2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Wisconsin

[GALeftist]

If Dems had any bargaining power here (they don’t) they would be smart to try to make WI-1 closer while triaging WI-3.

Uh, the governor is a Democrat, and the WISC is fairly moderate. Anyways it's pretty easy to make WI-1 closer and WI-3 winnable, the two goals aren't really mutually exclusive

[GALeftist]

If Dems had any bargaining power here (they don’t) they would be smart to try to make WI-1 closer while triaging WI-3.

Uh, the governor is a Democrat, and the WISC is fairly moderate. Anyways it's pretty easy to make WI-1 closer and WI-3 winnable, the two goals aren't really mutually exclusive

Just to expand on this, to my mind what you should aim for for a competitive WI-01 is to avoid Waukesha. WI-04 gets the northern parts of Milwaukee county, which leaves about 200k in the south for WI-01 (those areas aren't really that blue, but whatever, they're better than the alternative). Those 200k plus Racine, Kenosha, and Walworth mean you can take like 60k from Rock, leaving you with a nice looking WI-01 which is like Trump+3.5. That still leaves plenty of Rock and other counties around Dane for WI-03 to take in to make it like Biden+1 without even splitting Dane.

[GALeftist]

Whether or not partisan fairness ought to be considered, least change is an absolutely insane standard to apply, especially in Wisconsin.

[GALeftist]

Link to Evers proposed congressional map

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?usp=sharing&mid=10H4O7oyvGSgks0eS2-nppEzh-L4d1Vmk

At a glance, it makes WI-1 more competitive by moving Beloit and more of Milwaukee in and moving it out of Waukesha.

Gov Evers seems to have trouble understanding what “least change” means, bless him. No, Mr. Evers, it does not mean that WI-01 snatches deom WI-04 three suburbs along the lake in Milwaukee County, so that WI-05 can squeeze WI-01 entirely out of Waukesha County and then some. No, you only have WI-05 take as much as it needs in Waukesha from WI-01, to reach population parity, after WI-04 takes the territory it needs from WI-05, and no more. See below. You don’t grab more than you need from WI-01 in order for WI-01 to shed the excess population that it should not have acquired from WI-04 (the CD that needed to add population, not lose it, remember?). That is called territory exchange, not least change.   Your little illicit exchange is worth 2 Dem PVI points for WI-01. Naughty, not nice!  Is your map going to fool anybody? I think not. I know Sen Johnson is as dumb as a box of rocks, but he is not the Pub point person here. You get a Trump doll in your Xmas stocking this year.

In his concurrence, Hagedorn wrote that he was willing to consider factors other than least change, like COIs and constitutional priorities like county integrity or whatnot. Imagine Evers is banking on that.

[GALeftist]

BUT MUH PURCELL!!!!!!!!

[GALeftist]

notable testicles

[GALeftist]

I'm curious to see the route the court takes on a Congressional redraw. To be honest, I think a truly fair partisan-blind map would only yield slightly more equitable results on the Congressional level, with 2 safe D seats, 2 swing seats, and 4 relatively safe R seats. However, if the court aims for partisan fairness, we'll prolly end up with a map that's pretty bad when it comes to COIs.

It's more the legislature where a neutral map goes a long way. It's hard to draw an outright Biden majority, but you can get close in both chambers, and def keep Rs out of a supermajority.

IDK if they will actually redraw the congressional map?  It would send the ISLT thing right back to SCOTUS when it would be strongly in national Dem interests to push that off to at least 2031.

I don’t think I agree here? Right now ISLT that disqualifies court maps would give Democrats free rein in Maryland, Minnesota, and New York. In exchange, the GOP gets… nothing. Maybe insurance if the Florida Supreme Court ever grows a spine and decides to enforce the law?

[GALeftist]

If the WI high court redraws the maps based on the efficiency gap theory or whatever other theory it embraces, SCOTUS will bounce it. Roberts will write the opinion.

The Dems may well take over the House due to the abortion issue and Pub fecklessness in general, but the road to control will not be through Wisconsin.  It’s a dry hole.

We shall see. Anyone want to bet the other way?  

Yeah, I'd bet the other way. Protasiewicz explicitly ran on overturning the maps, and the other three liberal judges are Madison liberals who can and have signed onto liberal (heh) interpretations of the law to achieve certain outcomes. You don't have to like it, but the legislative maps are dead and the congressional map probably is too.

[GALeftist]

The annoying thing about drawing a 4-4 Wisconsin is that, while making WI-03 a Biden district is fairly trivial even without splitting Dane just because Madison has such a weirdly large geographic sphere of influence, I'm pretty sure making WI-01 a Biden district is straight up impossible without splitting Milwaukee. You can make that look fine, of course, but the real issue is that you need to put a bunch of WOW into WI-04 to compensate, which always makes my WI-05 look pretty gross. Still better than the existing map imo (which has the Portage tentacle, splits WOW, splits Fox Cities, etc.), but still, I wish there was a more elegant solution.

[GALeftist]

The annoying thing about drawing a 4-4 Wisconsin is that, while making WI-03 a Biden district is fairly trivial even without splitting Dane just because Madison has such a weirdly large geographic sphere of influence, I'm pretty sure making WI-01 a Biden district is straight up impossible without splitting Milwaukee. You can make that look fine, of course, but the real issue is that you need to put a bunch of WOW into WI-04 to compensate, which always makes my WI-05 look pretty gross. Still better than the existing map imo (which has the Portage tentacle, splits WOW, splits Fox Cities, etc.), but still, I wish there was a more elegant solution.

This WI-01 is Biden + 2.5, and Milwaukee is kept whole in WI-04. However, this WI-01 sucks from a COI and makes the rest of the map a nightmare to draw.

I think people need to rmbr though that there's not a *major* difference between having a Biden + 1 vs a Trump + 1 seat, and trying to aim for exactly a 4-4 map may not be the best route to go here.

I think I agree, actually. From a fairness perspective you can actually not only keep Milwaukee whole but keep WI-04 entirely within Milwaukee County and still push WI-01 under Trump+1 if you put your thumb on the scale somewhat with what parts of Milwaukee and Rock you add to it; that's essentially 50-50 and not meaningfully different from, like, PA-07 or whatever other narrow Biden seats. However, I think you pretty obviously have a majority on the court for strict proportionality now, and given that you in all likelihood have 4 districts that will consistently elect Republicans I think you have a fairly strong incentive for Democrats to argue that WI-01 and WI-03 ought to at least lean their way in a 50-50 state.

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1760711933982875760