Watauga County (App State) to Shuler’s district to make it more Democratic.

12th District – Mel Watt (D-Charlotte). This is the infamous 12th district, which has been declared unconstitutional 3 different times. It’s a black plurality, very Democratic district that follows the I-85 corridor. I didn’t make many changes, mainly because I didn’t know much about the specific racial concentrations within each county.

13th District – Brad Miller (D-Raleigh). After narrowly going for Bush in 2000 and then Kerry in 2004, this district gave Obama a whopping 58% of the vote in 2008. It was gerrymandered by then State Sen. Brad Miller 2001 to elect him when NC gained a 13th seat in 2000. I made it more Democratic by adding some urban areas of Wake County. Miller will be safe until he decides to move up to higher office.

Please let me know what you think and if there are any changes or improvements that I can make.

Thanks and enjoy!

(From the diaries – promoted by DavidNYC)

None of you asked for Maryland, but I wanted to redraw a state in which I couldn’t use townships and incorporated municipalities as a crutch. Four of Maryland’s five largest communities are unincorporated – Columbia, Silver Spring, Ellicott City and Germantown.

Plus, having lived in Maryland for quite awhile, I wanted to do a state that I actually had a local feel for. Lastly, Democrats control both the General Assembly and the Governorship, so no quips about this map being “unrealistic”!

I apologize for the title ahead of time – I’ve seen tourist gear with that slogan one too many times flying out of BWI….

My goals:

• Strengthen Kratovil (1st)

• Pack Republicans into Bartlett (6th)

• Keep all other Democrats at their previous levels or 65%, whichever is lower.

(When you have this many Democrats to protect….)

Anyways, here’s the map (click for full-size version):

Update: I realized I mis-merged some shapes in my GIS and this lead to a misrepresentation of the 1st and 5th in Anne Arundel County. Fixed.

So normally, there’d be a nice map of the state broken up by municipalities and colored in based on McCain/Obama performance. In Maryland, this was harder: I consolidated precincts to match up with Census 2000’s voting tabulation districts (VTDs). Sometimes, in cases where precincts changed significantly, I consolidated some VTDs, too. I’ve creatively named these consolidated VTDs “CVTDs”.

Also, tabulating data by CVTD is a pain in the ass. Seriously. So I only created CVTDs for counties that had a chance of being split. So here’s the map, colored by CVTD for some counties (I wasn’t going to split Calvert, St. Mary’s, the Eastern Shore, or the Panhandle).

District-by-district, here goes (numbers are: Population, Voters, %African American, Obama%, McCain%):

This is the district we were all wondering about, Frank Kratovil’s 1st. Before, the 1st took in all of the Eastern Shore, a chunk each of Anne Arundel, Harford, and Baltimore counties. Those parts were absolutely brutal, so I removed the the BaltCo (35% Obama)/Harford (33% Obama) parts completely. Additionally, instead of taking in the Republican pats along the North Shore, the district runs through the city of Annapolis proper and into PG County. Yes, the district reaches across the bay, but the old district did this too. Plus now, I can use the Bay Bridge as an excuse, as both ascents to the bridge are in this district now. Obama lost the AA part of the district 39-59, but he won the reconfigured part of Anne Arundel 56-42. We weren’t going to more artfully draw Baltimore, so for Democratic strength, the new 1st looks to Prince George’s County – Obama’s 88-11 performance there anchors this district. Overall, Obama scored 56% here – up a whopping 16%.

Dutch Ruppersberger’s district doesn’t change much – still the southern half of Harford, an arm across Northern BaltCo, and a section of the city. However, there’s no awkward arm across the Patapsco into Anne Arundel this time. The Harford section is a tad less Democratic, the BaltCo section a bit more, and Baltimore City a bit less. However, the removal of Anne Arundel bumps this district to 60%, up about 0.5%.

Surprisingly, I think this incarnation of the 3rd is less gerrymandered than before – there’s no one-block wide sliver connecting to distinct sections. The major change from before is the placement of almost all of Howard County into this district, which had been located mostly in the 7th. Instead of making a westward facing loop through Baltimore as before to hit Towson, this district makes an eastward facing U. Obama got 61%, up 2% from before.

Donna Edwards’ district also isn’t changed much. A large section of upcounty MontCo and Prince George’s along the DC line. With the 8th shifted northward, the 4th is a bit more Montgomery-heavy, but stays majority African-American. This shift drops Obama’s performance by about 3%, but this is still the most Democratic district in Maryland at 82%.

