2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[lfromnj]

So democrats did pass something that requires the court to hire 2 mapmakers in the end. One selected by each party. Imo its not exactly constitutional here as amendment 1 laid out clear steps but I think the court will voluntarily follow what was asked.

[lfromnj]

https://www.virginiaredistricting.org/legdistricting/comments/plan/323/1
A citizen map but the name of the submitter is Tom Davis.
Is it former congressman Davis?
It is the 5 1 5 map by the way with va02 being r as possible while still reasonable. Only northam +1

[lfromnj]

https://www.virginiaredistricting.org/legdistricting/comments/plan/323/1
A citizen map but the name of the submitter is Tom Davis.
Is it former congressman Davis?
It is the 5 1 5 map by the way with va02 being r as possible while still fair. Only northam +1

Yep, the former Chairman of the NRCC

Yeah but is it that tom davis or just a random citizen?

[lfromnj]

Here's the Tom Davis map.

[lfromnj]

Here's the Tom Davis map.

Pretty sure that’s his gerrymander, yes

Yeah but is it actually Tom Davis the congressman or just some other dude named Tom Davis?

[lfromnj]

Here's the Tom Davis map.

Pretty sure that’s his gerrymander, yes

Yeah but is it actually Tom Davis the congressman or just some other dude named Tom Davis?

Who is on first

https://www.virginiaredistricting.org/legdistricting/virginia/comment_links

Here we go. There's an attachment and it is the former congressman.

Dear Commissioners,
I served as a Republican Member of Congress from 1995 until 2008, representing the 11th
congressional district in Northern Virginia. I also served as Ranking Member, and Chairman, of
the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Chairman of the National
Republican Congressional Committee. I have served as Director of Federal Affairs for Deloitte
Consulting. I served as the rector and am current a distinguished professor at George Mason
University.
Since leaving Congress I have devoted my time to research, academic and non-profit work in
pursuit of efforts to build bi-partisan coalitions and re-build a Congress that can govern more
effectively from the middle. I co-authored the book “The Partisan Divide” with Congressman
Martin Frost. We advocated having independently drawn districts because the current partisan
system has become misaligned with what is in the best interest of voters. My expertise and
interest in the matter is especially valuable in creating and evaluating Virginia’s coming
Congressional maps. I am also a co-founder of No Labels, a national group advocating
bipartisan solutions to today’s public policy problems.
I have developed a sophisticated knowledge around redistricting and the law and believe fair
redistricting is a substantial part of how we end the polarization of American politics. I firmly
believe that one of the key components to reasonable line drawing is keeping political
subdivisions whole and keeping regions of the Commonwealth together as much as possible.
These are the real communities of interest that most voters recognize as fair and reasonable.
Based on my experience and perspective, I submit a map of my own to this Redistricting
Commission and urge the Commission to consider some key points about this map.
From a mathematical perspective, this map is more compact than the current congressional
district lines, scoring .3922 on the Reock measure and .3212 on the Polsby-Popper measure,
compared with .3166 on the Reock measure and .1874 on the Polsby Popper measure in the
existing Congressional map (in both of these measures, larger numbers are more compact).
It also splits fewer political subdivisions than the current map, with only 10 counties split a total
of 11 times, compared with 14 counties split 16 times in in the current map. This is about the
minimum number of splits of local government units that are possible given the Supreme Court’s
rules about population equality and our Commonwealth’s population distribution (i.e. that
Fairfax County must contain more than a single district because its population exceeds that of a
single Congressional district).
From a political competitiveness perspective, this map would produce five seats won by the
Democratic Party if recent election results were applied, and five seats won by the Republican
Party if recent election results were applied. One district would be very competitive. I believe
this map accurately divides the state into its established political regions. The competitive
district is located in the Tidewater / Eastern Shore region – an area of the Commonwealth that is
historically politically competitive.
With respect to the partisan analysis of any map, one thing I learned in my time in public service
and in writing my book is that voting patterns shift and change over time. No one should be
under the assumption that any area of the Commonwealth where a majority of voters currently
favor one party over the other will continue to favor that party by a majority years from now.
I hope that this map receives due consideration as you carry out your duties.
Sincerely,
 
Tom Davis

[lfromnj]

Here's the Tom Davis map.

Pretty sure that’s his gerrymander, yes

Yeah but is it actually Tom Davis the congressman or just some other dude named Tom Davis?

Who is on first

https://www.virginiaredistricting.org/legdistricting/virginia/comment_links

Here we go. There's an attachment and it is the former congressman.

With that confirmed, looks like he drew CD7 to potentially facilitate his own comeback. Now incumbents and the most GOP parts of every NOVA county.

He seems too old at 73.

[lfromnj]

This map also more or less axes Spanberger's seat and replaces it with a new northern VA seat, I really don't see what she'd do in this situation, maybe she'd challenge Bob Good?

I mean really this map will just be used at a starting for Republican negotiations so no it won't be enacted. It may not even be used . However she absolutely retires here. The more interesting question is Luria. That seat is winnable as its around Biden +1.5 but 2022 doesn't look great and she is facing an A tier recruit.

[lfromnj]

https://www.virginiaredistricting.org/legdistricting/virginia/comment_links

Preliminary CD's up. A lot of it least change due to being touchy about the VRA. The current absurd VA02 would be in a lot of maps.(Note my opinion against it has to only with COI as I think partisan wise its about where it should be)

https://www.virginiaredistricting.org/legdistricting/virginia/comment_links

Senator McDougle copied Tom Davis though for his proposal so I was correct in assuming that if it was the real Tom Davis then it would garner some attention and it would likely be the starting point for GOP negotiation.  Quite a smart move in what he did because he didn't draw any others. Mamie Locke is fairly smart though so I wouldn't worry too much if you were a Democrat.

