2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Missouri

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Reminder that redistricting is not a game of maximum laser-eyed potential, it a juggling contest where you are trying to balance expansion of power with every other interest and actor.

I like this analogy.

[Tekken_Guy]

https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article258220283.html

Republican Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, chairman of the Senate's redistricting committee, said passing a 7-1 GOP map wouldn't reflect the political makeup of the state. He equated it to cheating in baseball, adding: “We're not beating the Democrats with our best pitch, we're taking the bat away from them.”

Lol, as if this is going to convince the Conservative Caucus to stop filibustering.

Republican leadership in MO is so adorable. They're concerned about fairness. Democrats took the bat away in Illinois and New York, gaining at least 5 seats in the process, with no regard for reflecting the political makeup of the state. And no court will strike them down for "partisan fairness" reasons. It seems only Kansas and Tennessee GOPs have the absolute depravity Dem redistricters have. And we'll see if those even survive. So far, the courts have sent a pretty clear message: one party is allowed to gerrymander without consequences, and one isn't.

Frankly, for someone styling themselves as an elections guy, you don't know very much about redistricting if this (the bolded) is what you believe.


KS's gerrymander is tame - all it does is maybe flip KS-03 to the GOP in 2022, and that's 50-50. The seat voted for Biden, and is trending leftwards fast, so the GOP is just buying very little time.

Other GOP gerrymanders exist as well, which you'd know if you weren't in a bubble - GA, NC, OH (OH's more of a dummymander but still), TX (though it's mainly incumbent protection, it reddens up a ton of GOP districts that would very possibly have flipped this decade, especially those in and around Austin, as well as the disgusting configuration of the DFW districts), and LA (4-2, or at least 4-1-1, is fair - not 5-1 where the one Democratic district is a Democratic pack that takes in the blue parts of Baton Rouge and New Orleans instead of creating one blue district for each of the cities). And there are enough states where the GOP shored up competitive seats - TX really falls mainly into this category, as well as AR (completely cracking Little Rock / Pulaski County), KY (moving Frankfort out of the borderline competitive KY-06 to save Barr), NE (reddening up the Omaha district a bit to give Bacon another two years), OK (completely cracking OKC to save Bice), UT (completely cracking SLC to save Owens), IN (moving bluer areas from Spartz's seat into Carson's, and replacing it with rural, ruby red areas to shore up Spartz), and SC (moving parts of Charleston into SC-06 to shore up Mace and keep SC-01 red).

This is pretty much common sense, and if you're counting all the Democratic gerrymanders but only about a seventh of the GOP gerrymanders, it makes sense that the Democratic gerrymanders will outnumber the GOP ones (and even then, you named 2 Republican gerrymanders and 2 Democratic ones, so really there was an equal number of Democratic and Republican gerrymanders).


EDIT: Cope and seethe as much as you want, but do not have the audacity to victimize the GOP as those being punished by gerrymandering. The Democrats have taken blow after blow without punching back till now, and whenever they've offered a universal end to gerrymandering, the GOP has said no. Now that they're finally fighting back, every single blue avatar (and Republican-leaning independents such as yourself) is whimpering about Democratic gerrymanders and how vicious they are, and how the GOP are the ones being victimized here. I don't buy that nonsense.

Also a lot of these "shoring ups" were very mild. The boost Andy Barr got was minimal. French Hill is safe, but he was already pretty safe to begin with.  And Nancy Mace is still in a left-trending Trump+9 seat that is not guaranteed to stay Republican all decade.

 And Don Bacon was not shored up at all.

Just because they could've been even more effective doesn't mean they weren't effective/gerrymanders to begin with.

You are right on Bacon though - at a glance NE02 looks like it was at least made more Republican than it was earlier, but yeah, they changed the margin by just 0.3%, and it's still a Biden+6 seat. So yeah, my mistake, thanks for pointing that out; I'll remove it from my post.