Steny Hoyer’s district, again, experiences some minor shifts. It still contains all of the Southern Maryland trifecta of Charles, Calvert, and St. Mary’s. I had thought about cracking Charles to tap its population growth and Democratic trend, but ultimately decided against it. A large chunk of PG is taken by the 1st, so this district expands farther into Anne Arundel. At 64%, this is about a 1% drop.

We took some Republicans out of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd districts, and this is where they go. I cut out Democratic-trending and sububanizing southern Frederick County and just packed as many deep-red VTDs in here as possible from Harford and northern Baltimore County. The Panhandle and Carroll County remain in their entirety. This drops Dem performance to 35%, down 5%.

Before, this district took in a large chunk of Howard County, before reaching into Western BaltCo and West Baltimore. We took the extremely Republican parts of Anne Arundel County out of the 1st, and this was the safest place to deposit them. The anchor of the district stays Baltimore City, which also maintains the 56% African-American composition of the district. At 73% Obama, this is a drop-off of 6%, but again, no cause for concern.

It was tempting to make this district solely Montgomery County, but that’d well, be too clean. (It’d also abandon some strong Democratic votes in Frederick City.) Thus, this takes a bite out of Southern Frederick along 270, and then takes in the western half of Montgomery County and ventures east into Silver Spring. Frederick is nowhere as Democratic as downcounty Montgomery County, resulting in a 5% drop in Obama’s performance to 69%. Even if Frederick’s shift was a one-time thing for Obama, the vast majority of the district is still in Montgomery County.

So I’m pretty sure my map of Maryland is not only better – resulting an improvement for the three most marginal Democratic districts and negligible drops in the other 4 Democratic districts – but less gerrymandered, I dare say. Questions, comments, witty descriptors for what the districts look like, and suggestions always welcome.

Episode 6 in my redistricting series. By this point I’m tired of having these maps and data lying around burning a hole in my Microsoft Word documents, especially in light of the new Census county estimates for 2008. So I’m knocking out all the already-completed states for your and my nerdy enjoyment. Today, some keystones with your Jell-O?

Previously covered:

Diary 1: Massachusetts and Texas

Diary 2: Michigan and Nevada

Diary 3: Iowa and Ohio

Diary 4: Georgia and New Jersey

Diary 5: Florida and Louisiana

Those strangest of bedfellows, Rust Belt Pennsylvania and booming Utah! (spelled with an exclamation point as on state license plates) just below the fold…

Pennsylvania

Needless to say, this is truly a state of contrasts, from the upwardly mobile, newly liberal-leaning Philadelphia suburbs to the numerically shrinking, increasingly Republican towns of western Pennsylvania. In the vast “T” between Pittsburgh and Philly lies some of the most conservative and rural territory in the entire old North, along with a Democratic island in the Penn State campus and its environs.

What will redistricting see in Pennsylvania? Hard to say. The least likely option is a Democratic gerrymander, thanks to a healthy 30-20 GOP majority in the State Senate. Republicans have an outside shot at a redux gerrymander thanks to the open governor’s mansion and narrow 104-99 Dem edge in the House. My money is on a continued power split, since it is tough (though quite far from unheard of) for a party to pick up both the governor’s mansion and a legislative chamber in one cycle in a competitive state. I drew my hypothetical Pennsylvania map (again, using 2007 stats) with according assumptions.

Split partisan power in redistricting usually means all-around incumbent protection, which particularly helps the Democrats and their weaker seats (the 10th, 3rd, 12th, 11th, et al.), but also the Republicans in at least two cases (the 15th and 6th). There is, of course, a wrinkle: Pennsylvania will be losing at least one seat in reapportionment; possibly two, but one seems more likely unless North-to-South migration really picks up in the next year. With much of the state’s worst population loss occurring in the west, and with Western Pennsylvania Democrats a bit overrepresented at the congressional level (at least considering trends in the region), it seemed likely that a relatively new Democrat would be eliminated, or at least put in a tough spot against an incumbent Republican. John Murtha’s seniority means his is likely not to be the unlucky musical chair, unless he’s finally ready to retire in 2012 at age 80. That’s a possibility, but I drew the map to combine Republican Tim Murphy and Democrat Jason Altmire in a competitive (but doubtlessly McCain-supporting) western district. Meanwhile, Murtha and Erie’s Kathy Dahlkemper are both strengthened. Of course, this assumes that Murtha, Dahlkemper, Altmire, and Murphy are all reelected in 2010, and all four have at one time or another been targeted recently.

