2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Michigan

[Oryxslayer]

Michigan

Michigan is one of several states who are changing their redistricting laws this cycle, although Michigan is certainly the state changing their laws the most. With their new commission, Michigan’s previous redistricting history matters very little and instead the history from other commission states deserves greater attention. The rules, influencers, and geographic breakdown of this commission matter more than people’s previous actions and the party’s goals. This examination is therefore going to be a bit different from ones that have come before.

Link to 2010 Atlas Discussion

Redistricting History

Michigan had Republican trifectas in both 2000 and 2010, and both times they drew maps to increase the amount of accessible GOP seats. Both times the GOP kept to redistricting guidelines adopted in the 1990s when control was divided between the parties. They had every reason to stick to them - these guidelines favored the ‘modern’ Republican coalitions geographic breakdown. The times had changed, and what had once been a good-govt proposal now was abused by the GOP. Counties and municipal lines needed to be respected as much as possible, and that various local lines that were smaller than a congressional district needed to be inside a single district. These guidelines incentivize cutting the larger counties and keeping the multitude of GOP rural counties whole.

Michigans 15 Congressional Districts from 2002-2010, Sourced from Wikipedia

Of course, the goals of the two different GOP governments were divergent because the various entrenched democratic interests were in different parts of the state. Bart Stupak was locked into the northern first district, which in the 1990s resembled its present incarnation and contained the GOP stronghold of Traverse City. The Detroit region and its suburbs were also carved up to favor to democrats, particularly in Macomb and the near side of Oakland. That needed to change. The big 1st was made into a new rural pack for the north of the state to free up what GOP suburbs were in the region. This 10th was entirely new based out of the red rural thumb and Republican suburbs. The 12th was designed explicitly to pack in the near-side spillover from Detroit and make the suburban seats safer. The rest of the map was pushed around to maximize Republican safety.

Now, the Democrats won a special election on the old map, but that special was held concurrent with a new election on the new map which the Republicans won. David Curson’s 2-month tenure is one of the shortest in congressional history, since he had only been elected to fill a vacancy.

Michigans 14 Congressional Districts since 2010, Sourced from Wikipedia

2010 was an entirely different beast. The previous map had held up well until the democratic waves came crashing through, and the democrats flipped control of the state delegation. The 9-6 was back in 2010 though, only this time Stupak had been traded for the 9th in Oakland. Once again, the GOP moved against the Detroit region, but the rest of the map was reinforced to protect their incumbents. The AA Detroit seats now tentacled out into the suburbs to pack in growing minority communities. The 5th packed in even more of the Tri-Cities, but also cracked the upstate in case rural Dems came back. The 1st got Traverse city back out of a similar desire to lock down the peninsula against a potential working-class democratic comeback. Like before, the rest of the state was carved up in order to spread out democratic cities and ensure no seat would ever truly be in danger.

Since 2011

I won’t really bother with much here because the previous process is changing. The democrats tried to crack the old map where Obama was strongest, and they consistently failed. It required the 2018 wave for the democrats to break through the gerrymander and make the map 7-7. However, the gerrymanders have held at the legislative level, even as the democrats win the statewide vote.

The most important thing to happen this decade around redistrict was addressed in the header. In 2018 Michigan overwhelmingly passed proposal 2, which creates an independent commission responsible for future redistricting efforts. The GOP keeps mounting legal challenges, but so far, the commission remains intact and appears to have full authority next year. The whims of legislators will no longer directly decide Michigan’s maps.

2021

So, let’s talk about this Michigan commission. The commission has 13 members: 4, Democrats, 4 Republicans, and 5 Independents. These commissioners cannot be employed or connected to any government employee or lobbyist. The test for these commissioners is adequate self-identification with one of the three relevant groups. Now, self-identification would normally be a problem especially when compared to measurable tests of partisanship like party ID or past vote records. However, Michigan appears to have anticipated these fears. At the start of the process, the Michigan SOS (Jocelyn Benson, Democrat) will randomly mail at least 10K voters to select them for the commission. The SOS has stated she sent invitations to 250K voters, and already over 1,000 have been successfully processed their application. This is random selection, not self-selection like in California. From here, the SOS will select 60 partisans of each color and 80 independents of adequate quality to potentially serve on the commission. The majority and minority leaders of each chamber can strike up to 5 candidates from the pool of 200 each (reducing it to 180), in order to remove visible turncoats. From there, the rest of the applicants will be put in their individual pools and randomly drawn to fill the four/four/five seats for that pool.

Michigan’s entire process is steeped in random selection to ensure the commission is legitimate. Even if that fails, the passage requirements should prevent malicious actors. The maps need only be passed by a simple majority (unlike a supermajority in some commission states), but that majority needs to include at least two Republicans, two Democrats, and two unaffiliated. Therefore, it is clear that the partisan commissioners need to work together. Rather than partisan infiltrators or malicious actors, we should perhaps fear ignorance instead. The shear amount of randomness means that we may end up with uninformed or sheepish commissioners who will follow the brash personalities of parochialists or a single commission clique. We don’t know, and frankly, that’s just part of the commission process.

Looking at California, Washington, Arizona, and other states that cared about public input in 2010, we get a general idea of the process to a commission-drawn map. The committee will schedule public hearings to meet with citizens across the state. Through this process, hypothetical maps may be released to guide the discussion on potential pairings of COIs. Protecting communities of interest, race, and local geography is important under the mandate of the law. Sometimes discussion may be guided by the media or outside influencers trying to ‘push’ the commission towards a particular outcome. Republicans for instance got the idea of a <50% white district in Washington into the public discourse, and the California commission was famously lobbied unsuccessfully by an “soundproofed neighborhood group” which was designed to twist LA districts to an incumbent’s benefit. Eventually, they will hire a firm and give them guidelines on what should go where and what things to look for in their lines. The map will then be presented before the public, and may face subsequent changes depending on public demands. One such call that came up a bit ago was the pairing of the rural thumb with upstate, along the shores of Lake Huron through Bay City.

