2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Minnesota

[Greedo punched first]

MN-02 on my map is Biden +9.5.

[Torie]

After going through many iterations, based on what appear to be the algorithms the court used a decade ago in drawing the CD map, below is my best guess as to what the court will draw for this round. Granted the parties should agree to a map like this themselves, but the current dyspeptic and perfervid mood of the public square probably precludes doing anything that is remotely that reasonable.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a185cc0d-a42b-4eb8-b6fe-7e6cd8871ad8

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

After going through many iterations, based on what appear to be the algorithms the court used a decade ago in drawing the CD map, below is my best guess as to what the court will draw for this round. Granted the parties should agree to a map like this themselves, but the current dyspeptic and perfervid mood of the public square probably precludes doing anything that is remotely that reasonable.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a185cc0d-a42b-4eb8-b6fe-7e6cd8871ad8

Uh why did you split St. Anthony in the most illogical way possible putting each part opposite of its respective county and put New Brighton in the 5th?

[Torie]

After going through many iterations, based on what appear to be the algorithms the court used a decade ago in drawing the CD map, below is my best guess as to what the court will draw for this round. Granted the parties should agree to a map like this themselves, but the current dyspeptic and perfervid mood of the public square probably precludes doing anything that is remotely that reasonable.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a185cc0d-a42b-4eb8-b6fe-7e6cd8871ad8

Uh why did you split St. Anthony in the most illogical way possible putting each part opposite of its respective county and put New Brighton in the 5th?

To minimize the size of the muni-chop, which with compactness, and urban cohesion, gets a very high weight with the court last round, more than that of county chops in fact. If, as a tie breaker you put rather small St. Anthony in two baskets, as it crosses county lines, this makes the size of the muni-chop tiny, and the smallest available no matter how you cut it.

The finding of who gets the "illogical" diss award is driven by the algorithm ones uses. I was trying to channel that of what I "divine" to be that of the Court.  In the borderland between large diverse multi-citied urban counties in particular, there is much to be said for such a metric.  That is particularly true as an aside, in states where the cities, vis a vis the county in which they sit, have the bulk of the power. Another way to put it, it matters almost nothing at all, whether Hudson, NY, as a city, not a town or a village, but a city. What the county can impose on Hudson in NY, whether it be in Columbia County, or adjacent Greene County, is minimal.*




*One thing I do not entirely understand, is where the village is bisected by two towns. Who controls what in each bit of the Venn diagram must come down to  cost line items. What share, you village you, do you share in the town budget line items, the portion of which is in our town? How is the share determined? Is that per NYS or County statute, contract, litigation, or mix and match?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

After going through many iterations, based on what appear to be the algorithms the court used a decade ago in drawing the CD map, below is my best guess as to what the court will draw for this round. Granted the parties should agree to a map like this themselves, but the current dyspeptic and perfervid mood of the public square probably precludes doing anything that is remotely that reasonable.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a185cc0d-a42b-4eb8-b6fe-7e6cd8871ad8

Uh why did you split St. Anthony in the most illogical way possible putting each part opposite of its respective county and put New Brighton in the 5th?

To minimize the size of the muni-chop, which with compactness, and urban cohesion, gets a very high weight with the court last round, more than that of county chops in fact. If, as a tie breaker you put rather small St. Anthony in two baskets, as it crosses county lines, this makes the size of the muni-chop tiny, and the smallest available no matter how you cut it.

The finding of who gets the "illogical" diss award is driven by the algorithm ones uses. I was trying to channel that of what I "divine" to be that of the Court.  In the borderland between large diverse multi-citied urban counties in particular, there is much to be said for such a metric.  That is particularly true as an aside, in states where the cities, vis a vis the county in which they sit, have the bulk of the power. Another way to put it, it matters almost nothing at all, whether Hudson, NY, as a city, not a town or a village, but a city. What the county can impose on Hudson in NY, whether it be in Columbia County, or adjacent Greene County, is minimal.*


*One thing I do not entirely understand, is where the village is bisected by two towns. Who controls what in each bit of the Venn diagram must come down to  cost line items. What share, you village you, do you share in the town budget line items, the portion of which is in our town? How is the share determined? Is that per NYS or County statute, contract, litigation, or mix and match?