One oddity in the west as a result of the eliminated district? Bill Shuster’s 9th moved all the way into former Murtha country, though it kept Shuster’s home in-district. (Yeah, doesn’t make much sense, but with the 12th trending GOP, and Murtha getting quite up there in years, you can bet Democrats will try to salvage all their strength in the Pittsburgh area). In the east, I did my best to shore up Chris Carney, whose district is darned difficult to gerrymander for a Dem, as well as 2008 underperformer Paul Kanjorski and Charlie Dent, whose 15th District tilts Democratic in its current form. I also attempted to make the Philadelphia-area districts more compact and logical, which may have been a case of my quixotic reformer instincts overreaching.

Now, every map has at least one Achilles heel, and mine is Tim Holden’s 17th District. I simply could not figure out how to make it Dem-leaning without some seriously ugly and disruptive lines. In fact, it got more Republican in this map…not my intention, I assure you. Also, Shuster’s district moving west meant that Platts and Pitts would see some major turf changes.

This isn’t my best map (I’m much happier with Texas and Ohio), but perhaps it isn’t the travesty Louisiana and Massachusetts were. I aimed to lessen Pennsylvania’s “emaciated serpent” factor while protecting potentially vulnerable newbies. Without a doubt, a state legislator with real redistricting software (rather than a calculator, Census estimates on Excel, and Paint) could draw something more effective and precise. But you can judge for yourself:

District 1 – Bob Brady (D-Philadelphia) — still ethnically mixed and heavily Democratic, the home of Rocky Balboa. (Cue Bill Conti and his horn section.)

District 2 – Chaka Fattah (D-Philadelphia) — the only VRA district in the state, still majority-black.

District 3 – Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Erie) — barely voted for McCain as-is, so I aimed to maximize the influence of Dem-friendly Erie County and competitive Mercer County. I also divided Butler County to further minimize GOP strength. This district would have voted for Obama by an inch, no more than 51-48 or 52-47, but I think that’s the best I could do.

District 4 – Jason Altmire (D-McCandless) vs. Tim Murphy (R-Upper St. Clair) — both incumbents live in suburban Allegheny County, so the district includes a healthy 25% of that county along with the remaining 65% of Butler and all of Beaver and Lawrence. It’s nice and compact, and pretty competitive — my guesstimate is the numbers will actually be more Democratic than the McCain 55-44 stat seen in both Congresscritters’ current districts, which could bode well for Altmire.

District 5 – Glenn Thompson (R-Howard) — super-Republican “T” district, including one Obama base: Centre County and its many Penn State students. Why are these public university towns (State College, PA; Gainesville, FL; Athens, GA) always situated in a sea of red?

District 6 – Jim Gerlach (R-Chester Springs) — I simplified the lines to include 69% of Berks and 85% of Chester Counties, two of the more swingy counties in the Philly suburbs (compared to Delaware and Montgomery, each 60-39 for Obama). Gerlach would have a slightly more favorable seat here, but there is a huge caveat: he is exploring a 2010 run for Governor, which could be bad for our chances of holding the governor’s mansion but is probably good for our chances of picking up PA-06.

District 7 – Joe Sestak (D-Edgmont) — all of Delaware and 18% of Montgomery = a strong (and compact) Dem seat.

District 8 – Patrick Murphy (D-Bristol) — all of Bucks plus remainders of Berks and Montgomery; the vote here should be similar to my proposed 6th (about 54-45 for Obama), and if I’d wanted to gerrymander a bit, I could have made it more solid.

District 9 – Bill Shuster (R-Hollidaysburg) — now essentially a Western PA district! Not my slickest map-making, but I was worried about holding the 12th in future election cycles.

District 10 – Chris Carney (D-Dimock) — this was fairly well-done, OTOH, though I couldn’t be too aggressive for fear of weakening Kanjorski; I included 96% of Luzerne County and 28% of Lackawanna, while cutting out GOP-leaning (but Dem-trending) Pike; a 54-45 McCain district would hopefully be a lot closer to even now.

District 11 – Paul Kanjorski (D-Nanticoke) — I don’t know if Nanticoke would be in the 10th under these lines, so ignore them because the 4% of Luzerne left in the 11th would ideally include Kanjorski’s house. Other than Pike, every county in this district voted for Obama, and the expansion into Northampton County is intended to replace lost turf in Luzerne County. The district might technically be a hair less Obama-supporting than before, but there is a serious silver lining here for the incumbent: Lou Barletta’s Hazleton is no longer included.

