Ohio redistricting thread

[Torie]

Below is the Ohio law on drawing CD lines. The operative words that would pertain  to Columbus are "significant portion." The map above obviously complies with that stricture. It is very difficult to do better than this map given a chop into Franklin must be a contiguous one, and the city literally bisects the county, going from the north line to within a few feet of the south line. I actually tried to keep as much of OH-12 and OH-15 out of the city as reasonably possible without making the map look ludicrous. As it is, 84% of OH-03 is within the city as defined to include surrounded areas. This law was obviously written with the Franklin and Columbus situation specifically in mind.

(B) A congressional district plan shall comply with all of the following requirements:
(1) The plan shall comply with all applicable provisions of the constitutions of Ohio and the United States and of federal law, including federal laws protecting racial minority voting rights.
(2) Every congressional district shall be compact.
(3) Every congressional district shall be composed of contiguous territory, and the boundary of each district shall be a single nonintersecting continuous line.
(4) Except as otherwise required by federal law, in a county that contains a population that exceeds the congressional ratio of representation, the authority drawing the districts shall take the first of the following actions that applies to that county:
(a) If a municipal corporation or township located in that county contains a population that exceeds the congressional ratio of representation, the authority shall attempt to include a significant portion of that municipal corporation or township in a single district and may include in that district other municipal corporations or townships that are located in that county and whose residents have similar interests as the residents of the municipal corporation or township that contains a population that exceeds the congressional ratio of representation.In determining whether the population of a municipal corporation or township exceeds the congressional ratio of representation for the purpose of this division, if the territory of that municipal corporation or township completely surrounds the territory of another municipal corporation or township, the territory of the surrounded municipal corporation or township shall be considered part of the territory of the surrounding municipal corporation or township.
(b) If one municipal corporation or township in that county contains a population of not less than one hundred thousand and not more than the congressional ratio of representation, that municipal corporation or township shall not be split. If that county contains two or more such municipal corporations or townships, only the most populous of those municipal corporations or townships shall not be split.
(5) Of the eighty-eight counties in this state, sixty-five counties shall be contained entirely within a district, eighteen counties may be split not more than once, and five counties may be split not more than twice. The authority drawing the districts may determine which counties may be split.
(6) If a congressional district includes only part of the territory of a particular county, the part of that congressional district that lies in that particular county shall be contiguous within the boundaries of the county.
(7) No two congressional districts shall share portions of the territory of more than one county, except for a county whose population exceeds four hundred thousand.
(8 ) The authority drawing the districts shall attempt to include at least one whole county in each congressional district. This division does not apply to a congressional district that is contained entirely within one county or that cannot be drawn in that manner while complying with federal law.

[Torie]

No idea how legal this is, but I made a 2-13 map based on 2018 population. The closest R district, district 8, was Trump +13 in 2016.


https://davesredistricting.org/join/08b4de36-dabf-47e1-8a02-d4278a9def01

Other than the VRA violation for black packing the Cleveland CD with a very  non compact CD, perhaps you might try to list the rest of your legal violations with your map as a mental exercise. Or perhaps not.  As was pointed out to me a couple of times, I crossed the line myself a couple of times.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=351688.msg7849710#msg7849710

[Torie]

I needed to correct some population errors that I found in my spreadsheet, but this Pub light gerrymander map is actually a pretty good map to my eyes (e.g., the populations work out very well to facilitate clean lines, particularly in NE Ohio), outside of the partisan location of the cut into Hamilton, and of course switching out of Fairfield from OH-15 to OH-12, which snatches a CD away from the Dems, unless the Trump malaise in the Columbus area keeps the Dem trends going out into the future. But for a few years, it should do the trick for them.

Here is a bit less light Pub gerrymander that moves OH-12 further into a Pub safe harbor that is more likely to protect it for the decade, and smooths out the line to boot. It moves OH-12 out of its Columbus metro area nest however, that seems not to get too much blow back in the public square, at least perhaps if done in small morsels where it smooths out the lines.

[Torie]

If you draw R gerrymanders, shouldn't you all try to keep one R seat per R incumbent instead of double-bunking them. They won't be happy!

For an overview on the locations of their homes take a look at my map obove with the red and blue stars.

Two of the three Pub incumbents can be accommodated without messing up the map much (assuming the guy in Holmes is near the OH-05 line). The double bunk with the guy in Muskegon cannot, so that guy needs to move to Canton. Messing up a map to accommodate an incumbent  because he or she won't move their sorry butt is a no go in my world.

[Torie]

The most common conception of a performing Black VRA district seems to be that
1. Black voters need to be a clear majority in the D primary (or hypothetically the R primary) so that they can elect a (Black or non-Black) candidate of their choice in the primary,
2. together with non-Black D voters the district has to be likely/safe D (or R) in a general election as long as Black voters vote overwhelmingly D.

