2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[lfromnj]

I doubt that the every GOP justice would want to throw away their credibility, future, and gravitas for the congressional GOP. And before anyone says "of course they will, they're GOP justices!", we've already seen Republican justices go against the party when it comes to gerrymandering all the time, from NC to OH to PA.

Whats more likely is just a rather bland, fair-ish map. Its not the gerrymander that the Dems could have made, but its at least a bit more kind to the Democrats than the current map.

In NC the case was decided on partisan lines and in PA it was one D judge joining the 2 Republican judges.

I was referring to all of the court cases that have dealt with gerrymandering, such as ones that have faced superior courts, not just the ones that the supreme courts of each state have faced.

True although this case isn't really a case but rather the VA supreme court directly gets it and is the tiebreaker for the case if there's a deadlock, atleast to the viewer's eye the map looks reasonably clean and it does limit COI splits so I think a VA supreme court thats GOP stacked would support this map.

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

This is pretty brutal but here's a relatively clean and compact 8-3 Dem map LMAO. 10 county splits. All the D districts voted for Clinton by double digits, gave Kaine 60+% of the vote in 2018, and trended D from 2008 to 2016.

VA-01 (central-eastern): Trump +23 | Romney +19 | McCain +15
VA-02 (Virginia Beach): Clinton +12 | Obama +14 | Obama +14
VA-03 (Hampton Roads): Clinton +15 | Obama +20 | Obama +19
VA-04 (Richmond/Southside): Clinton +17 | Obama +22 | Obama +21
VA-05 (NOVA exurbs): Clinton +16 | Obama +6 | Obama +8
VA-06 (western): Trump +27 | Romney +21 | McCain +17
VA-07 (Charlottesville/Richmond): Clinton +10 | Obama +0 | Obama +3
VA-08 (Alexandria): Clinton +53 | Obama +36 | Obama +37
VA-09 (southwest): Trump +41 | Romney +30 | McCain +19
VA-10 (NOVA suburbs): Clinton +12 | Obama +2 | Obama +7
VA-11 (south DC burbs): Clinton +20 | Obama +14 | Obama +14

Are 3 and 4 able to uphold the black VRA requirements?

I guess it doesn’t matter anymore since Virginia Democrats just decided to throw away all of their brand new power

[windjammer]

I doubt that the every GOP justice would want to throw away their credibility, future, and gravitas for the congressional GOP. And before anyone says "of course they will, they're GOP justices!", we've already seen Republican justices go against the party when it comes to gerrymandering all the time, from NC to OH to PA.

Whats more likely is just a rather bland, fair-ish map. Its not the gerrymander that the Dems could have made, but its at least a bit more kind to the Democrats than the current map.

In NC the case was decided on partisan lines and in PA it was one D judge joining the 2 Republican judges.

I was referring to all of the court cases that have dealt with gerrymandering, such as ones that have faced superior courts, not just the ones that the supreme courts of each state have faced.

True although this case isn't really a case but rather the VA supreme court directly gets it and is the tiebreaker for the case if there's a deadlock, atleast to the viewer's eye the map looks reasonably clean and it does limit COI splits so I think a VA supreme court thats GOP stacked would support this map.

(g) If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts by the deadline set forth in subsection (d), the Commission shall have fourteen days following its initial failure to submit a plan to the General Assembly. If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts to the General Assembly by this deadline, the districts shall be established by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

If the Commission submits a plan for districts within fourteen days following its initial failure to submit a plan, the General Assembly shall take a vote on the bill embodying such plan within seven days of its receipt. If the General Assembly fails to adopt such bill by this deadline, the districts shall be established by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

From what I'm reading, the Supreme Court wouldn't act as a tie breaker. They wouldn't choose between two maps, choosing the least evil. They would completely draw a new map.

[Nyvin]

I doubt that the every GOP justice would want to throw away their credibility, future, and gravitas for the congressional GOP. And before anyone says "of course they will, they're GOP justices!", we've already seen Republican justices go against the party when it comes to gerrymandering all the time, from NC to OH to PA.

Whats more likely is just a rather bland, fair-ish map. Its not the gerrymander that the Dems could have made, but its at least a bit more kind to the Democrats than the current map.

