CA CD Wine Country Map Quest poll

[Torie]

My concern about a .5% chop not counting as a chop is that it will force twisted sister maps. I suppose staff could come up with the options using that escape hatch to get a minimum chop count, and the Commission could say that they all suck - in other words the Commission could veto the maps with a supra majority vote, just like is required to pass a map. Then you go back to the minimum chop rules.  That plus the supra majority, with a majority from each party, should preclude anything approaching a Michigan style gerrymander.

I still strongly reject however banning the percentage of CD that chops limitation rule.  The 20% limitation of a county rule that is chopped is sufficient, and the Commission should have the power to override that with a finding as well (e.g., it is OK to have a more than 20% chop of SLO in my signature map on the grounds or protecting the Santa Cruz metro area, with a wall on the Ventura County line, because wall placement elsewhere does lead to a SC chop or a crossing of the Tehachapi 's, or over Luther Pass).

I am pleased that counting the number of chops per county method does not bias where the chops are apparently.  Whew!  

So let me summarize the proposed rules.

1. A plan shall minimize county CD pieces. All pieces count towards the total, including one for the case where a county is entirely in a CD. (BTW this works against minimizing the number of counties chopped, since a tri chop counts the same as two dual shops, but that may be OK in CA).

2. When a county is split, the plan shall minimize the number of census places split within the county (ie cities). Census divisions that span a place boundary can be counted on either side of the line.

3. Pieces of counties less than 1 CD, or pieces of places between 20K and 1 CD, shall not be split leaving less than 80% of the county or place in one piece. (I don't think we settled on a number here, so I'm guessing, but you suggested that some small communities may need a larger split.)

4. Pieces that are less than 0.5% of a CD shall not count in assessing rules 1 through 3.

5. Violations of the aforementioned rules require a finding based in federal or state law approved by a supermajority of the mapping body.

Are we ready? Remember, I don't want to draw and then change the rules to suit a change. That's what the biased groups do, and commissions can have biases that aren't partisan.

As an aside, I'm not sure how we want to count the VRA in some areas. For instance, I don't think your Merced-Fresno district would meet standards, since there was a finding that a majority-minority district was required for Fresno, and since a 50% HCVAP district would have been possible by including part of Madera. I estimate that requires 61.5% HVAP or more.

We are getting close on the rules, but I want to massage them a bit (and of course, only one of us is a near genius, and neither geniuses), so if something comes up in practice that is unanticipated, either of us have a right to say, oh dear, wait a minute. But hopefully that will not happen.  I wonder how many maps given all the constraints would be theoretically possible (putting aside the details of how the interior of a county are chopped up).  Do you have any idea?

That Fresno/Merced CD that I drew is more Hispanic than the one the Commission drew (mine is 58%; theirs is 52.8% HVAP). So that unleashed me, to try to draw a cleaner map. I wonder if there is any commentary on that issue in the Commission's written material, or in the transcripts, all of which will need to be read carefully?  Do you have any idea?  Was it because it was not deemed one community of interest?  Was it because it was impossible to get up to two 50% HCVAP CD's in the area?

[Torie]

As an aside, I'm not sure how we want to count the VRA in some areas. For instance, I don't think your Merced-Fresno district would meet standards, since there was a finding that a majority-minority district was required for Fresno, and since a 50% HCVAP district would have been possible by including part of Madera. I estimate that requires 61.5% HVAP or more.

That Fresno/Merced CD that I drew is more Hispanic than the one the Commission drew (mine is 58%; theirs is 52.8% HVAP). So that unleashed me, to try to draw a cleaner map. I wonder if there is any commentary on that issue in the Commission's written material, or in the transcripts, all of which will need to be read carefully?  Do you have any idea?  Was it because it was not deemed one community of interest?  Was it because it was impossible to get up to two 50% HCVAP CD's in the area?

Here's what they say in their report:

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Then they go on to say what section 2 districts they created, but they don't list one for Fresno. Instead they put part of Fresno with Kings and Bakersfield, call it a section 5 district and leave it at 49% LCVAP. Merced is then left with a lower 41% LCVAP, linked to Madera and another part of Fresno, and is again called section 5. I think there is a section 2 vulnerability, and it is implied in the MALDEF submittals. Two full section 2 districts could be drawn, but then the commission wouldn't get its cute Fresno-Visalia district at 30% LCVAP.
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Is there pending litigation, or a resolution of litigation, on the Section 2 issue? If you draw a map with two 50% HCVAP CD's in the area, could you put it up again? Thanks. It is still unclear to me, whether inter county Hispanic communities are considered a community of interest, but perhaps you have an opinion on that. The text you quote is a bit loose.

[Torie]

Maybe maps need to be drawn both ways, given the ambiguity in the VRA law - assuming two 50% HCVAP CD's can in fact be drawn, without looking ludicrous.