A district that fulfills both conditions can be drawn entirely within Cuyahoga county and including all of Cleveland. Therefore there is no need to violate the Ohio redistricting rules cited by Torie, in particular the one that says that a district should either include at least one whole county or be contained in one county.

Well said. The packing with a BCVAP over 50% due to erose lines is clearly illegal. Doing it where less than 50%, but clearly performing without the erosity, is a grey zone, but in all events bad policy, in my opinion.

[Torie]

I would just note that if in say my Pub gerrymander light map, the Dems get the upper hand in Hamilton County, and have two competitive CD's with OH-08 and OH-07 (with a shot at OH-09 to boot), they might be wise to accept that, rather than hoping for another time at bat in 4 years, and being leashed in the interim to 3 CD's. It is a risk-reward ratio calculus. They will not look very good in rejecting what looks like a clean map because they want more, as the lynch pin for changing the law via a referendum or whatever.

[Torie]

The Ohio Constitution states that a CD map cannot "unduly" favor one party. That is one of those words that basically cedes the power to the courts. I wonder if there is any legislative history on that one, produced when the initiative was written that was passe by the voters.

[Torie]

Well, having reviewed and applied the Ohio anti-gerrymandering strictures, as expected I find them quite toothless. Heck, although it would not have been that big a problem anyway, other than for cities in excess of 100,000, there is no limit at all to municipal chopping. One could do whatever the F one wanted. It’s party time! Not that some circuit breakers here would have slowed the party down much from doing whatever the heck one wanted anyway.

So here is Ohio in all its glory, and, in its current political condition, one didn’t even need to break a sweat to create this masterpiece. Badger's CD embraces Holmes County as it should. He should enjoy campaigning there when he runs for Congress. Leave the beer at home in Holmes Badger.

My OH-02 kind of reminds me of the glory days of that CD that ran from the Memphis burbs to Nashville burbs.

And in a sign of the times, one 25,000 or so folks of once comfortably Pub Arlington have been dumped into OH-03, which smoothed out the lines on the western edge of OH-03 to boot, to make the map even more beautiful.

Oh, my favorite moment is when I put the hippies/stoners/weathermen/whatever left hanging around in Yellow Springs after Antioch College shut down,  into Jordon's district per a nice little county chop just for it because they are so special. COI baby. Gotta do it. Sure it created another county chop, but several (many actually) were left on the table permissible under law feeling lonely and unused, which kind of made me think I must be doing something wrong.

Addendum: I guess the remaining issue is whether the Pubs should threaten to seize Hamilton County if the Dems don't agree to a 10 year plan for this puppy. I know Badger would say no, but then he isn't in Hamilton County planning to run for Congress either.

Just for fun, I will leave it to someone else to draw a 4 year plan map, be it a bluff or otherwise. The idea would be to minimize dummymander potential of course in the Columbus, Cincy and Dayton area in particular, to give the bluff more teeth, if intended as a bluff, or otherwise. The provision of the law can be found here: https://ballotpedia.org/Redistricting_in_Ohio_after_the_2020_census#Drafting_process

https://davesredistricting.org/join/b9f944aa-cc44-4620-86b3-39754293d587

[Torie]

The law says the lines in Ohio CD maps cannot be "unduly" partisan, whatever that means. To me, that means something a somewhat hackish partisan court can stomach, without undue embarrassment - sort of like the PA supreme court in 2018. So avoid chopping lines, draw something where the CD's make some sense, are not too erose, while admittedly the grand design is to favor one party - to wit, a gerrymander light. So below is my map based on that metric. It's a 12-3 map of course, with the closest CD the Toledo based one, that Trump 2020 carried by 7 points. Any ugly chop of Hamilton County to try to snatch another Pub CD is a legal fail. Period. I thought my map above was too problematic. Among other things Wood County needs to stay with Lucas, rather than make OH-04 too erose to snatch it. All roads seem to lead to that Rep. Jordon creature staying around forever. Sad.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/b9f944aa-cc44-4620-86b3-39754293d587

[Torie]

This version has one more county chop, but the CD’s are considerably more compact, so I prefer it I think.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/995251ad-8fd4-424f-af16-e5e8aeebe7a7

[Torie]

I don't want to do that because it makes OH-04 too erose with a jut up like that that can have no explanation but a particularly ugly gerrymander. The idea is to minimize the odds that a court would find that the map "unduly" favors one party. The defense to the lawsuit, which will absolutely be filed, is that the CD's are compact (OH 02 is a bit elongated, but the population spreads force it, and it really is a suburban CD as a mix and match of Columbus and Cincinnati burbs), minimizes county splits except necessary for compactness, and ditto chopping municipalities. Wood has suburbs of Toledo in it as well. Not good to slice them off from Toledo for partisan purposes. OH-04 reaching that far north really looks bad from all aspects in a lawsuit. OH-05 is Pub enough as drawn to decapitate Kaptur. Pigs get fat, and hogs gets slaughtered. Make sense? The map is not really a gerrymander at all you see. It just turned out that way due to Dem self packing, as they lost the white working class big time, into the three 3 big cities. Their coalition just doesn't work in Ohio. Such is life.