ACS Michigan Population Change, map credits to Cinyc. It is a projection though, and the county lines will not be as stark in the final count.

So, what might this new map look like? The first question that needs to be addressed is that of the lost district. Taking a look at the current growth estimates, things are rather patchy. Detroit is shrinking, as usual, but her suburbs are growing. Outside of the metro area we see that while some rural and small-town communities are losing population, others are gaining. The western shore, Grand Rapids, and Lansing in that regard are doing well for themselves. Now, for the past two decades the GOP forced the cut district upon Detroit. This makes sense in the context of their partisan goals, and when you consider the regions population losses, but the side effect is that the whole area ends up with less districts than its pop would normally demand. It is partially why on the present map you have multiple GOP districts grabbing random parts of the metro area. Perhaps therefore the 2020 cut will be forced upon the rest of the state outside of the Detroit metro area, though this is a commission so who knows.

What a Hypothetical 'Huron coast' district could look like

We then move on to the more interesting discussion: Communities of Interest. Michigan has a lot of them, and they will likely be bickering about who deserves to go where and why. I’m just going to list off some of these communities, some are obvious, others are less so. The two AA districts are likely to shrink into Wayne for compactness reasons and drop below 50% AA (but still high enough to dominate a primary) but what communities will go in said districts are a open question. Is Ann Arbor going to be paired with Wayne or it’s more college educated neighbors in the suburbs? Do North Macomb and Oakland constitute a COI (potentially shared with other areas) even though it crossed county line? Should the Grosse Pointe’s go with their more likeminded brothers in Macomb, rather than their natural neighbors in Wayne? Should there be an ‘arab access’ district with areas like Plymouth, Livonia, Dearborn, and Hamtramck? Should the shores of Lake Michigan and Huron be considered huge COIs?  If they do, they conflict with other COIs like the Flint/Saginaw/Midland/Bay City ‘tri-cities’ region in the east and the Grand Rapids metro region in the west. Is the tri-cities even a good region since some cities have strong AA presences and others do not? What about Mount Pleasant – should it go with the nearest similar university in Lansing? How about Kalamazoo and Battle Creek? These questions and countless more will be answered during public hearing.

What’s left to Decide

N/A. The committee does not directly consider incumbent residencies or incumbent partisanship as part of their mandate. It’s very likely some representatives will have to change their address if they want to continue to have a chance at serving in Washington.

[Oryxslayer]

I think something similar, albeit likely less gerrymandered to your MI-11 could be one of the focal points of discussion. Sending one of the VRA seats north into Macomb to grab the near suburbs does wonders to ease the burden of the map when it comes to partisan balance, at least in PA-2018 style of thinking. There however are  two big problems with it. First, it prevents macomb from having a seat nested out of the county, which could be a swing seat - especially if you consider the Grosse Pointe's extensions of Macomb culturally. Second, 8-mile road is arguably the clearest COI divider in the state and we should probably avoid cracking it whenever possible.

[Oryxslayer]

Guess it's my job as thread OP to get us back on track. Posted this on my twitter a while back. 5/5 safer, 3 competitive. Whitmer won 9, Snyder '14 won 8 because he of course bombed in Flint.



Neither AA seat is >50% but both are plurality AA in 2016 data. MI-12 tries to get all the big arab communities together. I prefer cutting as few counties as possible, so someone (Isabella) drew the short straw. Would have liked to keep the Lansing region together, but needed to get an equitable distribution statewide.

[Oryxslayer]

Guess it's my job as thread OP to get us back on track. Posted this on my twitter a while back. 5/5 safer, 3 competitive. Whitmer won 9, Snyder '14 won 8 because he of course bombed in Flint.


Neither AA seat is >50% but both are plurality AA in 2016 data. MI-12 tries to get all the big arab communities together. I prefer cutting as few counties as possible, so someone (Isabella) drew the short straw. Would have liked to keep the Lansing region together, but needed to get an equitable distribution statewide.

You can still keep Lansing together and get a Clinton seat, like I did on my map. https://davesredistricting.org/join/1d117936-4d28-4a7a-9dfe-529e010bef54  
Also a lot of those county breaks seem a but random, you could clean it up a bit without losing a 7-6 breakdown.  And what did Isabella county ever do to you? HAHAHA

We have already had this discussion at length elsewhere but it comes down to personal preference over cuts. Is cutting three counties once better than cutting one county three times? In my opinion, no, because you carve up three easily defendable COIs, when you could only carve up one. However, everyone is entitled to their own opinion on that matter. I would say a map that cuts only six counties to achieve pop equity, 3 of which need to be cut because they are overpopulated, therefore does a  good job.

Of course you should also try and observe other COIs while you are at it, stuff like pairing Flint with the northern suburbs doesn't make cultural sense even though it might pop-wise. In that regard, I only failed Lansing, since the map needs true partisan equity (safe R = Safe D) for a even state.

[Oryxslayer]

Guess it's my job as thread OP to get us back on track. Posted this on my twitter a while back. 5/5 safer, 3 competitive. Whitmer won 9, Snyder '14 won 8 because he of course bombed in Flint.


Neither AA seat is >50% but both are plurality AA in 2016 data. MI-12 tries to get all the big arab communities together. I prefer cutting as few counties as possible, so someone (Isabella) drew the short straw. Would have liked to keep the Lansing region together, but needed to get an equitable distribution statewide.

