US House Redistricting: Alabama

[krazen1211]

If I was the GOP there, I would draw the AA sections of Montgomery into either the 7th or Spencer Bachus's 6th to prevent any Bobby Bright comebacks, and also swap some territory between the 3rd and 4th.

Overall very minor changes.

[krazen1211]

72% black district in Alabama

[krazen1211]

Raising it to that high might be problematic in court, seeing as the district is "so extremely irregular on its face that it rationally can be viewed only as an effort to segregate the races for purposes of voting, without regard for traditional districting principles".

Oh I know. I don't think its necessary to do so anyway. I just wanted to see how high the number could go.

I'm sure there won't be all those tentacles into the 1st, and that the 7th will stop at Montgomery County rather than going into Macon/Bullock.

Then you just use Spencer Bachus and Aderholts R+26 districts to take in the necessary population in Jefferson county.

[krazen1211]

Something like this is what I guess is the final product. Only a handful of county splits, really, and it safeguards the purple 3rd.

I really like how the teal district looks like a duck or a dragon, depending on your view.

[krazen1211]

Raising it to that high might be problematic in court, seeing as the district is "so extremely irregular on its face that it rationally can be viewed only as an effort to segregate the races for purposes of voting, without regard for traditional districting principles".

What is untraditional about a map like that in Alabama?

Most of the black pack occurs from the move into Montgomery. The district goes up from 61% to 69%, from there all the chopping in the world only gets you another 3-4%.

[krazen1211]

It could probably be cut back from Etowah and Calhoun Counties in exchange for some rural areas to the south if they would be better suited to communities of interest analysis. I don't think you could do a 50% black seat in just the Birmingham MSA, though.

Can the green seat be done without chopping CD-1 in half and forcing water continuity? And I'm not talking a single precinct chain, but rather cutting the Mobile leg out entirely.

[krazen1211]

The Alabama map with updated census figures.

Not much to say; the urban Birmingham districts contract a bit and the rural southern ones expand a bit.




By VAP CD-7 is 64.8% black. CD-1 is 24.5%, CD-2 is 28.1%. The rest are in the teens.

[krazen1211]

The Alabama map with updated census figures.

Not much to say; the urban Birmingham districts contract a bit and the rural southern ones expand a bit.




By VAP CD-7 is 64.8% black. CD-1 is 24.5%, CD-2 is 28.1%. The rest are in the teens.

One could accuse that map of packing the blacks in CD-7. I did the following map back in '09 with estimates, but a quick check of the 2010 data shows that basic idea still works. With 2010 data one can make CD-2 51.4% black VAP and CD-7 53.5% black.

I'm sure they could, but I doubt they get anywhere. I would expect the Alabama redistricters to draw this kind of map I made.

[krazen1211]

Lame state legislators are bickering about the congressional plan again. Some chump wants to keep Tuscaloosa County whole in the 4th (including the black areas). The 4th is R+28 or so now so its completely irrevelant and stupid.

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/05/alabama_redistricting_panel_ba.html
http://www.whnt.com/news/whnt-congressional-redistricting-to-shake-up-north-alabama-20110518,0,4465368.story

Montgomery blacks of course go into the 7th.

Beyond that, Brooks wants to drop some of the Northwestern Alabama counties (historically Democratic) to Aderholt in exchange for heavy GOP counties in Northeastern Alabama. Doesn't look like he's getting it.

[krazen1211]

Well, the whiners about Tuscaloosa were shut up.

New plan in action, pdf here. Really awesome map, passed almost unanimously too. The monkey business proposed by some here is not being seriously contemplated by the Alabama democratic party.


http://www.gadsdentimes.com/article/20110519/NEWS/110519696/1016/NEWS?p=all


The joint Legislative Committee on Reapportionment by a 19-1 vote on Thursday approved a congressional redistricting plan that would keep Etowah County in the 4th Congressional District.

Moving Democrat-leaning Colbert County voters from the 5th District into the majority-Republican 4th District potentially will dilute Democratic voting strength in the 5th District that only recently elected its first Republican.

[krazen1211]

They actually improved slightly on my plan. I'm impressed.

[krazen1211]

So is the atrocious three-way split in Montgomery a race thing, or is it just to prevent a Bobby Bright comeback?

It was probably just a way to prevent a split in a different county. No racial element as most of the Montgomery blacks went into the black district.

[krazen1211]

So is the atrocious three-way split in Montgomery a race thing, or is it just to prevent a Bobby Bright comeback?

More likely to protect Mike Rogers. His district currently has a very consistent floor of about 40% for a Democrat; even in 2010, with a nobody opponent, he only won 59-41, and he lost four counties: Coosa (moved to the 6th), Macon, Montgomery (mostly removed), and Russell.

I think he was referring to the fact that they could (and probably should) have moved Rogers out of the County entirely and split it between 2 and 7. That of course would have meant that 2 and 3 would have to split something else.

[krazen1211]

Lame state legislators are bickering about the congressional plan again. Some chump wants to keep Tuscaloosa County whole in the 4th (including the black areas). The 4th is R+28 or so now so its completely irrevelant and stupid.

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/05/alabama_redistricting_panel_ba.html
http://www.whnt.com/news/whnt-congressional-redistricting-to-shake-up-north-alabama-20110518,0,4465368.story

Montgomery blacks of course go into the 7th.

That would be what is called "packing" and the Obama Justice Department should deny preclearance to any map that packs blacks into one district when it would be easy to create two black majority districts that are both about 53% black. 

Precleared.

[krazen1211]

This VRA is a nightmare. I wish the courts would cut it back to the pornography standard, which means it needs to be pretty gross before the courts move in. Better yet would be to just repeal it, which will never happen anytime soon.

This district in particular would be no different. It makes too much sense in the south to shove all the obama vote into 1 district.