Per SCOTUS, initiative created redistricting commissions may be l'histoire

[Torie]

No, it's actually AZ-02 that becomes safe Pub. But yes, it will make it harder to keep AZ-01 as Dem as it is, although I think the "Dem" AZ Commission found a way to do it, where AZ-01 took in Cochise County, and found some Pubs on its Western side to lose to offset the Pub accretions in the SE corner. But Mathis axed that idea, to make AZ-01 just a tad more Dem (she felt it needed a bit more shoring up, and losing Prescott and taking in Sedona was not quite enough), and AZ-02 a tad more Pub. That didn't turn out too well for her in the end, but I digress.

[Torie]

However, I am not sure kraxen's map is legal under the VRA. Creating an ersatz Hispanic CD like that, losing Hispanics on the perimeters in various locations to take in the core in disparate locations, might be viewed as racial gerrymandering ala that NC map, where SCOTUS axed that Watt CD back when. It may have taken erosity a bit too far. The point being that if an Hispanic (black) CD can be created that is compact, is it legal to make one hideously erose, going all over the state? Interesting question. Maybe Muon2 has a thought on it. It's one thing to create a majority minority CD that can only be done by going all over the place (not mandated of course, but legal); quite another when it is unnecessary to do so, to create the requisite majority minority CD.

I think the current VA case touches on that very issue. The lower court, citing other cases, said that VA-3 was drawn with race as the primary factor. The unusual shape including the hopscotch down the river led to that conclusion, and it was recognized that there were other districts that could provide an opportunity for the minority to elect a candidate of choice without the gerrymander.

At the other extreme is a district like IL-4. It was originally created in 1991 and the bizarre shape was upheld, since to directly connect the two Hispanic neighborhoods would have bisected a black majority CD. The operating conclusion was that an unusual shape for a VRA district had to be strongly justified by the state - basically that the burden is on the state to show that a strange-shaped district was the only means to comport with section 2. That concept applied in part in LULAC (TX), where the remade Hispanic CD could not be justified and the map was overturned.

I think Krazen's map could be easily attacked and would be hard to defend.

I found this map that I put together in Nov 2011 during the AZ commission debate.


I wasn't using political data when this was designed, only putting in two Hispanic CDs. It ends up with 6 firm R, 1 lean R and 2 firm D districts.

Also, my districts have an average deviation of only 66, an inequality score of 2. I'm not sure how to calculate erosity in AZ yet.

Since the second Hispanic CD is not legally mandated, your map and mine violate a ton of the rules that we have evolved and which we agree upon.   What should be done is to draw a compact Tucson CD that does not chop Tucson. Drawing the second Hispanic CD creates a ton of chops, and massive erosity. It was only done because it had been done before. I doubt either of us would have gone there absent that.

[Torie]

Here is what I would draw in Pima County and the Hispanic district in the Phoenix area.

AZ-2    Obama: 49.4% McCain:49.5%
AZ-3    Obama: 56.7% McCain: 42.2%   Hispanic: 60.5%
AZ-4    Obama: 63.9% McCain: 34.9%   Hispanic: 65.8%

That convolution in the Tucson area, aka a racial gerrymandering, which carefully puts the white liberals all into AZ-02, is arguably even more “hideous” sbane than Train’s effort.

Well, “hideous” is too strong a word for Train’s modest Dem gerrymander. My objections to his map (he requested elaboration, and I apologize in being tardy in providing it) are mostly aesthetic.  I note them on his map below



The real problem of course, is this non legally mandated ersatz second Hispanic CD, that violates just about every rule in the book per Muon2’s little “rules.” And yes, Tucson is a Dem town, and needs and deserves a Dem CD. It just should not be gerrymandered to create a Dem CD, and a tilt Dem CD. In fact, if one abandons that unfortunate frolic and detour, suddenly one is able to create a map which I suspect would score very high (might be hard indeed to score higher) per Muon2’s metrics. This assumes that chops to accommodate and keep together Indian Reservations don’t count as chops or anything else, and one pretends that they are just not there (which I think is appropriate). Given that exception, the map below I think can hardly be described as  a Pub gerrymander, and would score very high in a map contest, using the rules that we have evolved. The chop by AZ-02 into Apache County is a microchop by the way, so it does not count.
 
