US House Redistricting: Michigan

[Kevinstat]

So I suspect a third plan will be adopted: the one below. In this plan, Rogers keeps his Livingston base, with the rest of his district now in Oakland (except for a sliver of Washtenaw as a population equalizer taking up marginal political territory). The key to this plan, is to give Rogers the Dem areas of Pontiac and West Broomfield in Oakland, which he can handle, since the balance of what he has in Oakland is mostly heavily GOP, along with Livingston (CD-08 no longer has to cope with Dem Lansing and Inghram County, so he as plenty of GOP partisan pad to contain and neutralize Pontiac and environs).  

The old CD-09 is totally chopped up, and Peters has nowhere to run. (Yes, in that sense, it is convenient that Peters won in CD-09 this year, because if the Pubbie had won, then there would have been a real pushing and shoving match, as to which incumbent Pubbie gets what, and it might have been a toss up whether my first plan (which creates 3 marginal GOP seats), or this plan, were adopted.)

The last map at the bottom, shows what was the new now CD-08 looks like, with the green part in Oakland from the old CD-09 (except for GOP White Lake Township, which is from CD-11), the gray in the old CD-08 (CD-08 lost the pink area to the east, largely in Inghram County), and the green in Washtenaw (marginal partisan territory), is from the old CD-07. By CD-08 taking in Pontiac and West Broomfield, that  creates a geographic pathway for  McCotter’s CD-11 to then capture heavily populated GOP areas in Oakland of Troy and Broomfield via cutting through marginally Dem Farmington.  If  Pontiac is put in CD-05 or CD-14, a barrier is created that makes it not viable for CD-09 to take in West Broomfield, and that leaves CD-11 to cope with both Farmington and West Broomfield and drop some Dem precincts in Wayne, while trying to get at Broomfield and Troy;  that is just too much population in which to switch for CD-11. It does not work, because the 3 Dem districts in metro Detroit, the two black districts, and the Dingell district, end up with too much population.

So, in summary, I think this plan will be adopted more or less, because it makes all the GOP incumbents happy, and gives the GOP an even shot of winning what is now the 5th Dem seat in Macomb County (CD-12). We shall see what happens. I am going to send all of this data to the Michigan “redistricters.”

Is anyone else unable see the last two maps there.  This is interesting, even though it depresses me that Michigan Republicans, which seem to me to be the worst kind of Republicans (a "racist bake sale" at the University of Michigan purporting to emulate the state's affirmative action admission policies - at least the Berkeley College Republicans called it an Affirmative Action bake sale and were a little more clever about it - yeah I guess racism is what it is but don't pick on the students benefiting from that, and don't try to tell me that isn't what they're doing), will have another opportunity to gerrymander the state in their favor.  I hope the UMich College Republicans enjoy the ultra-liberal congressperson who takes over after Dingell retires.

[Kevinstat]

Brittain33, you seem so intent in feeding to the wolves my Pubbie Congresspersons that I work so hard to protect (or in Michigan, quite arguably since Wayne helped us by dropping 170,000 more people, to hatch a brand new Pubbie Congresscritter). It is not going to happen. The Pubbies are going for the max - each and every seat in reach will be Pubbified. Deal with it. The Dems are just not going to control both the presidency and Congress again in the next ten years. We tried that once in recent times, and once is enough! 

Will we be able to gerrymander Washington? Or do you guys use some sort of awful commission?

In my perfect world, a commission would draw all districts across the Fruited Plain, and try to create as many competitive districts as possible as its metric.

[Kevinstat]

His maps are not what he wants but what he thinks the drawers want. Notice how he is drawing CA to comply with the guidelines and not to apply any partisan influences in his drawing of it.

Oh I see.  Has he tried his hand at any of the (admittedly few) Democratic gerrymander opportunities like Illinois?  Although I guess there intra-(Democratic) party factional and incumbent-protection (in Democratic primaries) considerations might prevent what would otherwise be the best plan for them.

[Kevinstat]

Why wouldn't 6-6-2 be fair (at least from a Republican perspective, not that they would have any interest in that) in a Gore-Kerry-Obama state like Michigan?