It ain't going to happen. With St. Anthony you have the choice of either splitting it via the county boundaries or keeping the whole thing in one district. Traditionally and now the latter is done, the part of St. Anthony in Ramsey County is the only part of Ramsey County in the 5th, but if it is split it's obvious that the Hennepin part will go to the Hennepin-based district and Ramsey part to the Ramsey-based district. I doubt it'll be split because map drawers in Minnesota tend to favor keeping municipalities together. New Brighton has no real reason at all to be in the 5th. No part of Ramsey County aside from that piece of St. Anthony will go in the 5th, just as the Twin Cities will never be merged in a district.

Minnesota has a lot of split municipalities by county (look at my mom's hometown of New Prague, although she actually grew up outside the city limits in Scott County), and yes, it's known that it makes municipal government a mess. According to my mom, New Prague exploited the county split to be able to give out far more liquor licenses than it normally would. Technically my college town Mankato is one of these, split into THREE counties, but basically no one lives in the non-Blue Earth portions. St. Cloud is a better example, also split between three counties, all of which have significant populations.

[Torie]

Here is the alternative. Some muni needs to be split somewhere. The idea is to find the spots that generate the smallest splits in population that are clean and minimize population variance.

[Nyvin]

I made a map with no Municipality splits,  it doesn't have 0 population deviation though.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/15175da9-882a-4e0b-bb50-4396e279e8f6

I still don't see any legit reason Carver County needs to be put in MN-2.

I can understand the reasoning behind putting Woodbury into MN-2 though, it makes the rest of the map easier to deal with.

[Torie]

That's OK. That's why we have courts. An alternative would be trials by endurance, but that went out of fashion in the Middle Ages.

[Gass3268]

Clear GOP gerrymander from the MN Republicans.

https://twitter.com/ActorAaronBooth/status/1466801439183937542?s=20

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Clear GOP gerrymander from the MN Republicans.

https://twitter.com/ActorAaronBooth/status/1466801439183937542?s=20

I see what the GOP map does to that marginal MN-01.

[Nyvin]

Moving MN-3 into Dakota County, uhh, yeah not happening.

That map is about as far from least change as possible,  it's pretty much a map drawn from scratch. 

[Greedo punched first]

Is my map drawn from scratch?

[Antonio the Sixth]

What happens if the Legislature can't agree on a map? If it goes to the Courts, what can we expect from them?

[Greedo punched first]

Am I the only one who thinks a least change map isn’t a good idea? 2020 presidential results for my slightly updated map.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Torie what do you think of the GOP map lol

[Stuart98]

No MN GOP, a 3D-5R map in a Biden +7 state is in fact not a thing that is happening.

[Brittain33]

They are fans of putting Carver County in MN-2, I see.

[lfromnj]

Can anyone explain why no proposals have something like this for MN04? Seems like the area in North Dakota even has townships called West and South St Paul.  Obviously this slightly hurts Democrats as the townships in this area are more Dem than areas in Washington but it certainly seems like a decent district to draw just like one draws West Sacramento with Sacramento? Is the river that major of a dividing line? St paul itself actually crosses the river anyway. It seems like a decent dividing line although most maps now still have to cross the river in a serious way because MN02 can't go down south to take rural counties as MN01 has to grab those.

I guess at the very least one could call this a serious GOP proposal instead of the lol map from above.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Can anyone explain why no proposals have something like this for MN04? Seems like the area in North Dakota even has townships called West and South St Paul.  Obviously this slightly hurts Democrats as the townships in this area are more Dem than areas in Washington but it certainly seems like a decent district to draw just like one draws West Sacramento with Sacramento? Is the river that major of a dividing line? St paul itself actually crosses the river anyway. It seems like a decent dividing line although most maps now still have to cross the river in a serious way because MN02 can't go down south to take rural counties as MN01 has to grab those.

I guess at the very least one could call this a serious GOP proposal instead of the lol map from above.

Haven’t tried it myself, but taking those towns out of MN-2 would take a lot of shifting around the metro to work it out, or it’d make it a likely Republican seat when it really should be nothing less then lean D. You can make a decent enough democrat seat, but its honestly easier to just keep Dakota in tact and keep the fourth with it’s part of Washington

[lfromnj]

Can anyone explain why no proposals have something like this for MN04? Seems like the area in North Dakota even has townships called West and South St Paul.  Obviously this slightly hurts Democrats as the townships in this area are more Dem than areas in Washington but it certainly seems like a decent district to draw just like one draws West Sacramento with Sacramento? Is the river that major of a dividing line? St paul itself actually crosses the river anyway. It seems like a decent dividing line although most maps now still have to cross the river in a serious way because MN02 can't go down south to take rural counties as MN01 has to grab those.