You can still keep Lansing together and get a Clinton seat, like I did on my map. https://davesredistricting.org/join/1d117936-4d28-4a7a-9dfe-529e010bef54  
Also a lot of those county breaks seem a but random, you could clean it up a bit without losing a 7-6 breakdown.  And what did Isabella county ever do to you? HAHAHA

We have already had this discussion at length elsewhere but it comes down to personal preference over cuts. Is cutting three counties once better than cutting one county three times? In my opinion, no, because you carve up three easily defendable COIs, when you could only carve up one. However, everyone is entitled to their own opinion on that matter. I would say a map that cuts only six counties to achieve pop equity, 3 of which need to be cut because they are overpopulated, therefore does a  good job.

Of course you should also try and observe other COIs while you are at it, stuff like pairing Flint with the northern suburbs doesn't make cultural sense even though it might pop-wise. In that regard, I only failed Lansing, since the map needs true partisan equity (safe R = Safe D) for a even state.

I would say small cuts into 3 counties are better than cutting 1 county into 4.  Also, Isabella county isn't Wayne or Oakland, keeping it whole is easy.  I did not pair Flint with the suburbs on my map, I agree it doesn't make sense culturally.   As for partisan fairness, it isn't explicitly defined relating to specific criteria, just one of many factors.  Basically the point is so the commission doesn't draw a blatant partisan gerrymander, doesn't mean 1 safe seat has to always be matched by another safe seat.  It is obvious you are compensating for Dem's geographic disadvantage since you are drawing a tilt dem map, like you always do.  Many factors go into drawing a map and the commission may decide COIs are more important.  Not saying they'll draw a R gerrymander, but the map might reflect the geographic reality of the state.  If I were a republican commissioner I wouldn't try to draw an unfair map, but I'd reject any dem attempt to draw lines to benefit them without a concession given to me.  With commissions like this it's all about give and take.  If I'm a commissioner maybe I agree to a Lansing to Kalamazoo district, then you agree to keeping Macomb whole.  Something like that.

This  is basically a Macomb whole district, I just tend to think the grosse pointes belong in with Macomb, and they are hardly paragons of Dem partisanship, plus it allows one to nest the 8th. I wasn't attacking you with Flint, just giving an example.

Also If you think I draw Dem tilting maps...oh baby. I take fault with Stephan Wolf because I think he draws Dem tilting maps. I will concede that most of my write-ups so far have been in states where things will either get better for Dems or the fundamentals of the game favor them, so that might give the impression. If we were to get a thread going on Wisconsin, Florida, South Carolina, or prod me in Ohio, you would see my other side. Hell, you already saw the 4-way cut in Tennessee, the 8-1 in Indiana, and you can go on my Twitter for things like my Oklahoma City spiral. Remember, I'm the only guy who also expects the GA02 cut.

[Oryxslayer]

Guess it's my job as thread OP to get us back on track. Posted this on my twitter a while back. 5/5 safer, 3 competitive. Whitmer won 9, Snyder '14 won 8 because he of course bombed in Flint.


Neither AA seat is >50% but both are plurality AA in 2016 data. MI-12 tries to get all the big arab communities together. I prefer cutting as few counties as possible, so someone (Isabella) drew the short straw. Would have liked to keep the Lansing region together, but needed to get an equitable distribution statewide.

You can still keep Lansing together and get a Clinton seat, like I did on my map. https://davesredistricting.org/join/1d117936-4d28-4a7a-9dfe-529e010bef54  
Also a lot of those county breaks seem a but random, you could clean it up a bit without losing a 7-6 breakdown.  And what did Isabella county ever do to you? HAHAHA

We have already had this discussion at length elsewhere but it comes down to personal preference over cuts. Is cutting three counties once better than cutting one county three times? In my opinion, no, because you carve up three easily defendable COIs, when you could only carve up one. However, everyone is entitled to their own opinion on that matter. I would say a map that cuts only six counties to achieve pop equity, 3 of which need to be cut because they are overpopulated, therefore does a  good job.

Of course you should also try and observe other COIs while you are at it, stuff like pairing Flint with the northern suburbs doesn't make cultural sense even though it might pop-wise. In that regard, I only failed Lansing, since the map needs true partisan equity (safe R = Safe D) for a even state.

I would say small cuts into 3 counties are better than cutting 1 county into 4.  Also, Isabella county isn't Wayne or Oakland, keeping it whole is easy.  I did not pair Flint with the suburbs on my map, I agree it doesn't make sense culturally.   As for partisan fairness, it isn't explicitly defined relating to specific criteria, just one of many factors.  Basically the point is so the commission doesn't draw a blatant partisan gerrymander, doesn't mean 1 safe seat has to always be matched by another safe seat.  It is obvious you are compensating for Dem's geographic disadvantage since you are drawing a tilt dem map, like you always do.  Many factors go into drawing a map and the commission may decide COIs are more important.  Not saying they'll draw a R gerrymander, but the map might reflect the geographic reality of the state.  If I were a republican commissioner I wouldn't try to draw an unfair map, but I'd reject any dem attempt to draw lines to benefit them without a concession given to me.  With commissions like this it's all about give and take.  If I'm a commissioner maybe I agree to a Lansing to Kalamazoo district, then you agree to keeping Macomb whole.  Something like that.

This  is basically a Macomb whole district, I just tend to think the grosse pointes belong in with Macomb, and they are hardly paragons of Dem partisanship, plus it allows one to nest the 8th. I wasn't attacking you with Flint, just giving an example.

Also If you think I draw Dem tilting maps...oh baby. I take fault with Stephan Wolf because I think he draws Dem tilting maps. I will concede that most of my write-ups so far have been in states where things will either get better for Dems or the fundamentals of the game favor them, so that might give the impression. If we were to get a thread going on Wisconsin, Florida, South Carolina, or prod me in Ohio, you would see my other side. Hell, you already saw the 4-way cut in Tennessee, the 8-1 in Indiana, and you can go on my Twitter for things like my Oklahoma City spiral. Remember, I'm the only guy who also expects the GA02 cut.