[Torie]

And here is a map that actually gets very close to a "fair" map. The Akron based CD, OH-14, was just about dead even for Trump 2020.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/9014bb57-d79d-4f99-aad2-cf150a01e1e5

[Torie]

"3-1-11 is not a fair map lol"

I mean based on neutral redistricting principles where dividing the CD spoils is not based on the overall percentage share of the vote between the parties. In some states to make "fair" maps as you define it, would require them to be hideously erose, if not impossible (the VRA can make it even harder in some places), even if one uses the Muon2 formula where you double the percentage points that one party has over the other in the state, so if a party has 55% of the vote statewide, they get 60% of the seats. If the party has 60% of the state vote, they get 70% of of the CD seats.

[Torie]

I mean, if it weren’t for the “toothless” laws, Cincinnati would probably be a sure crack, no?

The law has more teeth than I thought given the map cannot unduly favor one party, but yes, aside from the "unduly" proscription, not cracking big cities does make the chop of Hamilton more difficult, and what you get is only a lean GOP seat anyway.

[Torie]

North and South Columbus must be in two different districts. South Columbus is more culturally like Athens Ohio than anywhere else and North Columbus should go in a district with DelCo. Anything else is a gerrymander.

That is illegal under Ohio law. As much of Columbus must be in one district as is reasonably practicable.

[Torie]

Obviously maps can be drawn more friendly to the Dems. Arguing what is “fair” and a “gerrymander” has proven to me to be almost pointless and nobody is persuaded much by the other guy. I find it more interesting to me to figure out what is legal or at least minimizes legal risks, that the party in control, or if not in control, what is most likely to happen in a deadlock, and see how close that ends up to what happens.

So, the map below is what I think is quite likely to survive a legal challenge in Ohio, without ending up giving the Dems much, except a swing seat around Akron. The map by the way, has no Columbus precincts in OH-12, so the city is split only between two CD’s. It is also illegal for OH-12 to penetrate Franklin County in two non-contiguous chunks.


Oh, and below is a screenshot of the law regarding how to deal with Columbus. One can argue communities of interest all day long too. Nobody is going to agree on that either, or what communities of interest to unite, and what not. And argue too about just what “must attempt to include a significant portion of [Columbus] in a single district” means when filing briefs with the court. But chopping Columbus between only two CD’s I think is a pretty compelling point to make before the court, as well as minimizing the size of the chop into Columbus while hewing to the balance of the law.  I appreciate the idea is to have OH-12 do the chopping into Columbus. Good luck with that while avoiding non-contiguous chops, and having Columbus chopped only once, and minimizing the size of that chop. I don’t one can get there, leaving one with only the “unduly” argument, and that I don’t think will get much traction with the court, particularly if it still does move OH-12 into at least a marginal status, or does it only by making the map somewhat of an erose mess.


Given all of the above, this is the map that I would recommend the Pubs enact as their lawyer for the Dems to challenge in court, as they most certainly will. This law is a lawyer’s dream given the vague “unduly” language. Fees, fees, and more fees.


https://davesredistricting.org/join/9014bb57-d79d-4f99-aad2-cf150a01e1e5









PS: Folks can submit their own maps to the Comission? Who knew? I guess I should submit mine! What's the link?

[Torie]

Note: Part of Columbus is also in Fairfield county.

Your lawyering over what "significant portion" means is balderdash. My 3rd district includes 63% of Columbus (more if you restrict it to the Franklin portion of the city), and that portion of it accounts for 73% of the population of my 3rd district. Under no reasonable interpretation would that not qualify as "attempting to include a significant portion of the city in a single district". Contiguity of city chops, unlike contiguity of county chops, is not at issue in the law.

My only comment is that the state law considers a municipality in two counties to be deemed to be two municipalities for redistricting purposes.

Oh, and I did not claim that your map, which I did not look at, lacked a "significant" portion of Columbus. I have no idea what "significant" means. Does your 63% include real estate that Columbus surrounds, and exclude the bit in Delaware County? The theoretical max is  around 80% (786146/982146), the min if one evenly chopped Columbus is 40%.  Mine including surrounded real estate and excluding the Delaware County bit, is 75%. That is another issue that may well be litigated.