In NC the case was decided on partisan lines and in PA it was one D judge joining the 2 Republican judges.

I was referring to all of the court cases that have dealt with gerrymandering, such as ones that have faced superior courts, not just the ones that the supreme courts of each state have faced.

True although this case isn't really a case but rather the VA supreme court directly gets it and is the tiebreaker for the case if there's a deadlock, atleast to the viewer's eye the map looks reasonably clean and it does limit COI splits so I think a VA supreme court thats GOP stacked would support this map.

(g) If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts by the deadline set forth in subsection (d), the Commission shall have fourteen days following its initial failure to submit a plan to the General Assembly. If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts to the General Assembly by this deadline, the districts shall be established by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

If the Commission submits a plan for districts within fourteen days following its initial failure to submit a plan, the General Assembly shall take a vote on the bill embodying such plan within seven days of its receipt. If the General Assembly fails to adopt such bill by this deadline, the districts shall be established by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

From what I'm reading, the Supreme Court wouldn't act as a tie breaker. They wouldn't choose between two maps, choosing the least evil. They would completely draw a new map.

And I imagine like elsewhere the court would hire a specialist to do the drawing.

Edit - Really from everything we've seen in other states in the past, any court drawn map is better than one drawn by a partisan legislature.

[lfromnj]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1hXuWN1CfO1Zr5u4nickRMLtl73WWJn74uT0ZxAcvU7g/htmlview

Fairfax actually lost population in 2018 to 2019 according to the Census, Loudoun is still growing fast and so is PWC and arlington and Alexandria are slowly growing .

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

So what's going on here now?

[lfromnj]

So what's going on here now?

Everyone is assuming the commision amendment will pass the state(pretty reasonable assumption)
so we could have anything from my 5 D-6R map to a bipartisan 6-1-4 map with Luria getting the swing.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

So what's going on here now?

Everyone is assuming the commision amendment will pass the state(pretty reasonable assumption)
so we could have anything from my 5 D-6R map to a bipartisan 6-1-4 map with Luria getting the swing.

Has it been modified to keep it from being a de facto R gerrymander?  Also, why are the Democrats even allowing a vote on this

[lfromnj]

So what's going on here now?

Everyone is assuming the commision amendment will pass the state(pretty reasonable assumption)
so we could have anything from my 5 D-6R map to a bipartisan 6-1-4 map with Luria getting the swing.

Has it been modified to keep it from being a de facto R gerrymander?  Also, why are the Democrats even allowing a vote on this

I think there were some modifcations but its tough to modify an amendemnt itself, I think it mostly put racial limits? but anyway my map would keep 2 AA districts and is pretty similar to the current map anyway so it would probably pass the test.  My map is the extreme R scenario where the VA supreme court basically chooses a republican to be the map drawer.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

So what's going on here now?

Everyone is assuming the commision amendment will pass the state(pretty reasonable assumption)
so we could have anything from my 5 D-6R map to a bipartisan 6-1-4 map with Luria getting the swing.

Has it been modified to keep it from being a de facto R gerrymander?  Also, why are the Democrats even allowing a vote on this

I think there were some modifcations but its tough to modify an amendemnt itself, I think it mostly put racial limits? but anyway my map would keep 2 AA districts and is pretty similar to the current map anyway so it would probably pass the test.  My map is the extreme R scenario where the VA supreme court basically chooses a republican to be the map drawer.

Again, why are the Dems even allowing a vote on this blatant power grab?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

So what's going on here now?

Everyone is assuming the commision amendment will pass the state(pretty reasonable assumption)
so we could have anything from my 5 D-6R map to a bipartisan 6-1-4 map with Luria getting the swing.

Has it been modified to keep it from being a de facto R gerrymander?  Also, why are the Democrats even allowing a vote on this

I think there were some modifcations but its tough to modify an amendemnt itself, I think it mostly put racial limits? but anyway my map would keep 2 AA districts and is pretty similar to the current map anyway so it would probably pass the test.  My map is the extreme R scenario where the VA supreme court basically chooses a republican to be the map drawer.

Again, why are the Dems even allowing a vote on this blatant power grab?