I'm not saying you are the most biased, but in your "fair" maps have some subtle bias.  On your map the tipping point district is in Macomb, and Macomb leans more dem downballot, you know this.  Your map would likely be 7D-6R.

I believe two things, both in regards to 2020 and next decade:

1) The presidential topline is absolute. It may just take 4-8 years for the opposition and govt to switch and then see the opposition take all their lined up gains. Marginal presidential seats will be marginal presidentially, Safe seats will be safe, and seats that have moved between categories will move.

2) Strong or reoccurring trends are going to continue to influence the future.

This also may make my maps seem 'favorable' to the D's or R's depending on whose perspective I take. I almost always believe that a D/R pack and R/D pack is better than two/three D/R seats closer to the median. The twin packs will survive all ten years while the cracks may flip depending on the environment. This includes regions moving hard towards the left/right, they deserve to be packed just as well as the established regions.

[Oryxslayer]

not really.  You just want them together so the seat doesn't vote Trump.  Saginaw and Flint are different cities, not a single COI.  Now if I'm a Republican on the commission, I might still agree to a Flint-Saginaw district, it's a small concession.  But the other side would need to cooperate in other areas.  It's inevitable some districts will be drawn in a way that disproportionately favor one party, but the whole map can't be drawn with subtle decisions that all happen to favor 1 party.

The commission isn't made up of political apparatchiks or rabid party hacks. All the members are selected at random from a pool of independent applicants. And to serve on the commission you can't actually have any political ties whatsoever (no position within a party, staffer, lobbyist, consultant etc), merely that you registered as a member of a party on voter rolls. Just look at the Arizona commission for what the membership will be like. All lawyers, most with doctorates and additional degrees, and with no actual political links.
The aim of the commission is not to draw a bipartisan gerrymander. It's to draw a fair map that prioritises COIs while making sure it doesn't advantage either party (and yes that means adjusting for the geographic disadvantage).

Yes, I thought I covered this well in the breakdown, but I guess it deserves to be repeated. This isn't a NJ style commission where the commissioners have constant chats with the party in question, leading to wheeling and dealing. A commission like this listens to public input and then passes off their idea of approximate COIs to a chosen mapping firm. Once preliminary maps are presented, the commissioners may haggle over smaller details, however the core plan was selected by the people (or whomever decides to try and make an argument before the commission in their public hearings) and the demographics of the state. This is what happened in CA, and MIs commission is a mirror version of CAs.

[Oryxslayer]

I have  mentioned before that if I personally tend to think thee thumb belongs with the upper chunk of the state, connected through Bay City of course. Now, I didn't always hold this view, I was converted by talking with various residents and reading the discussions I alluded to in the opener. In general, only really St. Clair is seen as potentially being a good partner to various Detroit Metro seats. The rest are seen as culturally more aligned with those on the other side of the Tri-Cities, itself a recognized region of Michigan by most groups which require regional divisions.

[Oryxslayer]

I don't really see the point of Oakland getting it's own district.   It seems...meaningless.  Oakland is huge and very diverse,  both with income and demographics.    It's as though it's making a district simply to follow county lines and literally nothing else.  

It makes the most sense to have southern Oakland cross into either Wayne or Washtenaw,  depending on what communities you want to put together.  

I could understand a Macomb-exclusive district though.   That makes way more sense since it's much more White Working Class and generally is it's own community.

An all-Oakland seat is logical especially because 8 Mile Road is better not crossed if one can help it and/or its not absolutely essential to one's plans elsewhere. The main benefit is not necessarily in a homogenous CoI but better districts elsewhere. There is much reason and much elegance in two exurban districts wrapping around the more urban metro Detroit districts.

The 8 mile rd thing is more for the Macomb-Wayne border than Oakland,  since it's what separates Black Detroit from White Macomb (the difference really is pretty stark).   In Oakland you have Oak Park and Southfield areas to the north of Detroit which are both pretty black, and the difference between the two is minimal further west.

But you don't have to reach into Oakland for an adequate black district, and the more areas you take from Southern Oakland the more you need to eat into exurban metro Detroit, which is a CoI worth keeping together.
So crossing 8 Mile is still undesirable in most cases.

Even then,  Detroit is in Northeastern Wayne, and southeastern Oakland is more "Metro" and urban than southern Wayne.    There's exurban metro Detroit in western and southern Wayne, and suburban Detroit in Oakland.  

Anyway you put it the county borders don't really mean much in Detroit,  at least in respect to Oakland and Wayne.  

The current MI-11 was probably drawn as a Suburban district surrounding the AA districts, which puts all the communities of interests together, and the current MI-9 is pretty close to the Macomb working class district.

The current MI-09/11 were drawn to to maximize GOP potential in the Metro region. The 9th packs in the near suburbs which at the time were the solid obama parts of the region. The 11th is designed to squiggle around and collect the 'further' suburbs which at the time were more GOP friendly. As people moved further out, as the exurbs got pushed further back, and as attitudes changed, this no longer was a viable dichotomy that made much sense. Instead, the defining divide is now between the well understood 2016 style coalitions. In fact, one could say those coalitions are even more stark here because this is Detroit, the epicenter of the financial crash where it all began. Looking to these districts for guides on....anything is a horrible choice.

[Oryxslayer]

I don't really see the point of Oakland getting it's own district.   It seems...meaningless.  Oakland is huge and very diverse,  both with income and demographics.    It's as though it's making a district simply to follow county lines and literally nothing else.  

It makes the most sense to have southern Oakland cross into either Wayne or Washtenaw,  depending on what communities you want to put together.  