District 12 – John Murtha (D-Johnstown) — this being the only district in America to switch from Kerry ’04 to McCain ’08 set off an alarm in my head; coupled with frequent controversy about Murtha himself, it was enough to prompt my version’s radical changes to the old lines. While the 65% of Westmoreland County doesn’t help, I’ve included all of Murtha’s native Cambria County along with competitive Indiana County and (this is key) 18% of Allegheny.

District 13 – Allyson Schwartz (D-Jenkintown) — 80% of Montgomery and the remaining 5% of Philadelphia for a compact, logical, and safe Dem seat.

District 14 – Mike Doyle (D-Forest Hills) — entirely within Allegheny County.

District 15 – Charlie Dent (R-Allentown) — yes, it’s heavy in Democratic Lehigh County, but retains just 18% each of Dem-leaning Northampton and Berks, now including all of heavily GOP Lebanon and even 20% of GOP-friendly Lancaster. This might still have voted for Obama, but by a heck of a lot less than 56-43.

District 16 – Joe Pitts (R-Kennett Square) — stretches along the south from Adams to Chester Counties, but ruled by Lancaster County, of which it comprises 80%.

District 17 – Tim Holden (D-Saint Clair) — this is my biggest disappointment. It was drawn in 2002 for George Gekas to defeat Holden, and somehow I managed to make it more Republican than before, when it should have been easy to push into the Dem column through mild adjustments. Holden can win this district as I’ve drawn it, but when he retires, all bets would be off. There must be a way to grab some Philly suburbs for the 17th without drawing the lines too revoltingly.

District 18 – Todd Platts (R-York) — okay, so it’s a lot less compact and a lot more Shuster-ish. But it’s still dominated by his York County base and still safely Republican (more so, actually).

Mapping the Keystone State, and still failing in some of my goals, was migraine-inducing, so you can imagine how relieving it is to be switching gears here for a state with just four districts, a state like…

Utah

This was a cinch to draw, since the legislature already green-lighted (green-lit?) a plan called Plan L back in late 2006 when Utah pols hoped for lame-duck congressional approval of the D.C. House Voting Rights Act. Now, whether that bill will eventually become law is still up in the air given tensions over the poison pill gun issue, but regardless of the immediate outcome, Utah will get a fourth district in reapportionment, and the state is overdue for an urban Salt Lake seat in the next decade. The current map includes three districts that combine cities/suburbs along the populous Wasatch Front with isolated small towns and desolate rural areas. That was done to hurt Jim Matheson; but GOP lawmakers, who can genuinely approve any map they want to in this heavily Republican state, appear likely to give Matheson the most Democratic district possible in order to ensure hard-right GOP hegemony in the other three districts.

Why would they do this? Well, Salt Lake County is trending Democratic, even voting for Obama in 2008 after going to Bush by 20 points in 2004. A new urban district is likely to be concentrated around Salt Lake City, and should the popular Matheson run in a rural district, there would actually be a good chance of two Democrats in a four-member Utah delegation! Thus, the best solution for Republicans is to put Matheson in the urban seat and carve themselves deep red rural turf.

My 2nd District, designed for Matheson, concentrates just about all the Democratic areas in Utah other than Moab, and creates a new 4th along the western portion of the state that would favor a Republican from Salt Lake, or (if the Salt Lake vote was split) someone from the fast-growing St. George area who commanded rural support. (Trivia for those who haven’t been: most of the state is indeed known for its high elevations, dramatic snow-capped mountains, and pristine skiing, but St. George actually has palm trees and relatively hot, humid summer temperatures ideal for growing cotton! Weird, I know.)

Here’s the Utah map, probably one of the least controversial I’ve drawn (and again, though I’m using 2007 estimates and not 2000 Census data, the legislature’s prior work served as a clear blueprint for my plan):

District 1 – Rob Bishop (R-Brigham City) — the northwest corner of the state, dominated by Davis and Weber Counties along the Front.

District 2 – Jim Matheson (D-Salt Lake City) — considering it would comprise 60% of Salt Lake, 6% of Davis, and all of Summit, this district might have literally voted for Obama…yes, it’s now possible to draw a genuine Democratic seat in Utah! And while the legislature may not draw Matheson something quite as favorable, they are sure to stick him in a safe urban district to avoid introducing a new Democrat into the delegation.

