2020 New York Redistricting

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

New York Dems should really just pull an Ohio GOP and ignore the courts. Its what all the cool kids are doing now.

Except, the Court ruled the IRC has the power to redistrict, and, the legislature does not. That is a very hard ruling to ignore.

The Ohio Supreme Court blinked, apparently, for the Congressional map, and, federal courts intervened on the legislative ones.

I don't foresee the Federal Courts not deferring to the New York Court of Appeals.

Let ‘em enforce it

I mean, I know I was saying this earlier, but if we totally ignore the courts, republicans will do it too. Plus we might get a d favorable map anyway from the special master. Also, now that I think of it, McCarthy could refuse to seat the democrats in  gerrymandered seats

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

https://mobile.twitter.com/mcpli/status/1520122816762425344

If as Torie says the federal question is done with, NY Democrats might just make some lemonade by pushing the other primaries as well to get rid of Lt gov Benjamin

No they will probably appeal to SCOTUS

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Can someone explain to me why “the right” on social media and otherwise thinks that the special master is a “Democrat” and that the maps won’t be that much better for Republicans?

Because he likely is a democrat and drew the PA map? I mean, Conor Lamb's district and Houlahan's districts are particularly gerrymandered to benefit democrats

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

I plugged the Plantiff's remedial map into my model. While the net bias is R + 11 it becomes R + 0 once one accounts for NY's geography which overall isn't great for Dems. From the Dem gerry it's really only an average loss of 2 D seats and an R gain of 2 seats. However, competitiveness goes way up so in 2022, Dems loss will likely be bigger whereas in a great year they could have the ability to go 22-4 or even 23-3. The main consequence of this map for Dems is the median seat nationally would shift from Biden + 4ish to Biden + 2ish (though this assumes a weakened KS-03 for Dems and a NH-01 that is pretty close and everything else stays in place).

A big question is if Biden's strong performance upstate an anomaly or the future. If upstate sees a dramatic R shift in the coming years, especially in the central valley, that would be very bad news for Dems but in the reverse they could make NY-18 and NY-24, MAYBE even NY-19 relatively solid.

Also, the Northeast overall looks funny cause inland is hyper liberal even in rural areas and then you just have this line of urban/suburban R districts along the coast.

This map is unlikely to be the final map but is interesting to see what a fair map could look like.

This map would also add another Clinton-Trump seat meaning we could get a total of 5 under the new maps nationally.

What's the clinton trump, the orthodox seat?

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

I plugged the Plantiff's remedial map into my model. While the net bias is R + 11 it becomes R + 0 once one accounts for NY's geography which overall isn't great for Dems. From the Dem gerry it's really only an average loss of 2 D seats and an R gain of 2 seats. However, competitiveness goes way up so in 2022, Dems loss will likely be bigger whereas in a great year they could have the ability to go 22-4 or even 23-3. The main consequence of this map for Dems is the median seat nationally would shift from Biden + 4ish to Biden + 2ish (though this assumes a weakened KS-03 for Dems and a NH-01 that is pretty close and everything else stays in place).

A big question is if Biden's strong performance upstate an anomaly or the future. If upstate sees a dramatic R shift in the coming years, especially in the central valley, that would be very bad news for Dems but in the reverse they could make NY-18 and NY-24, MAYBE even NY-19 relatively solid.

Also, the Northeast overall looks funny cause inland is hyper liberal even in rural areas and then you just have this line of urban/suburban R districts along the coast.

This map is unlikely to be the final map but is interesting to see what a fair map could look like.

This map would also add another Clinton-Trump seat meaning we could get a total of 5 under the new maps nationally.

What's the clinton trump, the orthodox seat?

That is correct

Honestly, the right kind of conservadem orthodox politician could win that even in 2022

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

They made upstate redder but it's still uglier somehow!

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/nyregion/redistricting-democrats-appeal.html

NY Dems lawsuit.

This one is so bad, that it might be subject to sanctions for filing a frivolous lawsuit. I will leave it at that.

I mean does a Federal court not need to give approval to move the primary?

No. Primary dates are a matter of state law. That is why we have primary dates all over the place.

US House is a FEDERAL election. The federal court can(they won't but my point still stands) absolutely say no the US House primary must be held on the 28th, the filing deadline has already passed yada yada yada

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

https://twitter.com/bobhardt/status/1521478459549270030

Well he would have lost to Molinaro if the district was less than Biden +10 so.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Torie, I trust your judgement. What will the final map actually look like? How many Trump 2020 seats will there be? Which seats get redder/bluer

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Hot take- Tories map will be chosen

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Mr. Dunn was made aware of the comments above, and understands them (a couple of them even may have some merit), and is confident, very confident, that the Special Master will draw a fair map. However, one comment that puzzles him (in particular the bit in bold), no matter how many times that he reads it:

"A good map should have a relatively equal number of competitive seats on both sides with a slight skew towards the majority party."