I could understand a Macomb-exclusive district though.   That makes way more sense since it's much more White Working Class and generally is it's own community.

An all-Oakland seat is logical especially because 8 Mile Road is better not crossed if one can help it and/or its not absolutely essential to one's plans elsewhere. The main benefit is not necessarily in a homogenous CoI but better districts elsewhere. There is much reason and much elegance in two exurban districts wrapping around the more urban metro Detroit districts.

The 8 mile rd thing is more for the Macomb-Wayne border than Oakland,  since it's what separates Black Detroit from White Macomb (the difference really is pretty stark).   In Oakland you have Oak Park and Southfield areas to the north of Detroit which are both pretty black, and the difference between the two is minimal further west.

But you don't have to reach into Oakland for an adequate black district, and the more areas you take from Southern Oakland the more you need to eat into exurban metro Detroit, which is a CoI worth keeping together.
So crossing 8 Mile is still undesirable in most cases.

Even then,  Detroit is in Northeastern Wayne, and southeastern Oakland is more "Metro" and urban than southern Wayne.    There's exurban metro Detroit in western and southern Wayne, and suburban Detroit in Oakland.  

Anyway you put it the county borders don't really mean much in Detroit,  at least in respect to Oakland and Wayne.  

The current MI-11 was probably drawn as a Suburban district surrounding the AA districts, which puts all the communities of interests together, and the current MI-9 is pretty close to the Macomb working class district.

The current MI-09/11 were drawn to to maximize GOP potential in the Metro region. The 9th packs in the near suburbs which at the time were the solid obama parts of the region. The 11th is designed to squiggle around and collect the 'further' suburbs which at the time were more GOP friendly. As people moved further out, as the exurbs got pushed further back, and as attitudes changed, this no longer was a viable dichotomy that made much sense. Instead, the defining divide is now between the well understood 2016 style coalitions. In fact, one could say those coalitions are even more stark here because this is Detroit, the epicenter of the financial crash where it all began. Looking to these districts for guides on....anything is a horrible choice.

Thanks for the history lesson, but that completely misses the point.  

MI-11 was drawn to maximize GOP influence in the district, by incorporating certain groups of people in it, and MI-9 was drawn as a vote sink with other groups of people.  

The districts have changed their voting patterns, but the people are still there generally.  Northwest Wayne has way more in common (today) with parts of southern Oakland than it does with other parts of Wayne, the vice versa is still true today.

Anyway,  I'll drop the point,  doesn't seem anyone here really agrees.

Well, I agree with you on the  topic of wayne parts vs other wayne  parts, I just think the pop and the commission rules favor the later. It also allows the west suburbs to go potentially with Ann Arbor and Washtenaw, which they also share common traits with. Or they could go with other wayne towns like Dearborn and bits of detroit part of a Arab access seat.

While we are  on this topic though, I'm surprised there are not many maps that try to get a non-detroit seat purely in Wayne, something like what occurs below. I guess it's because the numbers are less favorable this cycle when compared to the last when it comes to wayne vs the suburbs. Such a seat would have cascading effects like requiring both minority seats to head north and then push the suburban seats even further north. Livingston couldn't be paired fully with Oakland. Maybe I will play around with it since it will Allow Livonia & Co. to be paired with the near side of Oakland, even though it would be in a AA seat.

[Oryxslayer]

I don't really see the point of Oakland getting it's own district.   It seems...meaningless.  Oakland is huge and very diverse,  both with income and demographics.    It's as though it's making a district simply to follow county lines and literally nothing else.  

It makes the most sense to have southern Oakland cross into either Wayne or Washtenaw,  depending on what communities you want to put together.  

I could understand a Macomb-exclusive district though.   That makes way more sense since it's much more White Working Class and generally is it's own community.

An all-Oakland seat is logical especially because 8 Mile Road is better not crossed if one can help it and/or its not absolutely essential to one's plans elsewhere. The main benefit is not necessarily in a homogenous CoI but better districts elsewhere. There is much reason and much elegance in two exurban districts wrapping around the more urban metro Detroit districts.

The 8 mile rd thing is more for the Macomb-Wayne border than Oakland,  since it's what separates Black Detroit from White Macomb (the difference really is pretty stark).   In Oakland you have Oak Park and Southfield areas to the north of Detroit which are both pretty black, and the difference between the two is minimal further west.

But you don't have to reach into Oakland for an adequate black district, and the more areas you take from Southern Oakland the more you need to eat into exurban metro Detroit, which is a CoI worth keeping together.
So crossing 8 Mile is still undesirable in most cases.

Has anybody successfully made 2 VRA districts solely in Wayne in this thread? It was certainly doable in 2010, I'm not convinced it is any longer.

I'm also not convinced it would be that controversial on a partisan level. You have to put a lot of SE Oakland into a Detroit district before a district entirely in Oakland starts looking competitive.

This depends entirely upon how we define AA seats in this context. The 2010 GOP believed in packing said seats to the brim with as many AA voters would be allowed before the map ran became an example of racial packing. In this regard, they all passed 50%. Now, it is still possible to get two seats out of the entire metro above 50% if you use the 2016 data and ALL areas of AA concentration. There is even enough leeway in the 2016 data for it to still work in 2020 after four more years of pop decline.

However, it is unlikely the commission takes this approach since it would require the destruction of almost every other Metro COI in favor of the AA community. Instead, we should perhaps look to CA, where we got Asian access seats like CA39 and two AA access seats in west LA. All three seats have the relevant demographic far below 50%.

So then we should lower our criteria. Is it AA plurality? Can it be lower, to something like AA greater than 40%? Do the other voter groups matter? Is a white republican who will not vote in the AA dominated dem primary equal to one who will? How one defines an AA seat will  decide how much of near Oakland, if any at all, is required to make the seats pass the minimum criteria.

