Skew in state delegations

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

A fair map in TN is 6R-3D.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

A fair map in TN is 6R-3D.

Actually not. TN is R+14, or in a 50-50 national race the state should split 64% R to 36% D. Studies have shown that for every point that a state swings from 50% the delegation swings by 2%, so that in a 50-50 national race the TN delegation would be expected to be 78% to 22%. With 9 seats that corresponds almost exactly to a 7R - 2D delegation.

I generally use a more different calculation.
I would rather take the 64-34 calculation and don't take the step of adjusting for partisan lean like that. If one is making a fair map, it's better to hew to trying to match the partisan lean as much as is rationally possible. It's possible to do that in TN. Unpack TN-09 while keeping it wholely within Shelby County, make TN-08 a roughly 52% Obama district in the R+4 range (an Obama district in the South generally should be counted as a Democratic district regardless of PVI, especially if it's around 35% black), and then have a Nashville seat. And then boom, success.

TN-08's eastern border can be Weakley, Carroll, Madison, and Hardeman Counties. One can also construct a TN-04 that is -3522, solely out of whole counties.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

A fair map in TN is 6R-3D.

Actually not. TN is R+14, or in a 50-50 national race the state should split 64% R to 36% D. Studies have shown that for every point that a state swings from 50% the delegation swings by 2%, so that in a 50-50 national race the TN delegation would be expected to be 78% to 22%. With 9 seats that corresponds almost exactly to a 7R - 2D delegation.

I generally use a more different calculation.
I would rather take the 64-34 calculation and don't take the step of adjusting for partisan lean like that. If one is making a fair map, it's better to hew to trying to match the partisan lean as much as is rationally possible. It's possible to do that in TN. Unpack TN-09 while keeping it wholely within Shelby County, make TN-08 a roughly 52% Obama district in the R+4 range (an Obama district in the South generally should be counted as a Democratic district regardless of PVI, especially if it's around 35% black), and then have a Nashville seat. And then boom, success.

TN-08's eastern border can be Weakley, Carroll, Madison, and Hardeman Counties. One can also construct a TN-04 that is -3522, solely out of whole counties.

The single-member district system results in an amplified partisan lean within an area (relative to the percent vote). Trying to match the delegation to the percentage vote often results in gross gerrymandering, so I wouldn't do that...besides, even if each state has an amplified partisan lean, they should cancel each other out in the end

It wouldn't be rational everywhere. But it should be tried where it doesn't necessarily result in overly messed up districts.
If some gerrymandering happens in the process of getting proportionality, it's fine by me...but counties and cities generally should be kept together when possible regardless.
I'm not in the opinion that gerrymandering itself is inherently evil.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

A fair map in TN is 6R-3D.

Actually not. TN is R+14, or in a 50-50 national race the state should split 64% R to 36% D. Studies have shown that for every point that a state swings from 50% the delegation swings by 2%, so that in a 50-50 national race the TN delegation would be expected to be 78% to 22%. With 9 seats that corresponds almost exactly to a 7R - 2D delegation.

I generally use a more different calculation.
I would rather take the 64-34 calculation and don't take the step of adjusting for partisan lean like that. If one is making a fair map, it's better to hew to trying to match the partisan lean as much as is rationally possible. It's possible to do that in TN. Unpack TN-09 while keeping it wholely within Shelby County, make TN-08 a roughly 52% Obama district in the R+4 range (an Obama district in the South generally should be counted as a Democratic district regardless of PVI, especially if it's around 35% black), and then have a Nashville seat. And then boom, success.

TN-08's eastern border can be Weakley, Carroll, Madison, and Hardeman Counties. One can also construct a TN-04 that is -3522, solely out of whole counties.

The single-member district system results in an amplified partisan lean within an area (relative to the percent vote). Trying to match the delegation to the percentage vote often results in gross gerrymandering, so I wouldn't do that...besides, even if each state has an amplified partisan lean, they should cancel each other out in the end

It wouldn't be rational everywhere. But it should be tried where it doesn't necessarily result in overly messed up districts.
If some gerrymandering happens in the process of getting proportionality, it's fine by me...but counties and cities generally should be kept together when possible regardless.
I'm not in the opinion that gerrymandering itself is inherently evil.

You have to go into the core of Memphis to make the 8th competitive. It just wouldn't make sense in relation to the rest of the district.

I don't see anything really wrong with stowing the downtown core of Memphis in the 8th. It isn't like Shelby County is just enough for one district anyway.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If you want strict proportionality you oughta just opt for PR tim.

