US House Redistricting: Washington

[bgwah]

I also find Ceis' plan least offensive. Obviously I don't like the 8th district going into Eastern Washington, but I would be in the 1st district in his map anyway.

[bgwah]

And just a random note: I strongly dislike Gorton's plan to re-number the districts. A lot of these districts have encompassed their territory for their entire existence, and some up to a century or so... Throwing that out the window "just because" is ridiculous.

[bgwah]

The final map will look nothing like any of these drafts. I wouldn't give them too much thought.

How can you be so sure?

[bgwah]

So a 7-3 map is pretty much not happening right? It's 6-4 at best at this point it seems.

7-3 was very doable. Considering the Republicans came in with 5-5 maps, I think the Democrats should have come in with 7-3 maps so we could compromise with a 6-4 map.

[bgwah]

That was someone else's comment, but nevertheless congratulations are on (perhaps) winning this argument

Interestingly enough, when we first argued about a possible 10th and the East-West crossing on SSC in 2008, you were also talking about how McCain would never win the Republican nomination. So... hah, we're even!

Luckily it looks like many of the maps cut Bellevue and much (if not all) of the Eastside out of these trans-Cascade districts (with one exception---the Huff map, which almost everyone agrees is the worst map). I wouldn't mind that too much.

[bgwah]

The reality is that the bulk of the growth has been in the four districts represented by Republicans.

Eastern Washington is growing more slowly than western Washington. That's two of the districts.

Technically Eastern Washington grew a tiny bit faster.

[bgwah]

I liked how Krist Novoselic was posting in the comments...

[bgwah]

What are the odds that the Commission will fail to agree on a plan, and let the Washington Supreme Court do it?  Do the Washington gurus have any opinion on that?

Won't happen. The Republicans would much rather take whatever deal the Democrats offer them than risk a court drawn map that would endanger Reichert.

If the Democrats actually believe that, it will end up in the Courts. The Republicans aren't going to be that stupid. Already, three of the commissioner have chosen to cross the Cascades in the same way. Seems like we have an agreement on the first element of the final map. Given how much his district shifts East, Reichert would really have to be screwed not to have a better district.

The issue is the new seat. Democrats have been spouting the meme that the final map will be a trade of given Reichert a better seat for giving the Democrats the new seat. The reality is that the bulk of the growth has been in the four districts represented by Republicans. Drawing a fifth Republican seat is as easy of a task as drawing a sixth Democratic district. The natural compromise would be keeping the five Democrats, strengthening Reichert, and drawing a "fair fight" district.

The reality is two of the four Republican seats are swing districts that, while currently having Republican representatives, also voted for Barack Obama. One of them had a Democratic Congressman until last year, when he retired (he probably would've held the seat had he run again). The compromise wouldn't just be strengthening Reichert, but strengthening Herrera as well. The most simple way of strengthening Herrera, and we see this in all 4 of the commission's proposed maps, is to eliminate Democratic stronghold Olympia from her district. So what happens with Olympia, then? This is what could result in the new seat being marginally Democratic. Either by creating the new 10th in the South Sound or by creating a majority-minority district in South King County (which would be solidly Democratic, and then shift other districts like the 9th more towards Olympia, keeping them marginally Democratic). Nevertheless, suburban Thurston and some of suburban Pierce could very well be in this district, and they are much more friendly to the GOP, which is why this seat would only be marginally Democratic. Maybe 50-51% or so Murray---certainly not an impossible seat for the GOP.

Strengthening Reichert can be done multiple ways. If we do expand his district into Eastern Washington, keep in mind that his district was by far the most overpopulated, with something like 138,000 extra people. If we give him Chelan and Kittitas counties in Eastern Washington as the several of the commission's proposals do, you're adding another 113,000 people to the district. Which means 251,000 people  have to be cut from the Western Washington portions of the district. And that leaves a real possibility of some Democratic-friendly areas like Bellevue being cut out from his district. That may result in the 1st absorbing some of it (there are numerous possibilities here, so I'm just speculating). But I could see the 1st being a swing district that may be very marginally Democratic... The commissioners have some very different ideas for the 1st, which of course is an open seat with Inslee running for Governor, so it's harder to figure out what they may do.

[bgwah]

A good portion of that population growth in Eastern Washington was from Hispanics, fyi.

This is true, but they don't vote nearly as much as whites... It's a bit of a Texas issue.

[bgwah]

So are there demographic and political numbers for the proposed districts anywhere?

[bgwah]

I just find the entire idea that minorities can't get elected in this state without their own special districts to be absolutely absurd.

Majority white King County elected minorities as its executives in 1993, 1997, 2001, and 2005.

Majority-white Seattle, which is basically WA-7, had a black mayor for two terms in the 1990s.

A majority-white county council district may very well elect a black county councilman this November, despite only being 2-3% black probably.

John Lovick is black and got elected Snohomish County Sheriff (and as a state legislator before that) despite running in majority-white constituencies.

We were one of the first states to elect a minority Governor.

Jaime Herrera was elected in WA-3, despite it being majority white. One of her main opponents in the Republican primary was also a minority.

Minorities can get elected in Washington without racial gerrymandering. And to suggest otherwise is not just dishonest, but insulting to the rest of us by implying we don't vote for minorities when we clearly have a lengthy track record of doing so.

And really, they're proposing a district that is still 49% white!! And probably about 54-55% 18+ white! And maybe over 60% when you count only voters!