 

Oh, for desert, I offer up a legal 8-1 Pub gerrymander (in Pima, AZ-03 takes the Hispanics, and AZ-02 and AZ-05 split up the more troublesome psephologically speaking for Pubs, white liberal zone), that I think masks the mischief reasonably well. It cuts down AZ-05 to 53.7% McCain, which is a tad tight, but it should hold and be just beyond dummymander territory. AZ-02 is 53.5% McCain, so it moves about 3 points in the Pub direction, and the former Hispanic CD, AZ-03 is now 52.9% McCain. The current incumbent will not be able to win there, and it would be in play, but should have a Pub tilt. One really cannot do much better I think, without a ridiculously looking map ala sbane’s most creative efforts at Dem gerrymandering in CA. The problem is that it is next to impossible to do a quad-chop of Pima County, which is needed for a safer 8-1 map (absent krazen’s probably illegal effort to create an erose Hispanic CD, that packs all the Dems in), given the huge precincts in area over the empty desert, and the Indian Reservation blockage issue. One does not want to mess with Native Americans in AZ. That is a bridge too far, as both parties acknowledge.

Anyway, the AZ Pubs can send this sort of map to the CA Dems as a bargaining chip perhaps, if SCOTUS axes the AZ commission’s map. It would be far preferable to just use the higher scoring map per Muon2’s metrics instead however, which I think would be hard to characterize as any sort of gerrymander at all, much less a slash and burn one. Thus if the CA Dems go there, it would hardly be a symmetrical retaliation.

[Torie]

I don't agree with a rule that you cannot connect counties connected by land mass with no state highway connection I don't think. Yes, if you sever them, it helps with the erosity score, since nothing is severed, but I think that is about it. It can be fixed by doing another county chop, but why? At worst, you could count it as another chop, but to me, it just seems wrong. Keeping counties together is a good thing, not something to be thwarted by some hard and fast rule, that just says no.

[Torie]

Well, “hideous” is too strong a word for Train’s modest Dem gerrymander. My objections to his map (he requested elaboration, and I apologize in being tardy in providing it) are mostly aesthetic.  I note them on his map below

That little hook between 6 and 9 is unfortunate; I'd like to fix it.  I don't think there's anything wrong with my District 1, though: it's more of an east-west line (modulo drawing around reservations and such) and Cochise doesn't really fit any better with Tucson IMO.  I'd argue it's nicer-looking and better-connected than your District 2, as well.

Your way of dealing with reservations is of course correct, I think we can be unanimous on that point.

And, yes, everything depends on whether Grijalva's district is protected/encouraged/mandated or not. I suspect that we are better off keeping it.

Is keeping it a state choice, like in Bartlett where NC would be permitted to draw a non-mandated district? Do you think there's some mandate given the 24% Latino CVAP in AZ? It would be hard to make the case that Yuma and Tucson are close enough for Gingles. If the state eliminated it I assume there would be a suit to preserve it, but could the suit prevail?

Not in a trillion years is my opinion. Plus to get to 50% CHVAP, the CD needs to snake into Phoenix as well.

[Torie]

I don't agree with a rule that you cannot connect counties connected by land mass with no state highway connection I don't think. Yes, if you sever them, it helps with the erosity score, since nothing is severed, but I think that is about it. It can be fixed by doing another county chop, but why? At worst, you could count it as another chop, but to me, it just seems wrong. Keeping counties together is a good thing, not something to be thwarted by some hard and fast rule, that just says no.

You were a proponent of that rule when it came to mountains. It made sense in CA and WA. We use that rule to avoid connecting counties in the Midwest that adjoin by only a small segment with no highway, and that seemed fine in MI, your maps included. It also prevents leaping bodies of water with no bridge or ferry within a state to connect counties. In VA it allows one to determine where one can cross the James and Chesapeake, and distance across the water doesn't always help given the long bridge that links the Delmarva.