Why did he nuke aoc

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Well we freaked out for nothing lol

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

What will Molinaro/Schmitt do? They are double bunked

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Cervas is kind of an old school neutral map drawer. It is the kind of map that I would have drawn 10 years ago. The metrics are:

1. Minimizing chops is job one.

to be continued ...

Torie, we love you but sometimes you need to take the L. Any truly neutral map would have a Trump seat for NY 19. And maybe an orthodox seat. Dems clearly got a break here

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

SP Maloney needs to be fired from his job. What a moron

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/nyregion/biaggi-sean-patrick-maloney.html

Now she's gonna run in NY-17. I don't think this district has enough young people to be close for her. Putnam and Rockland are a big problem for squad types.

Hopefully she kicks his butt.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/nyregion/biaggi-sean-patrick-maloney.html

Now she's gonna run in NY-17. I don't think this district has enough young people to be close for her. Putnam and Rockland are a big problem for squad types.

Hopefully she kicks his butt.

Its still a Biden +10 seat and she literally said defund the police. The GOP also got a pretty good recruit as well.

We could lose this seat either way(especially given you said they have a good recruit) so I don't care. Maloney deserves to lose for his shenanigans

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Have some of you not paid attention to 2022 redistricting? Every state where democrats had full control went for strong gerrymanders with the exception of MD(and that was struck down by the courts so it's understandable why they only gave Andy Harris Biden +0). The idea that they are going to surrender to the GOP is just laughable

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Disgusting map. Classic NY Dems protecting incumbents over creating a maps that fair or an effective gerrymander.

It's this sort of stuff that makes me really frustrated with NY Dems - politicians serving themselves takes front seat to actually serving constituents and doing things good for the people of the state

They are going to ignore the comission and pass an actual gerrymander. The court is clearly partisan enough now to allow it, there was no legal basis in overturning the original decision.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

The 2% rule is the biggest hurdle for Dems here.

What is this 2% rule? Whatever it is, if it is a problem, then I would think the supermajority legislature should simply change it.

If the legislature wants to modify the commission plan, it can't deviate more than 2% pop. for any given district.

But Democrats can always reject the first map, and then the second map, and then pass their own if they have a 2/3rd majority.

The 2% rule is only statutory and not included in the original constitutional amendment so it can be repealed easily. The problem is the constitution prohibits partisan intent in redistricting, so the case could be made that repealing the rule to draw more favorable maps is partisan intent. Dems could adjust the rule from 2 to say 5 or 10% rather than repealing it or just follow the rule and shift what seats they can 2% to the left.

Unless there's any reason to think the court will strike a gerrymander down, I don't think Democrats will care. Dems have the 3 dissenters and the new judge.

The original decision was

4-2-1. The one agreed the map was gerrymandering but constitutionally it should have gone back to the commission and the legislature.

The new vote is 3-1----3 not 4-3 in that there were four votes that proper procedure was not followed and the appointment of the special master was unconstitutional, but only 3 votes for Ds being able to do what they want. The fourth judge voted with Democrats there, but he pointedly did not disagree with any of the old majority's complaonts about the Hochulmander, merely with the special master.

I am going to be generous and say I don't think anyone in this thread seriously believes in the relevance f the fairness/COI complaints being made anymore than DeSantis genuinely believed that the VRA required getting rid of Lawson's seat. It's clear that the main objections are that there are not enough Democratic seats and that's fine if your objection is the need to balance R hackers in NC/OH.

But unlike North Carolina, where the state Constitution is silent, the NY one explicitly bans partisanship as a motive regardless of what margin the legislature votes by, and deciding not to give the Judges a figleaf is an issue in a jurisdiction which still has a fairly strong culture of a bar code of professional ethics.

I mean it's a game of smirking here, but if the Court can't even come up with a clever argument there will be social consequences for those involved that don't exist in other jurisdictions. (Not least because with elected courts people are more likely to move into higher office)

The judge may not be as hackish as the other 3 but I highly doubt they would strike down a map that looked like the Gerrymander DeSantis drew in FL(Clean but still a gerrymander) So, probably not maximal but a gerrymander none the less

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

It's political theatre ya'll! It's going to be an aggressive gerrymander

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

So what I'm gathering is that, broadly, removing Bowman is far more important to NY legislators than netting Dems a couple seats?

I honestly think the big lesson so far is that the NY Assembly is full of cowards. I think the Senate might be making a more aggressive map. We shall see.

Or this is like FL and they are trying to create a mirage of being "fair", only for them to meet with the senate and come up with an aggressive gerrymander.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Man, I just suck at making predictions don't I?