2020 Census and Redistricting: Kentucky

[Zaybay]

Of course if Bevin gets reelected look for him to change that law.

I think it's part of the Kentucky Constitution that was backed up by court rulings. Of course, the main court case I remember on this was in the mid-'90s when it benefited local Republicans.

Let me explain this a bit more now that Beshear has won. The KY law/constitutional redistricting guidelines require one to keep counties and cross-county communities of interest whole whenever possible. Now if Bevin had won, I suspect the GOP would have tried something like  "We only cut one county, we just cut it 4 times and it's Jefferson." With beshear in power, despite his nominal lack of influence on redistricting, this is not a route worth going down. The legal resources of the executive are not to be trifled with, especially once Beshear get appointing judges to the courts who already have a good number of dems from his dads days. So, there will probably be a implicit understanding that if the GOP leaves the dems alone in their turf (KY03 congressionally, Louisville/Lexington/Frankfurt/Covington cities state legislatively) then they can do whatever the hell they want in the rest of the state, and Beshear won't raise a fuss.

Jefferson county must be split once, and 2 R+8 districts could be made from that.  If I were the GOP I'd split Jeffco once making a 5R and 1 tossup map.  The 5 R districts could be at least 60% R and Yarmuth having a tossup seat directs Dem resources away from targeting R incumbents like Barr to shoring up Yarmuth.  Yarmuth could hold on, but he would attract a lot more attention from potential challengers.  Republicans could also justify this not as gerrymandering, just making a true swing seat (at the cost of the blue seat tho).  The legislature could override a veto and the map would be legal under state law since Jeffco is too big for a district. 

I don't see how you can make the legal argument that two districts leaving Jefferson and entering other counties isn't excessive splitting when it only has to be 1 district that leaves Jefferson. 

Because Jeffco is still only split once.  A district containing multiple counties isn't a split.

The problem is that the county only needs to be split once. The prosecution can make a rather easy argument that it violates the intention of the law, and the rather moderate State Supreme Court would likely side with Beshear.

Also, it would be violating the second part of the law, where COI's are suppose to be kept whole. Splitting Jefferson county more than 2 times to get a tossup seat likely involves splitting Louisville.