[Oryxslayer]

Anyway here's the results of my investigation into the Wayne non-AA seat style map. Like the others upthread discovered, this leads to the rotation of districts around that state. Now I didn't intend for it to become a D-Gerry/D-Favoring map at the start. However, once I saw how the Detroit Metro seats (first drawn) basically favored the Democrats to an unfair degree, I kinda made that unfairness part of the map. I do not endorse this plan, and I think it should show why an anchored Wayne  non-AA seat is probably asking the data to provide something that isn't available.






Districts 11, 12, 13 are Safe D (The Wayne Seat is right there is a D gift)

District 9 is probably Likely D (Clinton+10, D+4 CPVI, Sunk Livingston is growing just like Ann Arbor)

Districts 3 and 10 are marginal Clinton with D+1 CPVI's, but they are both moving towards the Dems

District 5 is marginal Clinton with D+4 CPVI, but it is moving towards the GOP (yep Clinton won a majority of seats...)

District 7 is marginal Trump with a R+1 CPVI, but moving towards the Dems

Districts 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 are safe GOP, all with CPVI's above R+8 and an average Trump win of 58% - 37% (one seat a bit above that trump win, one seat a bit below that).

[Oryxslayer]

My latest version, which solves the Livingston problem by pairing with Washtenaw and Oakland in a coherent D+1.66 district that is quickly trending more D.  Oakland, Macomb and Wayne each have a district entirely within them.  The-Oakland only district is D+0.76 but Clinton won by 5.  The white parts of Wayne are reasonably paired with Monroe; it's basically a tossup district (DRA says R+0.61).  Flint/Saginaw and Lansing/Isabella districts are D+3 and D+0.15 but Trump very narrowly won both.  

I'd say good map but Rs will hate all those suburban swing seats and Dems will be sweating since  Clinton won only 4 seats!  Of course it is a citizen's commission.  If they prioritize competitiveness we could see something like this.  But I predict they'll focus more on keeping boundaries unbroken and COIs.

Well given the political parties have literally no input into the commission it doesn't really matter what they think. It'll be whatever 13 random citizens with no political links who are probably lawyers think best fits the criteria they follow.
And it should be noted that respecting COIs is completely different from keeping Counties intact. And the commission is bound by law to prioritise respecting COIs and competitive elections over county and municipality integrity.

But in the absence of other COIs, a county works just fine. In the past, true commissions were limited to the west, where huge, unnatural, counties are destined to be cut. Michigan on the other hand has more rational county breakdowns. At the congressional level with only 13 seats, it's very likely COI discussions will focus on which counties should be paired with which other counties (Saginaw+Flint for instance) - except in several obvious situations usually within one of the metro areas. On lower level maps these cross-county COIs will be more imperative.

[Oryxslayer]

I just drew a new version of a MI map, and I'm extremely satisfied with it. The goal was to keep very close to the rule of minimizing county and municipal splits while keeping COIs together, and I think this map does an excellent job of both while also coming out with a very fair partisan balance of 6-6-1. It also has two seats that are majority or nearly majority black (and you could fiddle around with the edges to get them both to majority black, such as by switching Hamtramck). The UP-Traverse City district has no county splits at all (!!!), and the Lansing and Flint-Saginaw districts share a de minimis county split but have no splits with any other districts. The Detroit metro has two majority/near-majority black Detroit+ districts, one district entirely in Wayne, one district entirely in Oakland, one district covering the exurban parts of Oakland and Macomb and one district containing the western/southern exurbs+Ann Arbor, which I think is the best possible COI arrangement in the Detroit area. The three counties of the Lansing metro are also kept together without combining them with any other major metro (no combination with Flint, Saginaw, Livingston County, Kalamazoo, etc.)

Without further ado, the map:

MI-01 (Upper Peninsula, Traverse City): 37-59 Trump, Safe R
MI-02 (Holland, Muskegon): 37-57 Trump, Safe R
MI-03 (Grand Rapids): 41-52 Trump, Likely R
MI-04 (Bay City, Port Huron): 32-63 Trump, Safe R
MI-05 (Kalamazoo, Benton Harbor): 42-52 Trump, Likely R
MI-06 (Lansing, Battle Creek, Jackson): 48-46 Clinton, Lean D
MI-07 (Flint, Saginaw, Midland): 48-47 Clinton, Toss-up
MI-08 (Ann Arbor, Monroe, Howell): 50-45 Clinton, Likely D
MI-09 (Pontiac, Royal Oak, Novi): 53-42 Clinton, Safe D
MI-10 (Oxford, Sterling Heights, New Baltimore): 36-59 Trump, Safe R
MI-11 (Dearborn, Livonia, Romulus): 51-44 Clinton, Likely D
MI-12 (Detroit West, Southfield, Inkster): 78-19 Clinton, Safe D (51% black)
MI-13 (Detroit East, Warren, Mount Clemens): 69-28 Clinton, Safe D (49% black)

Total: 6R (4 Safe, 2 Likely), 6D (3 Safe, 2 Likely, 1 Lean), 1 Toss-up

https://davesredistricting.org/join/28069751-857c-44d0-8e44-8abde1dc2f25

Edit: I realized I had an unintentional extra municipal split in Macomb County. I've fixed that on the DRA version, and it actually increased the black percentage in MI-13 just a hair (nearly to the point of rounding up to 50%!).

I think that's probably the best effort I've seen yet in this thread.

I particularly like that MI-2 - it's very hard to make a doughnut seat that doesn't look incredibly awkward, but you pulled it off and it's a good Grand Rapids exurbs seat.