I do agree. I Just don't think Barr and Hill were ever in too much danger to begin with, and Mace's seat in particular looks ominous for the GOP long term. It's just Trump+8 and trending Democratic.

And even low double digits Trump could be aw problem in MO-2 late in the decade when the district is entirely suburbs zooming leftward. Just like with Beth Van Duyne's seat.

[Schiff for Senate]

https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article258220283.html

Republican Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, chairman of the Senate's redistricting committee, said passing a 7-1 GOP map wouldn't reflect the political makeup of the state. He equated it to cheating in baseball, adding: “We're not beating the Democrats with our best pitch, we're taking the bat away from them.”

Lol, as if this is going to convince the Conservative Caucus to stop filibustering.

Republican leadership in MO is so adorable. They're concerned about fairness. Democrats took the bat away in Illinois and New York, gaining at least 5 seats in the process, with no regard for reflecting the political makeup of the state. And no court will strike them down for "partisan fairness" reasons. It seems only Kansas and Tennessee GOPs have the absolute depravity Dem redistricters have. And we'll see if those even survive. So far, the courts have sent a pretty clear message: one party is allowed to gerrymander without consequences, and one isn't.

Frankly, for someone styling themselves as an elections guy, you don't know very much about redistricting if this (the bolded) is what you believe.


KS's gerrymander is tame - all it does is maybe flip KS-03 to the GOP in 2022, and that's 50-50. The seat voted for Biden, and is trending leftwards fast, so the GOP is just buying very little time.

Other GOP gerrymanders exist as well, which you'd know if you weren't in a bubble - GA, NC, OH (OH's more of a dummymander but still), TX (though it's mainly incumbent protection, it reddens up a ton of GOP districts that would very possibly have flipped this decade, especially those in and around Austin, as well as the disgusting configuration of the DFW districts), and LA (4-2, or at least 4-1-1, is fair - not 5-1 where the one Democratic district is a Democratic pack that takes in the blue parts of Baton Rouge and New Orleans instead of creating one blue district for each of the cities). And there are enough states where the GOP shored up competitive seats - TX really falls mainly into this category, as well as AR (completely cracking Little Rock / Pulaski County), KY (moving Frankfort out of the borderline competitive KY-06 to save Barr), NE (reddening up the Omaha district a bit to give Bacon another two years), OK (completely cracking OKC to save Bice), UT (completely cracking SLC to save Owens), IN (moving bluer areas from Spartz's seat into Carson's, and replacing it with rural, ruby red areas to shore up Spartz), and SC (moving parts of Charleston into SC-06 to shore up Mace and keep SC-01 red).

This is pretty much common sense, and if you're counting all the Democratic gerrymanders but only about a seventh of the GOP gerrymanders, it makes sense that the Democratic gerrymanders will outnumber the GOP ones (and even then, you named 2 Republican gerrymanders and 2 Democratic ones, so really there was an equal number of Democratic and Republican gerrymanders).


EDIT: Cope and seethe as much as you want, but do not have the audacity to victimize the GOP as those being punished by gerrymandering. The Democrats have taken blow after blow without punching back till now, and whenever they've offered a universal end to gerrymandering, the GOP has said no. Now that they're finally fighting back, every single blue avatar (and Republican-leaning independents such as yourself) is whimpering about Democratic gerrymanders and how vicious they are, and how the GOP are the ones being victimized here. I don't buy that nonsense.

Also a lot of these "shoring ups" were very mild. The boost Andy Barr got was minimal. French Hill is safe, but he was already pretty safe to begin with.  And Nancy Mace is still in a left-trending Trump+9 seat that is not guaranteed to stay Republican all decade.

 And Don Bacon was not shored up at all.

Just because they could've been even more effective doesn't mean they weren't effective/gerrymanders to begin with.

You are right on Bacon though - at a glance NE02 looks like it was at least made more Republican than it was earlier, but yeah, they changed the margin by just 0.3%, and it's still a Biden+6 seat. So yeah, my mistake, thanks for pointing that out; I'll remove it from my post.