I don't need to adopt PR.
It's possible to get rough proportionality in many places (like TN) and I don't think it's all that terrible trying to achieve it, even if one keeps single-member districts.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

My system works best when applied on nationwide scale, so you can compensate when geography makes it impossible to have proportionality and reasonable districts at the same time.
A good example is Massachusetts. Simple proportionality is impossible in MA while also maintaining reasonable districts.
The solution would be making VA or PA have a more pro-GOP map to compensate.
Et cetera...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

My system works best when applied on nationwide scale, so you can compensate when geography makes it impossible to have proportionality and reasonable districts at the same time.
A good example is Massachusetts. Simple proportionality is impossible in MA while also maintaining reasonable districts.
The solution would be making VA or PA have a more pro-GOP map to compensate.
Et cetera...

That's distinctly unfair to the people of the states like PA or VA. Why should they have districts due to the residency and voting patterns of MA? Each state is sovereign and should have a fair map that reflects its own population.

Well, this was tailor-made for those cases I drew House district maps for with all 50 states in mind.
It wouldn't be workable to completely copy this method in real life.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

My system works best when applied on nationwide scale, so you can compensate when geography makes it impossible to have proportionality and reasonable districts at the same time.
A good example is Massachusetts. Simple proportionality is impossible in MA while also maintaining reasonable districts.
The solution would be making VA or PA have a more pro-GOP map to compensate.
Et cetera...

That's distinctly unfair to the people of the states like PA or VA. Why should they have districts due to the residency and voting patterns of MA? Each state is sovereign and should have a fair map that reflects its own population.

Well, this was tailor-made for those cases I drew House district maps for with all 50 states in mind.
It wouldn't be workable to completely copy this method in real life.

But how much weight should one place on partisan fairness? Intentional partisan unfairness should be avoided, but that's different from intentional partisan fairness. IA is often cited as the gold standard for neutral redistricting at the congressional and state levels, but the mappers are barred from using any election data. AZ has a neutral commission, but faced all sorts of issues this cycle because they selected certain data sets in an attempt to create nominally fair and competitive districts.

The central issue I see is that voting patterns change with time. An attempt to be fair in 2011 may not result in the appearance of fairness in 2017. I demonstrated that with my remap of the WI legislative districts last year. The same plan that looked like a pro-Dem map after 2008 (when it would have been drawn) looked like a pro-Pub map after 2016 due to the shift in rural WI voters.

Checking for unnecessary partisan skew or polarization I think should be done. I don't draw my plans while looking at the PVI's, but I do check the partisan results afterwards. I know attempts to lock in fairness will often fail beyond the first election. They even could backfire depending on the shifts in the electorate.

I suppose one could alter the formula to inject swing districts into the equation, when that is called for. In the case of WI, for instance, one could have 3D, 3R, and 2 swing.
The biggest trouble probably comes when determining whether a district is Democratic or Republican (especially in areas with higher-than-expected split-ticket voting). Let's take NY-24 in Upstate NY, for example. It has been Democratic leaning on presidential level in every election this century, yet it elected Democrats only twice out of nine times during that time period. Democratic seat or Republican seat?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

My system works best when applied on nationwide scale, so you can compensate when geography makes it impossible to have proportionality and reasonable districts at the same time.
A good example is Massachusetts. Simple proportionality is impossible in MA while also maintaining reasonable districts.
The solution would be making VA or PA have a more pro-GOP map to compensate.
Et cetera...

That's distinctly unfair to the people of the states like PA or VA. Why should they have districts due to the residency and voting patterns of MA? Each state is sovereign and should have a fair map that reflects its own population.

Well, this was tailor-made for those cases I drew House district maps for with all 50 states in mind.
It wouldn't be workable to completely copy this method in real life.

But how much weight should one place on partisan fairness? Intentional partisan unfairness should be avoided, but that's different from intentional partisan fairness. IA is often cited as the gold standard for neutral redistricting at the congressional and state levels, but the mappers are barred from using any election data. AZ has a neutral commission, but faced all sorts of issues this cycle because they selected certain data sets in an attempt to create nominally fair and competitive districts.

The central issue I see is that voting patterns change with time. An attempt to be fair in 2011 may not result in the appearance of fairness in 2017. I demonstrated that with my remap of the WI legislative districts last year. The same plan that looked like a pro-Dem map after 2008 (when it would have been drawn) looked like a pro-Pub map after 2016 due to the shift in rural WI voters.

Checking for unnecessary partisan skew or polarization I think should be done. I don't draw my plans while looking at the PVI's, but I do check the partisan results afterwards. I know attempts to lock in fairness will often fail beyond the first election. They even could backfire depending on the shifts in the electorate.

I suppose one could alter the formula to inject swing districts into the equation, when that is called for. In the case of WI, for instance, one could have 3D, 3R, and 2 swing.

My skew and polarization formulas do treat swing districts differently.

How do you define a swing district under your system?