Thanks! I will say it's definitely not necessary to draw the Grand Rapids area that way, though I personally think this is the best COI version because it keeps the Grand Rapids urban+suburban areas together with also keeping rural/small city western Michigan together. I often like donut maps because they allow you to keep a clear separation of urban/suburban areas from rural areas, which have very different interests.

I also like most of the map, though I personally think Donuts don't really work on the congressional level. That said, another advantage of the map is CD's 2 and 3 are in a 'closed ecosystem' so if you have different goals for the seat you can adjust as needed. If you want another cooperative (GOP leaning) seat to counteract the weaker Clinton seats in the east, you could do Muskegon+Newaygo +Grand  Rapids part of Kent. If you just don't like Donuts you could put all of Ottawa or Montcalm+Ionia+Gratiot and then cut away the redder parts of Kent to compensate. It's a great map and template to base future work off of.

[Oryxslayer]

I tried my best to satisfy the important COI considerations that have been discussed.

1: UP and northern LP
2: Northern Lake Michigan coast and interior
3: Grand Rapids and relevant Ottawa County suburbs
4: Lansing metro area and surrounding rural areas
5: Genesee County and the tri-cities
6: Southwestern MI, with Kalamazoo and Battle Creek
7: South Central MI and right-trending Wayne suburbs
8: Livingston and Oakland exurbs/outer suburbs
9: Oakland and Macomb inner/middle suburbs
10: Thumb and exurban Macomb
11: Most of Detroit and nearby suburbs
12: Washtenaw and upscale, left-trending western Wayne
13: Western Detroit and blackest parts of Oakland

Districts 4, 5, and 9 would be highly competitive.

The 7th is sort of the "leftovers" district, but I like the arrangement it allows for the 12th and it's pretty uniformly right-trending areas, at least. You could alternatively put the remainder of Wayne with Monroe (almost exactly a full district) and get another competitive district, but that means putting Ann Arbor with rural areas and that's something I wanted to avoid.

And this my friends is what you get if you try to preserve the gerrymandered lines as best as possible. I applaud your efforts to update them, but they are still tainted.

[Oryxslayer]

The recognized tri-cities community is Saginaw-Midland-Bay City, but most groupers also throw in Flint because of the regions economic ties. They are all oriented along route 85, and all are at least somewhat postindustrial. They all are distinct from the rural thumb, whose most similar cousins are across the bay in upper Michigan (all residents I have chat with want something like this), all distinct from the universities to their west, and distinct from the Detroit suburbs to their south.

The point of keeping counties whole is that counties are the default COI. If there is no better or clearer COI, the the county level is best observed. If there is a better COI, than it comes before the county. If there are lots of counties like in Michigan, you get cross-county COIs that deserve the same respect as inter-county ones. We have cases here where those outside of Wayne have clear cross-county COIs: rural Thumb+Upland, the route 85 tri-cities corridor, the central universities, and the Wayne exurbs.

[Oryxslayer]

The recognized tri-cities community is Saginaw-Midland-Bay City, but most groupers also throw in Flint because of the regions economic ties. They are all oriented along route 85, and all are at least somewhat postindustrial. They all are distinct from the rural thumb, whose most similar cousins are across the bay in upper Michigan (all residents I have chat with want something like this), all distinct from the universities to their west, and distinct from the Detroit suburbs to their south.

The point of keeping counties whole is that counties are the default COI. If there is no better or clearer COI, the the county level is best observed. If there is a better COI, than it comes before the county. If there are lots of counties like in Michigan, you get cross-county COIs that deserve the same respect as inter-county ones. We have cases here where those outside of Wayne have clear cross-county COIs: rural Thumb+Upland, the route 85 tri-cities corridor, the central universities, and the Wayne exurbs.

Well the tri cities and Flint can't be together.  You can do Tri Cities or Flint-Saginaw.  If Flint isn't paired with Saginaw it can go with Lansing or the Thumb.

And Lansing and the thumb have better partners than Flint. Remember how I said that the rural, Lakeshore oriented, thumb is best paired with the upstate. How it is something every Michigan resident I have consulted with agrees to? Hell, Even
 Dave Wasserman in a hypothetical map linked the two. Well, we cannot link the two via water across the bay. Therefore, going through Bay City is the easiest solution. Guess what? Flint + Saginaw + Midland is a viable cd, with a bit more tacked on of course.

[Oryxslayer]

2012/2016 composite

Well I listened to complaints and made adjustments, now there's a Flint-Saginaw-Midland district which votes Dem in the last 2 elections, albeit narrowly in 2016.  Now the Thumb is part of a Huron Coast district.  I still prefer the previous map, but this one would be more passable being 7-6.  

For what it's worth, you appear to be using 2010 census figures (thus the larger Grand Rapids-based district than my map, e.g., and the bigger split of Lenawee), which may be skewing the map in other ways. 2016 estimates are not the same as what will be reported in the 2020 census, of course, but they should be closer to 2020 than 2010 figures would be.

Hell, I'm not even sure why you are using the 2010 module for Michigan - the 2016 one uniquely has 2016 election data.

[Oryxslayer]

Why can't you go across Saginaw Bay?

"Districts shall be geographically contiguous. Island areas are considered to be contiguous by land to the county of which they are a part."

Doesn't this say that counties encompass all offshore waters, including any islands.

I agree in theory, and I don't think this is a completely crazy idea as it does keep genuinely rural areas together and separate from cities, but I think it would meet with a fair amount of resistance.

It will be interesting to see what the dynamic of the commission will be.

Justin Leavitt made a presentation to the the selection panel in California, in which he said one of the main skills that commissioners should have is the ability to question their lawyers and demographers and other experts.

In Michigan, the commissioners are going to be drawn by lottery, with almost zero screening. Michigan does not have partisan registration, and party selection in primary elections is secret. Yet the commissioners are expected to declare a party affiliation and be selected on that basis.