District 3 – Jason Chaffetz (R-Alpine) — the largest area in the state, but Utah County (Provo-Orem) reigns supreme.

New District 4 – Safe Republican, contains 40% of Salt Lake and all of Washington — odds would favor a second Salt Lake County Congressman here (a Republican to complement Matheson), but if rural areas stick together, there is room for someone from outside the Wasatch Front.

Comment away!

Episode 5 in my redistricting series, and as you can see, I’m picking up the pace, having just covered Georgia and New Jersey yesterday. Because the Census released 2008 county estimates last week, I feel like knocking out these diaries for the states I already mapped using 2007 numbers. Of course, because they’re 2007 numbers, they’re not quite up to snuff, but in most cases, the lines wouldn’t look too dramatically different using newer stats.

Previously covered:

Diary 1: Massachusetts and Texas

Diary 2: Michigan and Nevada

Diary 3: Iowa and Ohio

Diary 4: Georgia and New Jersey

Geek out below!

Florida

Now, this is the single hardest state I had to tackle. More so than Texas, more so than Ohio, more so than Pennsylvania. That’s because Florida is perhaps the most masterful Republican gerrymander in the nation; a state that voted 51% to 48% for President Obama is represented in Congress by 15 Republicans and 10 Democrats, and before 2006, the skew was 18-7. Considering Democratic dominance in South Florida and clear Dem trends along I-4, that’s pretty astounding cartographic craftiness by the GOP.

Unfortunately, unless we pick up the governor’s mansion in 2010 (virtually impossible, IMHO, unless Crist runs for the Senate, and even then, the GOP bench in Florida is quite deep), Republicans are set for another round of redistricting monopoly in 2011-12 (one caveat: a nonpartisan commission initiative is on the ballot in 2010, but since it needs 60% to pass, I’m skeptical). While Republicans’ room for growth is limited, what with Dem trends in Central FL and the Cuban districts softening, there could be at least one Dem casualty along with a new GOP seat, for a 17-9 delegation, though 16-10 would be a lot easier for legislators to ensure, since it’s not exactly a cinch to dismantle a moderate I-4 Dem like Suzanne Kosmas. Note: there is an outside chance that Florida will pick up two seats in reapportionment, but the disastrous real estate market has brought that long-famed migration to the Sunshine State to a grinding halt. In 2008, even recession-battered California grew faster. So I’m betting on a one-seat gain; the explosive growth in Florida between 2000 and 2006 more or less ensures at least that one gain, but I can’t envision a sufficiently large uptick in growth between now and the Census for a 27th District.

To sum it up, I’m actually not very satisfied with this map. It’s revoltingly gerrymandered, though no worse than the current iteration, and I’m not sure about some of my boundaries (is Alcee Hastings’ 23rd still VRA black-majority with these lines?). But I tried to maintain the best possible lines for the Republicans (i.e. mostly the status quo), with an emphasis on incumbent protection. I may have done things a bit differently if I’d used 2008 numbers, so an eventual do-over on my part isn’t out of the question.

To the point: the GOP has a real problem along I-4: with Orange and Osceola Counties decidedly Democratic, and Adam Putnam’s soon-to-be-open seat a near-tie between McCain and Obama, they can only play offense so much. I figured that since Orlando is becoming so progressive, they would concede Alan Grayson’s seat (assuming he is reelected in 2010) and hurt Kosmas only by roughly maintaining the current, Feeney-drawn lines. Meanwhile, FL-12 (Putnam) is shored up by moving into some hardcore Republican territory, and a new 26th District is created from Central Florida leftovers (unfortunately for them, it only barely leans Republican in a neutral year as I’ve drawn it, and in a year like 2006 or 2008, might well elect a Democrat). Again, I tried my best to be devious, but when a state is already so gerrymandered for one party and the trends are running against that party in key regions of said state, “safety first” is the likely tack.

As for South Florida, my boundaries are imprecise, so the summary descriptions are a bit more informative. Basically, I tried to replicate the current boundaries in most of these cases, while cleaning up the 23rd (as I mentioned, though, it probably can’t be as cleaned-up as I drew it since it is a VRA seat). If more specific Census estimates were available, I could have known how to, for example, boost the Cuban-American percentage in Districts 18, 21, and 25, but instead, I was left with a sloppy, low-tech method as the Miami metro area goes.