I don't know why, but I know that they don't have the guts to shoot this one down.

[lfromnj]

So what's going on here now?

Everyone is assuming the commision amendment will pass the state(pretty reasonable assumption)
so we could have anything from my 5 D-6R map to a bipartisan 6-1-4 map with Luria getting the swing.

Has it been modified to keep it from being a de facto R gerrymander?  Also, why are the Democrats even allowing a vote on this

I think there were some modifcations but its tough to modify an amendemnt itself, I think it mostly put racial limits? but anyway my map would keep 2 AA districts and is pretty similar to the current map anyway so it would probably pass the test.  My map is the extreme R scenario where the VA supreme court basically chooses a republican to be the map drawer.

Again, why are the Dems even allowing a vote on this blatant power grab?

VA amendments require it to be passed twice in a row in consecutive sessions. The first time was 2019 and most people didn't realize then. Now this year the GOP and a few Ds managed to get it passed as an amendment, I believe the state house leaders tried to block it from coming to a vote but couldn't and the GOP +a few swing Ds voted for it. After it is passed twice in a row it goes to a ballot measure. Now the wording is pretty good so I would say there is a 95% chance this passes. Basically the key part in the amendment is the tiebreaker being the VA supreme court which is mostly GOP legislature appointed. 

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Dems better pack the court so they draw an 8-3 map.

[Non Swing Voter]

fairly infuriating that the voters voted in Democrats for gun control which they punted on but were quick to give power to a Republican court.

Regardless, Republicans don't have a ton of options in terms of redistricting.  The rural areas of the state are losing population fast and NoVa is gaining population fast.  Not many options to gerrymander NoVa and even if they did it would be a ticking time bomb before the districts trend further democratic.  I suppose they have more options downstate though.

[lfromnj]

fairly infuriating that the voters voted in Democrats for gun control which they punted on but were quick to give power to a Republican court.

Regardless, Republicans don't have a ton of options in terms of redistricting.  The rural areas of the state are losing population fast and NoVa is gaining population fast.  Not many options to gerrymander NoVa and even if they did it would be a ticking time bomb before the districts trend further democratic.  I suppose they have more options downstate though.

Its fairly easy to keep 3 NOVA districts, I think all D counties and cities in NOVA(aka Arlington,Alexandria,Fairfax,PWC,and Loudoun) all form like 3.5 districts by 2020? Theres still some R leaning exurban parts of PWC and Loudon, use those to form the last half district. with more exurban and rural parts surrounding it. Again my map I drew there shows the best clean and reasonable map the VA GOP could get(excluding some weird stuff in the SE)

[Skill and Chance]

Dems better pack the court so they draw an 8-3 map.

The number of justices is in the state constitution in VA.

[Nyvin]

Northam has sent the redistricting bill back to the legislature with an inquiry about the prison gerrymandering provision.

[iceman]

At the way things are going, It is pretty easy to make an 8-3 gerrymander of Virginia right now. They could shove the 3 republican seats on the westernmost parts of the state and and divide the 8 democratic seats this way: 3 in the NoVa, and 1 with a portion of NoVa with the tidewater region. 2 in the hampton roads area and 1 each for Richmond and Albemarle/Charlottesville area.

[lfromnj]

At the way things are going, It is pretty easy to make an 8-3 gerrymander of Virginia right now. They could shove the 3 republican seats on the westernmost parts of the state and and divide the 8 democratic seats this way: 3 in the NoVa, and 1 with a portion of NoVa with the tidewater region. 2 in the hampton roads area and 1 each for Richmond and Albemarle/Charlottesville area.

They could have quite easily, but the redistricting commision makes that impossible now, the best is a 5-3-3 map(tossups being VA beach and a 4th NOVA+Exurban district and the richmond white suburban)

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

At the way things are going, It is pretty easy to make an 8-3 gerrymander of Virginia right now. They could shove the 3 republican seats on the westernmost parts of the state and and divide the 8 democratic seats this way: 3 in the NoVa, and 1 with a portion of NoVa with the tidewater region. 2 in the hampton roads area and 1 each for Richmond and Albemarle/Charlottesville area.