I guess at the very least one could call this a serious GOP proposal instead of the lol map from above.

Haven’t tried it myself, but taking those towns out of MN-2 would take a lot of shifting around the metro to work it out, or it’d make it a likely Republican seat when it really should be nothing less then lean D. You can make a decent enough democrat seat, but its honestly easier to just keep Dakota in tact and keep the fourth with it’s part of Washington

I mean the rearrangement would just be trading Washington and north Dakota,FWIW currently Anoka is triple split in a manner that is still logical. I am not specifically arguing for this as I need to know more info about this area, but I note this seems like a fairly reasonable district and an actually serious GOP proposal should do this to limit the leftward shift MN02 would have. It isn't happening as the court will simply do a least change and there isn't anything awful about the current map(In fact its one of the best in the nation) . It certainly wouldn't change the district much, just merely make a Likely D district Lean D instead.

[patzer]

Can anyone explain why no proposals have something like this for MN04? Seems like the area in North Dakota even has townships called West and South St Paul.  Obviously this slightly hurts Democrats as the townships in this area are more Dem than areas in Washington but it certainly seems like a decent district to draw just like one draws West Sacramento with Sacramento? Is the river that major of a dividing line? St paul itself actually crosses the river anyway. It seems like a decent dividing line although most maps now still have to cross the river in a serious way because MN02 can't go down south to take rural counties as MN01 has to grab those.

I guess at the very least one could call this a serious GOP proposal instead of the lol map from above.

I believe that double-bunks Angie Craig (from Eagan) with Betty McCollum in the 4th, which is certainly unnecessary.

If there's to be any double bunking, how about something like this... https://davesredistricting.org/join/9e2ac1d9-9651-453b-96fa-d8c10458a4a9

It's neat, fair, and forces Ilhan Omar to either contest the 2nd district where she would now live (primarying Angie Craig) or running in the new 5th which contains significantly less of her old territory. If there were some Dems who aren't a fan of Ilhan Omar and want to see her out of congress, this is the way to do it.

[Torie]

Innovations are inimical to the least change metric.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What happens if the Legislature can't agree on a map? If it goes to the Courts, what can we expect from them?

There is somewhat amusingly already a completely drawn up plan in place for what happens when the Legislature deadlocks and obviously planned with the phrase being "when" instead of "if". Once the Legislature fails to meet their deadline then some lawyer that both parties have agreed upon on the "designated lawsuit filer" (he also did this role after the 2000 and 2010 redistrictings) sues the Legislature on the grounds they failed to meet their duty under the Minnesota Constitution, and then Minnesota Supreme Court will uphold the suit and appoint a five judge panel to accomplish this as the Legislature failed. And that panel has in fact already been appointed and has done a "listening tour" of sorts asking for citizens' input, technically they only have "advisory" powers until February when the Legislature's deadline is missed, but no one is expecting otherwise. As for the panel's makeup it's very balanced: two Dayton appointees, two Pawlenty appointees and one Ventura, as well as geographically balanced: one Hennepin district, one Ramsey district, one other suburban county (Washington) district and two outstate, one from northern Minnesota (Brainerd area) and one from southern Minnesota (Rochester.)

So don't expect anything radical and probably a least change map. One of the Pawlenty appointees isn't particularly conservative and most Ventura appointees have ended up being more liberal in the current time. It is worth pointing out that judicial appointments in Minnesota outside of the Supreme Court still tend to be mostly non-partisan, for example the judge who presided over the Chauvin trial was appointed by Pawlenty but he's a Democrat who prior to his appointment was Amy Klobuchar's right-hand man when she was Hennepin County Attorney, and Ventura's appointments were mostly devoid of ideology entirely and just based on recommendations from the local bar association or previous outgoing judges. So maybe a somewhat D-tilted map but that probably just means Angie Craig gets a bit more shored up.

The Legislative maps meanwhile could be pretty interesting especially since the population shifts in the state have been brutal to the Republicans, even a least change map could cost them two State Senate seats alone simply due to outstate no longer having the population to support those.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Can anyone explain why no proposals have something like this for MN04? Seems like the area in North Dakota even has townships called West and South St Paul.  Obviously this slightly hurts Democrats as the townships in this area are more Dem than areas in Washington but it certainly seems like a decent district to draw just like one draws West Sacramento with Sacramento? Is the river that major of a dividing line? St paul itself actually crosses the river anyway. It seems like a decent dividing line although most maps now still have to cross the river in a serious way because MN02 can't go down south to take rural counties as MN01 has to grab those.