For now, this is the map I’ve got:

Ugly? You bet. Want a logical map? The Sunshine State GOP wouldn’t hear of it.

District 1 – Jeff Miller (R-Chumuckla) — contracts in area; still the most conservative district in the state.

District 2 – Allen Boyd (D-Monticello) — still an old-school district of Jimmy Carter white Democrats who vote GOP for President. When Boyd retires, we will be in trouble here, as even the boosted black turnout of 2008 only resulted in a 54-45 McCain victory.

District 3 – Corrine Brown (D-Jacksonville) — well, it’s not quite as grossly drawn as before, but it must remain a VRA African-American seat, so I had to get creative.

District 4 – Ander Crenshaw (R-Jacksonville) — random trivia: did you know there were Civil War battles in this district?

District 5 – Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Brooksville) — I tried to clean up this and the 6th, both previously with needlessly messy lines; this one stays safely Republican, but now only splits one county (Pasco).

District 6 – Cliff Stearns (R-Ocala) — stays heavily Republican but looks a bit more aesthetic. No, I don’t like Gainesville being represented by a Republican any more than you do, but it is a blue island in a sea of red (much like Athens, Georgia).

District 7 – John Mica (R-Winter Park) — by only encroaching a bit into Orange County and making St. Johns County the largest population source, I attempted to help Mica, but the long-term trends here are not advantageous to him. If he moved out of Orange County, he could be drawn a safer seat.

District 8 – Alan Grayson (D-Orlando) — entirely within Orange County, meant to soak up Democrats to allow for a Republican 26th and to prevent Kosmas from getting too comfortable. I think if there’s one painful concession the GOP will have to make, this is it.

District 9 – Gus Bilirakis (R-Palm Harbor) — jumps around north Tampa Bay looking for Republicans, doesn’t change too much.

District 10 – Bill Young (R-Indian Shores) — entirely within Pinellas, probably still a 50/50 district. This is a seat they may well lose when Young calls it quits. With both A) the need to protect Bilirakis, and B) Castor’s 11th being maxed-out on Democrats, it’s another uncomfortable decision for the Republicans not to shore this district up very much. As long as the aging Young stays on the ballot, they don’t have to worry.

District 11 – Kathy Castor (D-Tampa) — still the bay-dancing Tampa-St. Petersburg seat, concentrating Democrats and with a significant black minority.

District 12 – Adam Putnam (R-Bartow) — since McCain won here by a mere inch, and Putnam is leaving in 2010, I figured protecting the 12th for future elections will be a major priority (if a Dem wins in 2010, the GOP will seek to dismantle that person before targeting Grayson or Kosmas). So, even as slightly GOP-leaning Polk County dominates my 12th, Sumter, Hardee, and DeSoto put it over the edge to produce a McCain victory of at least 53-46.

District 13 – Vern Buchanan (R-Sarasota) — this is only a tad more Republican than before, with the whole inclusion of Manatee County aiding GOP numbers.

District 14 – Connie Mack (R-Fort Myers) — dominated by Lee County with remainders of Sarasota and Charlotte. Still the quintessential Gulf Coast GOP mecca.

District 15 – Bill Posey (R-Rockledge) — in retrospect, I’d do this differently, as this is one district the GOP would probably weaken a bit to harm Kosmas or solidify the new 26th.

District 16 – Tom Rooney (R-Tequesta) — stretches from Charlotte to Palm Beach, much like before. If Rooney is easily reelected in 2010, he will be another incumbent they loosen up to cement weaker districts.

District 17 – Kendrick Meek (D-Miami) — should stay the most heavily black, most overwhelmingly Democratic district in the state.

District 18 – Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami) — while Ros-Lehtinen can probably hold on quite a few more cycles, this is the only GOP district other than Bill Young’s 10th that voted for Obama, and as Miami Hispanics trend toward the Democrats, all three Cuban-American Republican seats will be endangered. What happens when Ros-Lehtinen and/or the Diaz-Balarts retire? I’m not exactly sure how to solidify these three seats, as the nearest turf they could grab is mostly liberal-leaning anyway. Perhaps they could snag some Gulf Coast Republicans, but that would dilute the VRA Hispanic percentages…

District 19 – Robert Wexler (D-Boca Raton) — the most liberal of the three “Jewish districts” (I say that, of course, tongue firmly in cheek, as the Jewish percentage is a distinct minority in all three seats).