I do agree. I Just don't think Barr and Hill were ever in too much danger to begin with, and Mace's seat in particular looks ominous for the GOP long term. It's just Trump+8 and trending Democratic.

And even low double digits Trump could be aw problem in MO-2 late in the decade when the district is entirely suburbs zooming leftward. Just like with Beth Van Duyne's seat.

Short-term? Yeah, neither Barr nor Hill were in any danger.
Later in the decade (like 2026, for example)? Hill's probably fine because Little Rock / Pulaski County (the latter now trisected) isn't growing (Pulaski County grew by just 4% in the last decade) particularly fast and to begin with his seat was fairly red. Barr's a different story. Lexington is growing fast and liberalizing rapidly (Fayette County grew by 9% in the last decade, and importantly, it went from Obama+1 in 2012 to a pretty massive Biden+21 in 2020), and he only survived by 3% in 2018. So Barr would have probably been in danger, but now that the competitive Frankfort/Franklin County has been removed from the district and replaced with red area, the not-totally-insignificant rigthward shift of KY-06 might well be enough to keep him in office when he might otherwise have lost. I thought this was clear but then I looked at the actual districts - AR02 went from Romney+18 to Trump+6; KY06 went from Romney+14 to Trump+9, so it's clear the latter is trending faster leftwards and is bluer, and thus my comments may be a hot take, but margins matter too: Hill still won by more than 6 points in 2018; Barr by only 3.

I agree with the commentary on Mace's district, though - I mean, unlike the seats in AR and KY, it actually voted blue in 2018, and like the other two districts, the seat is trending leftwards.

Nonetheless, my point is the effectiveness of the gerrymanders in AR and KY should not be udnerstated or underestimated, because later in the decade, it may well be clear that the respective gerrymanders bought the GOP 2 House seats that would otherwise go Demcoratic.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Supposedly, the latest squabble right now is over the placement of Jefferson County. Apparently, some members from SEMO are really pushing back against compromise proposals placing that county in the 8th.

Putting Jefferson inside of MO-8 would make a Trump +48ish district (which unpacks the current district somewhat). If the senators from SEMO have their way, it will pretty much force MO-8 to be something like Trump +58 - which is almost as GOP as MO-1 is Democratic.

I don't get why the GOP is scared of a Trump + 48 seat...

[Tintrlvr]

Supposedly, the latest squabble right now is over the placement of Jefferson County. Apparently, some members from SEMO are really pushing back against compromise proposals placing that county in the 8th.

Putting Jefferson inside of MO-8 would make a Trump +48ish district (which unpacks the current district somewhat). If the senators from SEMO have their way, it will pretty much force MO-8 to be something like Trump +58 - which is almost as GOP as MO-1 is Democratic.

I don't get why the GOP is scared of a Trump + 48 seat...

I think it's more that the SE MO politicians don't want to have to compete with Jefferson County politicians in primaries.

[lfromnj]

Yeah the Kansas solution(take in Lawrence) which in this case would be Boone is also harder due to Leutkemeyer coming from Miller county.

[lfromnj]

https://mobile.twitter.com/LauraAnnSTL/status/1492544624216489996

[compucomp]

I assume MO Dems are not supporting the 6-2 maps currently on the table to break the filibuster because they want 5-2-1. To me they're playing with fire, it seems quite possible the MO Reps will support 7-1 before they move in the Dems' direction.

[Tekken_Guy]

I assume MO Dems are not supporting the 6-2 maps currently on the table to break the filibuster because they want 5-2-1. To me they're playing with fire, it seems quite possible the MO Reps will support 7-1 before they move in the Dems' direction.

If I were the Democrats I'd support a MO-02 that's around Trump+12 but entirely educated suburbanites and likely competitive by the end of the decade. Openly supporting a Trump+6 MO-02 may push Republicans towards the 7-1 with a Trump+15 MO-02 with a large WWC population.