I guess at the very least one could call this a serious GOP proposal instead of the lol map from above.

To understand this you first need to understand a little known fact to outsiders about the Twin Cities: The Interstate is not the primary route that connects St. Paul to Dakota County. This is surprising but if you look at a road map you'll see why, I-35E enters St. Paul at kind of an awkward location and takes a bit of an odd route to downtown. This was mostly thanks to NIMBYs during its development, but today the most lasting legacy is that the speed limit on that stretch of I-35E is only 45MPH. This is one of the very few parts of the country with an Interstate with a speed limit below 55MPH, something actually prohibited usually under federal law (it required a specific exception carved out in legislation), which again is thanks to NIMBYs who were that opposed to it. Highway 52 meanwhile has a 55MPH speed limit and enters downtown St. Paul pretty directly. So despite the proximity to an Interstate connection, Mendota Heights and Eagan, and even to some extent West St. Paul (despite the name) aren't heavily associated as immediate St. Paul suburbs.

As a result, Eagan (where I work when I'm not at home actually) isn't a particularly clean drive to downtown St. Paul, but it and Mendota Heights are pretty close to the Mall of America and airport, and while Inver Grove Heights kind of is since it's where 52 runs through, it and the _____ St. Pauls are actually closer in community to the other relatively white working class communities along the river and also in Washington County largely thanks to I-494. This is the only notably WWC part of the south metro. Also the part of St. Paul you're talking about on the other side of the river is kind of weird. It's a mostly commercial area with a big chunk of the area being taken up by an airport (although just a reliever airport and one for things like private and shipping flights, no commercial air traffic), isn't very populated (total population is about 15k) and if you look at the road routes doesn't really connect easily to West or South St. Paul on major roads yet does to downtown St. Paul pretty easily.

Also worth noting the area around the main airport and Mall of America is kind of a "third downtown", it has a lot of office buildings and obviously a ton of hotels and standard anemities, etc. so people from a close proximity to that area are more likely to associate with it than either Minneapolis or St. Paul.

[jimrtex]

What happens if the Legislature can't agree on a map? If it goes to the Courts, what can we expect from them?

There is somewhat amusingly already a completely drawn up plan in place for what happens when the Legislature deadlocks and obviously planned with the phrase being "when" instead of "if". Once the Legislature fails to meet their deadline then some lawyer that both parties have agreed upon on the "designated lawsuit filer" (he also did this role after the 2000 and 2010 redistrictings) sues the Legislature on the grounds they failed to meet their duty under the Minnesota Constitution, and then Minnesota Supreme Court will uphold the suit and appoint a five judge panel to accomplish this as the Legislature failed. And that panel has in fact already been appointed and has done a "listening tour" of sorts asking for citizens' input, technically they only have "advisory" powers until February when the Legislature's deadline is missed, but no one is expecting otherwise. As for the panel's makeup it's very balanced: two Dayton appointees, two Pawlenty appointees and one Ventura, as well as geographically balanced: one Hennepin district, one Ramsey district, one other suburban county (Washington) district and two outstate, one from northern Minnesota (Brainerd area) and one from southern Minnesota (Rochester.)

Bjorkman, Bratvold, and Carlson? It sound ethnically balanced three Scandinavians and two others.

The plaintiffs have submitted their plans:

Minnesota Judicial Branch Special Redistricting Panel 2021

The panel is sort of acting like a redistricting commission.

The Wattson plaintiffs are the good government plaintiffs, though Wattson is a former DFL legislator. The party also includes the LWV and the person who drew Jesse Ventura's 5-3 plan which the court adopted in 2001 over the DFL and R hack plans.

The Anderson plaintiffs are the (R) plaintiffs.

The Sachs plaintiffs are the (DFL) plaintiffs.

I'd guess they pretty much match the legislative plans.

The Corrie plaintiffs are the race identarian plaintiffs.

The DFL congressional plan appears to make MN-2 safer, while conceding MN-6. It is probably a fantasy for the DFL to make a comeback in the outstate districts.

Wattson and Anderson plaintiffs appear to be mainly least change. By giving MN-6 a keyhole into St. Cloud the Wattson plan may be a bit more DFL friendly.

The court should adopt the Anderson plan since it better respects county boundaries.

It is unlikely that the legislature will settle. They know that the court will not adopt the more extreme partisan plan. They can take the Wattson plans and make a few adjustments here and there giving non-partisan rationales.