District 20 – Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Weston) — the second of the three, nearly as Democratic as the 19th.

District 21 – Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Miami) — as with Ros-Lehtinen and the 18th, I don’t know how to shore up the three traditionally GOP Cuban seats.

District 22 – Ron Klein (D-Boca Raton) — still a coastal stretch; I think the GOP won’t change the lines much here, unless they can find a way to pack Democrats here who would otherwise be left in the 18th, 21st, or 25th.

District 23 – Alcee Hastings (D-Miramar) — regardless of how my lines appear, Hastings’ seat will stay majority-black under the VRA.

District 24 – Suzanne Kosmas (D-New Smyrna Beach) — the closest I could come to targeting Kosmas was to only take in 10% of Orange County, along with 64% of GOP-leaning Seminole and 67% of narrowly Dem-leaning Volusia. Once again, Republican gerrymandering in Central Florida can’t possibly get much more aggressive without sacrificing a couple seats.

District 25 – Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Miami) — see the 18th and 21st.

New District 26 – Central FL, Leans Republican — Osceola and St. Lucie Counties favor Democrats, so it is no accident that I made the largest pop. source here 56% McCain-supporting Lake County, cutting through heavily GOP Okeechobee. Due to the inclusion of Osceola, there will be a significant Hispanic minority here, and a Dem base vote of about 46-47%, rendering it vulnerable to a future loss. Is there a way to draw this that is better for the Republicans? Probably, and I’m sure their computers will find it…but Putnam, Posey, Rooney, Bilirakis, Brown-Waite, and Stearns all need to be protected at the same time. The balance along I-4 really is that tenuous for them.

Overall, my map is flawed, as is the current map in Florida. I intended for realism’s sake to create a masterful Republican gerrymander and ended up with a plan that would, at best, maintain the status quo with a 16-10 GOP edge (with the best possible scenario being an eventual 18-8 if Boyd retires, Kosmas is defeated, and every Republican seat stays intact…quite a tall order indeed). Unless Central FL swings decisively to the Republicans in 2010, there is minimal room for offense on their part…and how to stave off Dem advances in Miami-Dade? In the end, to everyone’s surprise, the biggest winners from the next map may be incumbent Democrats like Klein, Grayson, and Kosmas who picked up seats drawn to reelect Republicans. It really is in the GOP’s interest to salvage what they have in Florida rather than get too greedy.

Louisiana

This was a lot easier, though not exceedingly comforting for a Democrat. The severe population loss in the New Orleans area means that there may no longer be a strong Dem seat in Louisiana, let alone a VRA district. No doubt my proposed District 2 would retain a large black percentage, but I’m far from certain it would be anything near a majority. Might the same judicial system that once rejected Cleo Fields’ “Z district” as a racial gerrymander change its tune in the name of the Voting Rights Act?

As for the political dynamics in Louisiana, Jindal will still be Governor at least through 2011, when redistricting starts, and the legislature is perilously close to flipping to the GOP (the House is already run by a de facto GOP-friendly coalition, with a Republican Speaker to boot). Even if the Senate remains in Democratic hands, Louisiana Dems aren’t exactly known for their party loyalty.

But the task here is simple, and Democratic strength in the Pelican State has collapsed so rapidly that partisan considerations aren’t nearly as influential as they would seem. Everyone agrees that a New Orleans-area seat has to be eliminated, so here’s roughly what I imagine the somewhat Republican-esque legislature coming up with:

Note: Technically, Charlie Melancon’s home was put in the 1st for population reasons, but I would expect him to run in the 2nd instead.

District 1 – Steve Scalise (R-Jefferson) — had to expand in land, but stays heavily Republican.

District 2 – tentatively, Joseph Cao (R-New Orleans) vs. Charlie Melancon (D-Napoleonville) — Melancon would do well to move here, as the boundaries do vaguely resemble his old 3rd, but since the bulk of district population is in Jefferson and Orleans Parishes, it’s his seat that was cracked and eliminated. A New Orleans pol would be favored geographically, and I’m not sure what the political leanings would be here (my guess is competitive, with Dem strength in New Orleans offset by GOP dominance in Jefferson Parish). This might make a worthy court challenge, depending what the race stats are here (and I have no idea what they would be, nor does anyone else post-Katrina).

District 3 – John Fleming (R-Minden) — still quite Republican and trending more so.

District 4 – Rodney Alexander (R-Quitman) — other than the 1st, the most Republican district in the state.