The SOS who is in charge of the lottery added a couple of optional questions, letting an applicant explain why they considered themselves affiliated with a party, and why they wanted to serve on the commission. Each of the four legislative leaders may make 5 strikes  from a randomly selected pool of 200 (60D, 60R, and 80I).

Remember they won't be choosing commissioners, they will be knocking potential commissioners. If you are a Republican leader who do you go after? Some independents who you think might be biased? Some Democrats who you think might be forceful leaders. No doubt they will try to do some background checks, but even if you work with the other leader of your party, you can only take out 10 of 200.

The commission of 13 total strangers of varying competence will be expected to choose a lawyer and mapping specialists, and arrange hearings, etc. The SOS is designated as the secretary of the commission. Will they be susceptible to being led?

I mentioned this in my original writeup. White there is some degree of self-selection, you need to respond to the SoS's mailed invitation, and said self-selection will trend towards 'professionals' with the time and knowledge to commit to their potential undertaking, it will lead to a ore random and fragmented selection than in CA. This could very well lead to cliques of councilors forming, a handful of individuals dominating the commission, or potential 'guidance' from the SoS. However, it's most likely to result in individuals committed to their preconceived COIs from their region of the state, and therefore will only approve maps that conform to those guidelines, along with the most vocal of public input.

[Oryxslayer]

So after everyone discussed COIs a while back, I decided to explore a map that was mainly based on COIs. It ended up unusual. The 'guiding' districts in this case were CD5 which has all of the tri-cities and Flint, CD4 which crosses the Saginaw river to link the Thump and the Upstate, CD1 which actually gets all of the non-urbanized west coast, and CD7 which puts all the notable central MI college towns together. CD9 gets the Grosse Pointe's because their local lines cross the border of Wayne and Macomb. One of the AA seats has all the arabs, as I tend to prefer when possible. The main victim of the mid-state getting their COI's is CD8, but it isn't affected too much as far as pop distribution is concerned.

Trump won 7 seats when he won by less than 1%. When whitmer won by 10% she no only got the 6 Clinton seats and the swingy Macomb seat, she also got the Grand Rapids seat by <3K votes.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c7f30e42-14ef-444d-a14b-2e7b25639720

[Oryxslayer]

Snip

Regardless of whether or not DRA has data on the 2016 map, I always draw my lines there. Then I redraw the map in the 2010 data, since the 2010 map has more information on the precinct level and the census tracts often used on the 2016 level are sometimes weird. Michigan just is nice enough to have 2016 data in the 2016 module. Every image/map I have ever posted here is in the 2010 module, transcribed from the 2016 one. So, this is the 2016 map.

[Oryxslayer]

Anyway, here's a quick alternative to Shiawassee in the 8th. Shiawassee in general is rather small when compared to her neighbors, and lacks a clear COI partner since it is kinda the 'empty' space between Flint, the Tri-Cities, Lansing, and The Detroit Exurbs. If you stick Shiawaasee in the Lansing seat on my map, you trade it for bits out of the south, something I wished to avoid. If you however put it with the 5th and the cities seat, then you get a less obtuse map, though you so add a cut. It also opens discussion of whether those southern towns in Gennessee are part of the Detroit exurbs or the Flint region.



Here's what it looks like overall.



EastAnglianLefty does have a good question about the thumb+upland seat, but I tend to think that the CD1 on this map is a viable answer to said question. The seat puts two COI's together: the upstate and the non-urban west Coast, allowing the fourth to work.

[Oryxslayer]

I think that's a significant improvement, though it's hard to tell how closely Bay City is being cut. I was hoping by putting Shiawassee in the Lansing seat you could pull the Lansing seat south from Mount Pleasant, though, which is a long northern appendage now (though I suppose I see the reasoning behind putting a smaller college town with Lansing).

Yes the point of this 7th was the college town COI. The idea was to pair Lansing (a clear college city) with Mt. Pleasant and Albion which are also obvious college towns in mid-michigan. So it's naturally going to be perpendicular, like I said the maps goals made it strange.



Also it pays to keep an eye on the Bay county towns if the county is getting cut. In this map it's all of frankenlurst, Bay City, and Midland, plus a bit for pop equity. On the other map it adds monitor, Auburn, and Williams, along with a precinct for pop.

[Oryxslayer]

What areas of Wayne besides Dearborn have the highest concentrations of Arab-Americans? 

IIRC there are fair few Yemenis in Hamtramck.

I'm not sure Hamtramck is Muslim Majority, Wikipedia metions that it's city council is. Even though the Bengali and Pakistani Muslims are different from their Arab cousins, I'm sure they would prefer to be together rather than cracked between the AA seat. This is why I always reach an arm in there for my MI-12/13s. Heading west you got some in Livonia and the other townships in that western line (Redford, Plymouth, etc), though they are more of an Arab Christian Descent.

[Oryxslayer]

Since we are on the topic of Arab communities, I decided to go download the latest ACS data and see for myself what the present lay of the ground is. Here is a map of all people claiming Mid-Eastern descent in the metro - not just Arabs but Turks, Iranians, and others that would prefer being in the arab seat to anywhere else. Compared to the more limited view shown above, the Larger Arab pockets in Dearborn, Dearborn heights and Hamtramk have expanded. This is mainly because of the turnover since then, Arabs moving in and the older residents moving out. The map though also captures the Arab Christians that I mentioned earlier to the west of Dearborn - Assyrians, Lebanese, and others who may be missed by a more limited scope. If we are solely confining the Arab or Arab+AA seat to Wayne, and preventing it from tendrilling into the suburbs, then those western towns are the next best additions. There is this idea of doing parallel cuts into Oakland, so that the Arab seat can grab more Arabs and the AA seat grabs Pontiac, however such things appear to be banned by the commission.