Something like this should give the GOP a false sense of security:
https://davesredistricting.org/join/34e9703f-f07b-4352-b779-53e163934516

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/alisagbrnelson/status/1493650243237330949?cxt=HHwWioCy7fC-wb...

STOP THE STEAAAAL

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

https://twitter.com/alisagbrnelson/status/1493650243237330949?cxt=HHwWioCy7fC-wb...

STOP THE STEAAAAL

My Gen Z brain took like three reads before I read “low key” right

[ProgressiveModerate]

They are literally doing a prayer session for a 7-1 map...?

Dems should hold a prayer for a 7D-0R map, surely god will equalize it and we'll get a 4-4 #fairmap

[jamestroll]

They are literally doing a prayer session for a 7-1 map...?

Dems should hold a prayer for a 7D-0R map, surely god will equalize it and we'll get a 4-4 #fairmap

Well the fair map would be 5 Rethuglicans to 3 Democrats.

[GALeftist]

Please just put aside your differences and make the ugly splotch in the middle of 538 go away guys

[ProgressiveModerate]

Just a reminder a court drawn map still prolly keeps MO-02 as a Trump seat, abliet a narrow one because to make it Biden leaning likely means taking out some black voters from MO-01 and/or doing a pretty dramatic reconfig, plus MO-01 has to take in population anyways

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Would be hilarious if conservative infighting resulted in a court-drawn map.

The Missouri Supreme Court has a 4R-3D composition, but Missouri also has a way of judicial appointments that effectively requires bipartisan approval so none of them are particularly hackish. So I'd wager they draw a 6-2 map which actually might end up more as a 5-2-1 one.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The GOP only has 2 days left to get their act together iirc

We may actually get a court drawn MO which would probably be a least change 6-2 map with Dems having a shot at MO-02

[OBD]

The GOP only has 2 days left to get their act together iirc

We may actually get a court drawn MO which would probably be a least change 6-2 map with Dems having a shot at MO-02

Can we quorum bust?

Though I doubt MO Dems are smart enough to do that anyway, seeing the sh*t they've pulled so far.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The GOP only has 2 days left to get their act together iirc

We may actually get a court drawn MO which would probably be a least change 6-2 map with Dems having a shot at MO-02

Can we quorum bust?

Though I doubt MO Dems are smart enough to do that anyway, seeing the sh*t they've pulled so far.

They literally lack the numbers to do so because the GOP has a supermajority

[ProgressiveModerate]

Least change map that only splits 4 counties (for necessary reasons) and keeps deviation within 1000 for all districts. A court drawn map would likely be very similar to the current map but make the 5th district cleaner, and also eliminate the 3 way split of Jefferson County.

Also, I said this before and I'll say it again; a fair court drawn map least change or not prolly keeps MO-02 as narrow Trump due to teh fact MO-01 needs to expand and generally a fair map would keep as many black voters together as possible, creating a natural D pack of sorts

[patzer]

My go at a fair map. Only 5 split counties. https://davesredistricting.org/join/ebc625c1-8754-4e39-8c6a-e9cd18dfe8a6

4R, 2D, 2 competitive (the 2nd is Biden+6 and the 4th is Trump+9).

[Greedo punched first]

An 8R-0D map is probably legal.

[BoiseBoy]

An 8R-0D map is probably legal.

Legal? I doubt it. Even if they tried, it would never pass both chambers. An 8-0 is incredibly risky from a partisan standpoint.

[ProgressiveModerate]

An 8R-0D map is probably legal.

No MO-01 is pretty objectively protected by VRA and for someone to say it isn’t is on crack

[Greedo punched first]

An 8R-0D map is probably legal.

No MO-01 is pretty objectively protected by VRA and for someone to say it isn’t is on crack

At least five SCOTUS justices believe the VRA doesn't apply to redistricting.