District 5 – Bill Cassidy (R-Baton Rouge) — I thought including some more former Melancon territory might help Cassidy and lessen the influence of Dem-friendly Baton Rouge, but it might also prompt Melancon to move here and mount a long-shot challenge instead of battling it out with a New Orleanian in the urban/suburban-dominated 2nd.

District 6 – Charles Boustany (R-Lafayette) — expands in area, but is still the conservative Cajun seat.

Other than what happens with the eliminated seat, there shouldn’t be too much drama in Louisiana, since Jindal’s loyal GOPers and the conservative Dems will likely seek a consensus plan that somehow cracks Melancon’s seat and consolidates it with NOLA. Actually, the real drama may arise in the courtroom re: racial demographics in each district.

Coming soon: Pennsylvania and Utah, followed by Arizona and New York. Eventually I may tackle other states as well, but I haven’t even mapped New York yet.

EDIT: Clearly my Louisiana map is something of a flop, and I blame the fact that I drew it some weeks ago using 2007 estimates. If I’d known Orleans Parish had regained nearly 73,000 residents between 2007 and 2008, I would have drawn the lines a lot differently, and probably could have more easily retained that VRA New Orleans-area seat. I still imagine Melancon’s seat being cracked, but the majority-black 2nd will remain (just expand due to population loss from 2000).

Hopefully my Florida effort was less ill-informed?

(From the diaries with minor edits – promoted by DavidNYC)

As I’d promised in my diary on New Jersey, Pennsylvania would be the next state I’d tackle. This would  have been done a lot sooner, but those things called work and exams kind of got in the way….

My goal, flat out, was to carve more Democratic districts. I’m all for compactness when it comes to suitcases and mp3’s, but not when I’m gerrymandering states. Again, I kept Democratic Congresscritters in their homes.

Unlike New Jersey though, Pennsylvania is probably maxed-out when it comes to Democrats (save Gerlach and Dent, whose districts are certainly Democratic.) Pennsylvania is also losing one seat (most likely) in 2010, so I drew 18 seats on 2008 population estimates. I didn’t “merge” two districts per se, but more like took the 16th, 17th, and 19th and produced two districts from them.

I had the following goals in mind:

• Dislodge Gerlach (6th) and Dent (15th) by increasing Democratic performance in their districts.

• Give Dahlkemper (3rd), Altmire (4th), Murtha (12th), and Holden (17th) more favorable territory. They represent McCain districts now, I wanted to change those to Obama districts.

• Maintain strength for Sestak (7th), Patrick Murphy (8th), Kanjorski (11th), and Schwartz (13th). They have decently strongly Democratic districts, which I wanted to maintain at their current levels.

• Keep Brady (1st), Fattah (2nd), and Doyle (14th) in strongly Democratic districts, but perhaps not as absurdly strong as before. Obama scored 88%, 90%, and 70% respectively, I felt this could afford to be lowered somewhat. A corollary to this goal is keeping Fattah’s district majority Black. I didn’t bother with Brady’s currently plurality Black district, though it may still be.

Here’s the new map (click for full-size version):

Much more below the flip.

Again, to start, I used this map of Obama’s performance across the state, by municipality. As before, lightest shade is a margin of less than 5%, then 5 to 15, 15 to 25, 25 to 35, and the new uber-dark, which is a margin of 35+.

Going district by district, here’s what we’ve got. As a sidenote, I didn’t bother renumbering districts to make sense (which they don’t right now). I think it’s easier to keep core areas the same when numbering, since I think most of us automatically relate, for example, “PA-14” to Pittsburgh.

Summary statistics are: County, Population, Obama Votes, McCain Votes, Total Votes, Obama%, McCain%.

I’m going to go Northwest to Southeast, as opposed to in order by non-sensical district number. I think that makes the most sense.

Sad to say, this district probably isn’t much more gerrymandered than its current counterpart. It contains the entirety of Erie and Crawford counties in the northwest, and starts a slow march towards State College. I’d hate to leave those Democratic votes behind, and plus they’re a good way to shore up Dahlkemper’s district, which Obama lost by 17 votes. It takes in the Democratic parts of Centre and Clinton counties on the east end, with some arms into Clarion and Venango. I’d like to think I succeeded, since Obama scored 45% in the 3rd’s part of Venango and 50% in Clarion, compared to 35% and 33% in the parts not in the 3rd. All in all, a 54% Obama district – a 6% increase from its current form.