[Torie]

Here's the link to submitting maps to the redistricting commission:

https://redistricting.ohio.gov/public-input#submit-map

They are accepting both congressional and state assembly maps.  Technically the commission doesn't have the ability to draw a congressional map unless the legislature fails to pass a map with a 60% bipartisan supermajority that includes at least 50% of the Democrats by September 30th.  However, as Edna Mode once said: "Luck favors the prepared, darling."

Map submitted. Many thanks.

[Torie]

This Breitbart article claims that an "anonymous GOP source" has seen a map that Gov. DeWine plans to introduce next week. Supposedly, Jim Jordan's district gets pulled into Columbus which would threaten him, and Mike Turner is put into the same district as Warren Davidson.

Of course, this article really serves as another "this Republican secretly wants to help Pelosi let's vote for his MAGA challenger" rally piece, so I doubt it is accurate at all, but such a map would be interesting to say the least.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/10/01/rigged-ohios-dewine-others-consider-redistricting-map-that-would-eliminate-jim-jordans-district-solidify-pelosis-majority/

That alone should make anyone take this with a huge grain of salt.

"UPDATE 9:40 p.m. ET

LaRose spokesman Rob Nichols disputed the above report in its entirety after publication reaching out to Breitbart News to say it is not accurate. “You’ve been lied to, your sources are terrible, and everything you’ve been told is wrong,” Nichols said.

LaRose is Ohio’s Secretary of State."

[Torie]

Better look:

Numbers on that 3rd?

The way the city of Columbus is chopped can't possibly comply with the requirement that you make an effort to put as much of that city in one CD as reasonably practicable counting surrounded cities as part of the city.

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/JacksonMartinKS/status/1455920087085559814?t=6mo6Vzf1R3zstgf...

Yes, this butt ugly map is legal and skillfully done.

[Torie]

I see (and did not previously know) that Ohio just like New York has a proscribes Congressional maps that unduly favor one party. Just how one could argue these maps do not unduly favor the Pubs escapes me. And the best thing of all, is that the Pubs will have to explain in writing why their mappies are not Pubmanders. That should make for an interesting read.



NYS nixed the Dem Constitutional amendment reducing the supra majority threshold to 60%, and the Dem extreme gerrymander maps are DOA now I think, even if the NYS high court is hack city, which I tend to doubt.

Oh, and that effective map that needs to be packaged as not a Pubmander also unnecessarily illegally chops a city of more than 100K population, to wit, Akron. Have all the smart people left flyover county, so that only dumbs remain, or what? Very sad!

[Torie]

Oh, they also illegally chopped Toledo too, bless them. Pro bono, I cleaned up the mess for them, including jettisoning the gratuitous and excess chops and erosity in the subject illicit CD’s (OH-09 and 13). Alas, it makes OH-13 tossup to tilt Dem in the process of moving towards legalizing the map at least as to the matter of avoiding violating bright line rules. But hey, it makes the job of the Pub hacks on the Ohio Supremes to be a tad less heavy in managing to fail to see a Pubmander through their rose-colored glasses. I would love to be a judge on the Ohio Supremes. I suspect I might be able to reduce the Pubmanderers to tears during oral argument, yes I do.  



https://davesredistricting.org/join/e4b51a66-0871-4f34-b6e6-c526395584c3

[Torie]

Better look:

Numbers on that 3rd?

The way the city of Columbus is chopped can't possibly comply with the requirement that you make an effort to put as much of that city in one CD as reasonably practicable counting surrounded cities as part of the city.

What is the 4th's numbers in 2020?

I tried recreating it on DRA. I think it's about Trump+6 (52-46). Which doesn't feel very reassuring for the Republicans given that it includes the fastest D-trending part of the state in southern Delaware County. OH-15 is also only around the same partisanship, too, though with an area that is less D-trending so maybe less risky.

Really don't understand what they intend in Franklin County. They clearly carved out the very most Democratic parts of Franklin County into other districts, but OH-03 is still Biden+20 so still unwinnable for the Republicans, and it puts both OH-04 and OH-15 at risk.

I imported the map, so below is a link to it. I checked the allow editing button. Enjoy.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a7766acd-5fba-47d4-9c95-3d81b100565f

[Torie]

Maybe the hapless Pubs should dust off the map that I submitted to the redistricting commission back in August. It seems that the Pubs have trouble drawing something that has a reasonable chance of actually being deemed lawful  by the courts, so perhaps they should just subcontract out the job to moi. Just a thought.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/63e57fdd-ce07-41d2-a0e0-69ebd44dc42c