Demographic changes in the 9th district will probalby result in it becoming majority-minority soon anyway. There is absolutely no reason to ruin the rest of the Puget Sound districts for such a pointless reason.

[bgwah]

Down to two draft maps for legislative districts: http://redistricting.wa.gov/maps.asp

[bgwah]

The Republican map of Spokane is really sickening. So is their Clark County map, though the Democrats' map is still somewhat ugly...

Anyway, the Republicans are moving forward with full blown gerrymanders while the Democrats seem to be going in with more sensible maps. I have a bad feeling this is not going to end well.

[bgwah]

The Republican map of Spokane is really sickening. So is their Clark County map, though the Democrats' map is still somewhat ugly...

Anyway, the Republicans are moving forward with full blown gerrymanders while the Democrats seem to be going in with more sensible maps. I have a bad feeling this is not going to end well.

I think the Huff-Gorton plan is more reasonable in keeping Seattle in fewer districts rather than having them stretched out so much.

How much of LD-6 is actually NE of Spokane, populationwise?

If you were to slide LD-17 and LD-49 east, would LD-18 get yanked down into Vancouver?

I do prefer the R version of Seattle (it's almost exactly what I proposed). The Democratic map is probably trying to avoid placing incumbents together, since their weird splits into ultra-Democratic suburbs probably isn't giving them extra seats. And while I don't necessarily approve of that, it doesn't bother me as much as blatant gerrymandering to take out the other party's seats. I suppose it's possible there was some sort of ripple effect that made outer districts slightly more Democratic in return. Hard to be certain at a glance.

I don't know how much of NE Spokane is in the 6th... But as you probably noticed it does a silly swerve around the Spokane Valley to also take in SE Spokane. We see the Senate Majority leader (D) have her district mutilated. The city of Spokane appears to be in four districts. That's ridiculous. No offense but it looks almost... Texan.

I tried to answer your question about Clark County, but the redistricting app keeps crashing on me. Maybe tomorrow. Both maps do it though, so maybe it's not possible. What annoys me is the "mushroom cloud" 17th LD trying to turn a swing seat into a safe seat.

[bgwah]

http://redistricting.wa.gov/maps_draft.asp

The legislative district maps are pretty silly in spots, but I guess I've come to expect that. I'm encouraged to see Sammamish being lumped with the Eastside instead of rural King County, though. Hopefully the same will happen with the congressional districts... I do not want to be in a Reichert-mander!

[bgwah]

They're claiming they'll have congressional maps tomorrow.

[bgwah]

Just a random question.... but what was the point of extending the first into Seattle and 7th up into Lake Forest Park in the 2000 redistricting?

I'm not sure.

The 1st was the Seattle district for a long time (A Seattle-Kitsap district at times). When they added the 7th district in the 70s, they based it in South King County, adding South Seattle to it. They had 7 legislative districts per congressional district (7x7=49). Of the 8 Seattle LDs, the southern three were in the 7th, and the northern five were in the 1st. The 7th took more of North Seattle during later redistrictings, so the current situation might simply be a remnant of that.

It seems likely that 2010 will see the 1st's migration out of Seattle and Kitsap completed. We'll know for sure tomorrow.

[bgwah]

Are the voting results of the proposed legislative districts available anywhere? Obviously the commissioners use them to draw their maps. I guess they feel like they have to omit this data so fewer people realize that they're partisan hacks.

[bgwah]

Yeah, we lost big time. Between Nickels getting 25% in a primary and liquor landsliding, I think it's safe to say Tim Ceis is a joke who should never work again.

[bgwah]

Am I missing something or does that look REALLY solid for the GOP?

3,4,5,8 look like solid districts, and 1 is reasonably so.

This is an absolutely fantastic map for the GOP. In fact, you would think Republicans were fully in control of our state government if you did not know we had bipartisan redistricting!

[bgwah]

I hope someone investigates Tim Ceis thoroughly. He's a very shady character, and there is a pretty decent chance he was bribed to accept this map.

[bgwah]

This is a furking disaster! I'm furious..... Splitting Seattle.... what is the second... it's disgusting, or for that matter the 8th. I need to go throttle something

At least the 3rd looks 'nice'.

Oh, and Tacoma is split a nice even three ways, lovely.

The Eastside is now split between three districts as well. We were Austinized.

[bgwah]

This is a furking disaster! I'm furious..... Splitting Seattle.... what is the second... it's disgusting, or for that matter the 8th. I need to go throttle something

At least the 3rd looks 'nice'.

Oh, and Tacoma is split a nice even three ways, lovely.

The 2nd appears to be a 'round up all the Democrats in 5 counties' district. Looks like it includes Bellingham?

Yes, it does. This is what the Republicans wanted---push all the Democrats into the 2nd so they have a chance at the 1st.

[bgwah]

I also got 51.0% Rossi for WA-01.

Burner definitely can't win this seat.

Is Ross Hunter running for Congress? Or maybe Rodney Tom? That would explain Medina's inclusion in WA-01. Or maybe Gorton (Clyde Hill) just didn't want to live in Adam Smith's district, lol.

I'm pretty sure this puts Marko Liias in WA-02. Too bad, he's a good legislator.

Ruderman or Hobbs would be the best candidate for the new WA-01.

[bgwah]

Larsen is originally from Lake Stevens, but currently lives in Everett. Larsen will definitely run in WA-02.

WA-1/WA-2 is definitely the big surprise for everybody, I think. We didn't realize how easily the Democrats would cave.

And yeah, CK gets the prize, I guess! Good job, lol.