You can't ditch the rule just because it forces a UCC penalty in AZ to avoid an erose mess. It's just another example of local geography constraining the map.

edit: One of the tools in the gerrymanderers kit is to connect areas with no road connections. Some states even have language requiring that it be convenient to travel between areas in a district to block that type of district. One map expert I spoke to thought it would be one of the most useful anti-gerrymandering rules one could have. That's why I use it here.

The highway connection thing back then was in the context of the now defunct COI regime. I think it is a bad idea to have an outright ban, where there is a land mass connection, and don't think that will be accepted by states. One gets a lower erosity score without a highway connection, if the two appended counties are put into separate CD's. That is enough for me. There are some counties in Michigan that don't have highway connections just be coincidence.  I mentioned one of them with discussing Jimtex's map. He got one less erosity point than would ordinarily be the case.  AZ is an odd case, because vast swaths of desert have very few roads. Yet having a CD running along the Mexican border makes lot of sense. Forcing a chop into Maricopa to secure a road connection, assuming that does not count as a traveling chop, just makes no sense to me, and would inconvenience the election authorities, having to print special ballots. It forces a more crappy map, to accommodate a rule that is Draconian.  I don't think that is good public policy.

[Torie]

No, Muon2, I don't find your map crappy, it's just inferior to mine.  It chops up Pinal County, and is somewhat more erose. All due to a rule that I don't think serves much purpose, other than to affect the erosity score. Does the map below, generating a micro chop, "fix" the problem since there is now a highway link, or is that a traveling chop? At most, one could perhaps levy a chop penalty, so one is indifferent between a gratuitous chop to get a highway link, versus not doing so. But I really don't favor even that, because chops cause administrative inconvenience with election authorities, and that matters. One should be sensitive to that. Your hard and fast rule with never sell in the public square in my opinion. It will be hard enough to sell your excellent ideas about highway links in general, without this one poison pill, with the ancillary collateral damage that folks  stop listening to the good arguments for using your proxy for erosity. JMO. I know your stubborn and prideful (probably an exercise in projection by me), but perhaps you might seriously consider throwing this minor little bone being tossed my way. It not like I am a wolf chasing that sleigh in War and Peace, where it required huge chunks of red meat being tossed out to deflect the wolves from chasing their live human prey. In contrast, all I ask for is one minor little dissected bone. Give it to me!  

[Torie]

In other news, with the Pubs winning the trifecta in Nevada of all places in 2014, there was chatter of new CD lines being drawn, but apparently the Pubs were wise enough to see the writing on the wall, and suggest - well, you guessed it - a commission to draw the lines, and then only in 2022. The latest iteration given perhaps the SCOTUS chat, was making the commission but advisory, because the legislature could vote the plan down (but maybe absent one party holding the trifecta, it would become law absent a bi-partisan deal for something else).  

Anyway, if the lines were drawn per Muon2's little rules, I suspect the below would be the top scoring plan (at least from the chop standpoint), if one slavishly follows Muon2's tyrannical edict that there must be highway connections between land masses (which has the most unfortunate consequences for the Pubs here given the North Las Vegas blockage). Thus, it's a plan that the Pubs most definitely would not like, and not be drawing themselves. Sometimes the rules work well for the Pubs, as in AZ for example, and sometimes they suck, and for them the other side of the River Styx is a river named the Colorado.

[Torie]

You  have a double chop of Paradise. One precinct from your NV-4 is entirely within Paradise, and two or three more have most of their population in Paradise. I could have done a double chop of Paradise too, but decided it better to do the second chop in another jurisdiction (not sure of the name of the place directly east of Las Vegas).

[Torie]

If a whole county is disconnected internally, pay it no mind if not chopped. That is over-thinking matters. But chopping that county between its two disconnected parts, perhaps should not count as a chop. i fear that is getting too complicated however.