US House Redistricting: Washington

[bgwah]

Here are the numbers for the most minority 15th possible (which would require an iffy 16th LD stretched out along the state's southern border), keeping the 15th entirely in Yakima County:

64% Hispanic, 27% White, 6% Native American
54% Rossi, 46% Murray

[bgwah]

Sounds very optimistic. I guess we'll see...

They've already pushed their next meeting back to 9. I won't be surprised if they postpone in several more times until just before midnight.

[bgwah]

Both maps have been approved unanimously.

Re: 15th LD, looks like the Hispanic part of Yakima City has been included, but not White Swan, Wapato, etc. They would have been difficult to include, though, as you would have to have a Clark-to-Columbia district or something like that as a result.

[bgwah]

Wow. I am so relieved that Slade Gorton's plan to re-number the districts failed.

[bgwah]

Here's a fun article:
http://olywa.blogspot.com/2011/12/foster-vs-gorton-reliving-60s-with.html

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Slade Gorton: Fooling Democrats for half a century.

[bgwah]

Does anyone have .drf files for the new legislative districts? Or a voting breakdown for them?

I've checked a few swing districts. The the biggest change I've found is the 42nd, which went from 51.4% Rossi to 53.2% Rossi. The 6th, 35th, and 45th districts are about the same.

Checking some of the incumbentmander Puget Sound districts is a real headache, though.

[bgwah]

I thought it would be amusing to review of our early thoughts on a 10 district division. This thread is from early 2008.

So other than putting Kitsap rather than Thurston with the Pacific Coast they basically got it right.  I still think that it makes more sense to go from Bremerton across Puget Sound than crossing Hood Canal.  This would also have given Olympia its own congressional district.

Yeah, I would prefer Bremerton/Kitsap with Tacoma and did so in some of my original proposals. But that would have changed the incumbent's district too much, I guess.

[bgwah]

Because I can't sleep and I'm bored, I've decided to redistrict King County's council districts. Having only 9 districts for close to two million people annoys me, so I did 19 seats (101,645 people per district).

There isn't a single unnecessary city split. The only two cities that are split (Seattle and Bellevue) have more than 101,645 people and have to be split no matter what.



Turned out surprisingly well.