They could have quite easily, but the redistricting commision makes that impossible now, the best is a 5-3-3 map(tossups being VA beach and a 4th NOVA+Exurban district and the richmond white suburban)

Can't Northam veto the bill?

[lfromnj]

At the way things are going, It is pretty easy to make an 8-3 gerrymander of Virginia right now. They could shove the 3 republican seats on the westernmost parts of the state and and divide the 8 democratic seats this way: 3 in the NoVa, and 1 with a portion of NoVa with the tidewater region. 2 in the hampton roads area and 1 each for Richmond and Albemarle/Charlottesville area.

They could have quite easily, but the redistricting commision makes that impossible now, the best is a 5-3-3 map(tossups being VA beach and a 4th NOVA+Exurban district and the richmond white suburban)

Can't Northam veto the bill?

Its a constitutional amendment and I am actually making an assumption that it passes on the ballot this year..

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

At the way things are going, It is pretty easy to make an 8-3 gerrymander of Virginia right now. They could shove the 3 republican seats on the westernmost parts of the state and and divide the 8 democratic seats this way: 3 in the NoVa, and 1 with a portion of NoVa with the tidewater region. 2 in the hampton roads area and 1 each for Richmond and Albemarle/Charlottesville area.

They could have quite easily, but the redistricting commision makes that impossible now, the best is a 5-3-3 map(tossups being VA beach and a 4th NOVA+Exurban district and the richmond white suburban)

Can't Northam veto the bill?

Its a constitutional amendment and I am actually making an assumption that it passes on the ballot this year..

Hope springs eternal

[lfromnj]

If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts by the deadline set forth in subsection (d), the Commission shall have fourteen days following its initial failure to submit a plan to the General Assembly. If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts to the General Assembly by this deadline, the districts shall be established by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

So kept on reading this amendment,
https://ballotpedia.org/Virginia_Redistricting_Commission_Amendment_(2020)

We do know the Virginia Supreme court is almost all republican just like the NC court is all democrat so I would expect a similarly partisan decision as their reappointment depends on a GOP general assembly.
Anyway by this point Im pretty sure what will happen in 2021/2022
All commisioners chosen,
GOP commisioners deadlock on any map that isn't their preferred map which they show too.
Therefore no map goes to the assembly to vote on so it goes directly to the Virginia Supreme court where they just say the GOP map looks clean enough and they pick that.

[windjammer]

If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts by the deadline set forth in subsection (d), the Commission shall have fourteen days following its initial failure to submit a plan to the General Assembly. If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts to the General Assembly by this deadline, the districts shall be established by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

So kept on reading this amendment,
https://ballotpedia.org/Virginia_Redistricting_Commission_Amendment_(2020)

We do know the Virginia Supreme court is almost all republican just like the NC court is all democrat so I would expect a similarly partisan decision as their reappointment depends on a GOP general assembly.
Anyway by this point Im pretty sure what will happen in 2021/2022
All commisioners chosen,
GOP commisioners deadlock on any map that isn't their preferred map which they show too.
Therefore no map goes to the assembly to vote on so it goes directly to the Virginia Supreme court where they just say the GOP map looks clean enough and they pick that.

I don't think this is likely at all. The VA supreme court won't choose between two maps, they will appoint someone to draw the maps.

[lfromnj]

If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts by the deadline set forth in subsection (d), the Commission shall have fourteen days following its initial failure to submit a plan to the General Assembly. If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts to the General Assembly by this deadline, the districts shall be established by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

So kept on reading this amendment,
https://ballotpedia.org/Virginia_Redistricting_Commission_Amendment_(2020)

We do know the Virginia Supreme court is almost all republican just like the NC court is all democrat so I would expect a similarly partisan decision as their reappointment depends on a GOP general assembly.
Anyway by this point Im pretty sure what will happen in 2021/2022
All commisioners chosen,
GOP commisioners deadlock on any map that isn't their preferred map which they show too.
Therefore no map goes to the assembly to vote on so it goes directly to the Virginia Supreme court where they just say the GOP map looks clean enough and they pick that.

I don't think this is likely at all. The VA supreme court won't choose between two maps, they will appoint someone to draw the maps.

They dont have to appoint someone,they can make up random constitutional bs just like nc ds did last year.