Maps we need to see!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Brown isn't someone I'll miss. I'll gladly trade her for 3 or 4 other Democrats. Especially if it means Alan Grayson can return!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Playing around with the app I see that if the majority black seat in north Florida is eliminated A DISTRICT CAN BE DRAWN THAT ALAN GRAYSON COULD WIN! YES! YES! YES! YES!

Toss Brown. Throw her to the dogs. Forget her, she is useless. Goodbye to that useless wench. Sacrificing corrupt trash like her for people like Alan Grayson is FAR worth it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also creating three majority-Cuban seats in South Florida without making them look ridiculous is easy. Diaz-Balart is whining about nothing. Alcee Hastings might have more of a complaint as I was only able to create one majority black seat in South Florida, I had another that was only plurality white, but you can't preserve a seat like Hastings in any logical or sane map.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

coalition district

?

Much as I wish that every state in the union had an anti-gerrymandering law, this Florida amendment is a total mess. It doesn't actually establish an independent commission; the map is still drawn by the legislature, though they have to abide by the new guidelines. But the new guidelines are incredibly vague, and in particular don't say anything about how to adjudicate cases where two of the principles conflict, which they clearly do in the case of minority representation and compactness. So what I expect is:

1. The legislature draws a map that looks nice but is in fact very GOP-friendly, like the current Michigan map.

Seeing as the Michigan map was drawn under similar circumstances... probably so. Though the rules might still make another 19-7 style map impossible. Probably not going to be possible to deny the Democrats a second seat in the Tampa Bay.

Well this is what I got:



Bill Young could possibly hang on in the olive district but would almost certainly flip without him, and since the dude is older than dirt anyway he might as well just retire in 2012. The light pink seat is certainly more winnable than any other seat in the area other than the current FL-11, but hardly a guaranteed win (since StatesRights lives there I'd really relish the thought of a Democrat winning it though)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BTW I'm pretty confident that unless the GOP can do something very tricky Webster is probably finished and a one-termer for sure, he's still a fundie nutjob even if Grayson took the "submit to me" line out of context. Not to mention the event he was speaking at where that line came from is crazy enough even if Webster's speech was relatively unoffensive.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'd assume that whoever runs against Scott Brown is the seat to go.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Playing around with California I've figured out a few things:

-McNerney is almost certainly going to get safer (that was kind of a given), but in kind of an odd way, most Bay Area districts will expand out and push his further out. I have him losing all of Santa Clara county. This won't hurt him because he'll also likely lose some of the rural areas in San Joaquin and gain much of Stockton proper. In additional it's not that difficult to dump a slice of Oakland in his district, though I'm not sure if the new commission would do something like that.
-CA-10 will almost certainly get more Republican, though I doubt that'll affect it much or make it winnable, I guess it might become a bit of a fool's gold type seat.
-CA-03 will get more Dem. This is one that'll probably flip at some point, not necessarily 2012, but there's only so long the GOP can hold out demographically here, especially as Lungren doesn't seem to have much of a personal vote. Not too different from what CA-11 was like last decade.

Haven't got to SoCal yet though.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's what I see happening with CA-03:

-CA-06 needs to expand and can't go anywhere but north.
-CA-01 thus needs to expand and can't go anywhere but east.
-Ditto for CA-02.
-CA-04 might be above population ideal, but now has been pushed and needs to go south.

Thus CA-04 takes in many of the very Republican parts of CA-03. In addition CA-05 is far beyond ideal population and needs to contract, and CA-03 is the only seat that can take in those areas, So CA-03 needs to shed a lot of its outer territory and is more of an inner-ring metro Sacramento seat. A good competent Republican could probably hold that, but Lundgren doesn't appear to be that person. Demographically it's a time bomb, like CA-11 was, the GOP won't be able to hold it forever.