[Torie]

Splitting a jurisdiction into two relatively even parts is used to dilute their vote if the split jurisdiction can no longer compete against the other parts of the district.

It can also be used when the jurisdiction is large enough or nearly so for its own district but by making a relatively even split the jurisdiction can effectively control two districts.

Either way it is a classic gerrymandering technique. I think it is desirable to limit it by attempting to keep most of a jurisdiction intact. I agree that the 20% number is arbitrary, but that's what we had been batting around. As I just suggested it can be modified to remove the reliance on a specific number yet still having a meaningful impact on a map.

So if a jurisdiction is small, splitting it weakens its power.  If it's large, splitting it enhances its power.  If it's medium-sized, I guess it does neither? 

In any case, my point is not that splits aren't bad (and you still haven't convinced me that a 80-20 split isn't equally bad - doesn't that sort of dilute the 80% part and really dilute the 20% part? - but never mind that), but that having a hard and fast rule regarding them is bound to have perverse consequences. 

Thus the "finding" out for most stuff that goes beyond the Michigan rules.

[Torie]

I put my first salvo of thinking on this on the wrong thread.

And what does the bolded bit below mean exactly, and in particular the words "based in?"

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[Torie]

Excellent map, Mike.  I am wondering why you messed with my LA County CD's however.  What bothered you?

Do you have any sense of how many options vis a vis regions, and vis a vis micro chops, the Commission would have to choose from under the micro-chop regime?  That is a sensitive point.

[Torie]

Well my last map got rid of the Chino Hills chop, and had that small chop in Pomona. Where are the 4 micro-chops, and how do they avoid my small chop into Pomona?  I didn't consider appending Brea to the Asian CD (it lost Chino Hills, and took most of West Covina instead, and it worked out pretty well), and there is a big empty zone between Diamond Bar and Brea through a long pass, and the two towns are really different worlds. That is an undesirable mix, and should be avoided if possible. I much prefer adding Seal Beach to Long Beach.  That is an excellent fit, with Corona being appended to an OC based CD the second best (strong commuter and economic connections there).

[Torie]

2. Contiguous county pieces require a connection by public road, and two whole counties in a CD shall not be connected if their only connection is through a split piece of a county.

Not a bad rule... but doesn't your proposed CD-12 violate it? 

You are right. But as I mentioned many on the thread preferred a community of interest that linked the whole coast, so this commission might well accept that violation. Also, with that grouping of counties Napa will always link to other counties through a split Sonoma, or there would be a split of both Napa and Sonoma for no reason other than to preserve that rule, and for me the first rule has priority over the second. Another alternative I looked at was some other grouping, such as my initial wine country plan, but that created districts on either the east or west side of the state that were roundly rejected.

I understood the sense of the posters was to have rules that had a certain amount of flex so that there was a way out of a bad map. The way they are constructed, there are times where they will conflict with each other and the mapper can choose how to resolve the conflict.

You are preserving exactly what rule?  As to this business of the Commission voting for something that is not legal, do you mean simply per the statute having the power to depart from the otherwise applicable rule, maybe by a supra-majority?

Another issue is compactness. To get compactness might require an override of something else. We should consider one of your definitions of that perhaps. This compactness issue mostly obtains in the CA-01/CA-02 territory, or around the Sierra's potentially. But that may be a mechanism by which Sonoma acting as a bridge could be adopted as the price for compactness (the Commission used it as a bridge too of course, I suspect for that reason actually).

[Torie]

Is this 4 micro-chops in lieu of one large but still small chop really going to sell? How can it be defended without looking silly?  Maybe a micro-chop only counts where it is in lieu of one non micro chop. I think the idea is to drive to your regional groupings (assuming we have some choices), and require a supra majority to dump them.

A normal majority should make legal determinations, and if they think the VRA demands a rule be violated, with no other way, then that should be enough. You think they thought section 5 trumped section 2, and using a section 5 standard could negate the violation of a section 2 violation, thereby making suspect jurisdictions have an easier standard in some instances?  That makes no sense at all?

[Torie]

What is the SCOTUS microchop case, and if the law is clear, why then just not have the population deviations? That makes a lot more sense than a host of microchops, on the theory that they can be done away with, but won't be. In any event, when you say the commission can decide on one bigger chop or four microchops, is that by a normal vote, or a supra majority vote in your thinking? If by normal majority, than the microchop regime gives the commissions more options. I assume you think it needs a supra majority if the issue is one normal chop versus one microchop, is that correct? It is only when you have extra microchops, that this issue arises.

[Torie]

I have promised myself to have some rules up in a couple of days for discussion, elaborating on yours, which are a most useful start. Some of this hazarai needed to be worked through. There are just so many sand traps.