[lfromnj]

The "7 competitive districts" plan, lol

https://www.virginiaredistricting.org/legdistricting/comments/plan/328/1

Based NC border to Roanoke to Cville to suburban Henrico district

This won’t be passing. As I’ve said numerous times, I believe a minimal change map is most likely.

Thats why its a meme proposal.  Most citizen proposals don't matter. The only one I brought up is because it was a very major Republican

[lfromnj]

By the way is Williamsburg an error. Data says it went from 18% to 38% black . What happened there?

[lfromnj]

Also for god's sake why the hell does VA02 need to snake up all the cities to Williamsburg or whatever the GOP wants.

Why can't it just be a VA beach + Chesapeake based district?

This isn't even really about partisanship as both parties can get their partisan desires from this district. I guess extreme incumbent protection for Luria but its pretty absurd.

[lfromnj]

Chill down, the dem legislators aren't this dumb lol. Mamie Locke knows redistricting.

The VA supreme court isn't even that hackish.  Democrats did screw up on starting negotiations but they are not accepting this map if you actually seen quotes from the hearing.

There is a screw up though in that if the rest of the commission deadlocks the VA GOP could just submit this plan as final and say we originally agreed on this. However the trick for the VA GOP should be to ask Tom Davis to be their special master. Its clear he knows redistricting well and is still very much a party hack on this matter. He's also probably the type of person to be friendly with the VA supreme court if I had to guess.

[lfromnj]

This map really isn't that bad tbh. It has a few dumb choices, like putting good bit of the Piedmont in with the mountains, splitting the Richmond suburbs, and Williamsburg--but overall it seems pretty reasonable!
Democrats are naturally packed to some extent in NOVA.

That is true, but it does look like they went out of their way to sink Charlottesville and make sure VA-02 was a Trump district.  One of VA-07 or VA-02 ending up a Trump district is reasonable, but the other one should end up Biden+5 or more.    

Va02 is nearly impossible to make a trump district. Its actually a bit bluer on the c1 proposal than the current one. The best you can get is Biden +1.5.(See Tom Davis) That version is like Biden +5

[lfromnj]

This map really isn't that bad tbh. It has a few dumb choices, like putting good bit of the Piedmont in with the mountains, splitting the Richmond suburbs, and Williamsburg--but overall it seems pretty reasonable!
Democrats are naturally packed to some extent in NOVA.

That is true, but it does look like they went out of their way to sink Charlottesville and make sure VA-02 was a Trump district.  One of VA-07 or VA-02 ending up a Trump district is reasonable, but the other one should end up Biden+5 or more.    

Va02 is nearly impossible to make a trump district. Its actually a bit bluer on the c1 proposal than the current one. The best you can get is Biden +1.5.(See Tom Davis) That version is like Biden +5

Whoops, must have mixed up 2016 and 2020 data.

If the proposed VA-02 is really Biden+5, I'm inclined to say this map is fair overall.  Charlottesville with SWVA is still a gerrymander, though.  

Well its more the splitting of the Shenandoah.  The Shenandoah north of Roanoke is about 580k so adding Albemarle and Charlottesville to that is a reasonable option.

[lfromnj]

This is my third cycle paying attention and I wasn’t prepared for how comprehensive and disastrous a sh**tshow redistricting was going to be in every state.

Yea this cycle (my first) has really made me realize how ineffective, untransparent, and easily manipulated "independent commisions" really are.

Sadly I don't know an alternative. I have thought of a (very large) comission selected by the supreme court but that seems a bit unrealistic and equallly problematic

Yeah. I think Michigan is doing ok, and Iowa could be ok, and Colorado isn’t as bad as a gerrymander would be. I think there are elements that can be successful but only if assembled properly and there are safeguards against one party gaming the system (VA, IA). But some of these commissions are just dead on arrival - OH, NJ, VA failed immediately.

How is this ok?
Not even talking about Detroit but Ann Arbor here.

 Democrats with a trifecta would have been less able to gerrymander the state house under the old rules.

[lfromnj]

Colorado was bad because groups like LULAC/Hispanic Chamber of Commerce/CLLARO demanded absurd "VRA seats" when they could have just pushed for the logical Aurora to Adams seat. The commission gave over deference to these groups but the R commissioners didn't actually let the gerrymander's pass. I don't think anyone was in the mood for splitting Denver or El Paso either.

[lfromnj]

So the commission is using incumbents addresses when drawing the districts and David Suetterlein in SD-19 is listed as being from Salem, while John S Edwards in SD-21 is listed as being from Roanoke.   Does this mean the D-mander SD-21 will live on?  I was thinking they could add all of Montgomery County to SD-21 to make it a bit cleaner.

Also is there any way to draw Joe Morrissey out of a district or are they stuck with him?

Very hard to draw Joe Morrissey out. He has a VRA seat and he wins the black vote quite well.  The best hope is gentrification to hit the seat hard enough.

[lfromnj]

Williamsburg seems to be the Greeley of Virginia.(retarded idea on COI grounds that stretches a district but probably doesn't affect overall partisanship that much)

Do note that to go from VA beach to Williamsburg you have to cross Poquoson which is almost as red as Williamsburg is blue.

[lfromnj]

Bump. To all the Dems that lambasted the commission, you still want the VA legislature and governor to draw the boundaries?

Dems still have the senate and they could drawn it before.

[lfromnj]

Bump. To all the Dems that lambasted the commission, you still want the VA legislature and governor to draw the boundaries?

Dems still have the senate and they could drawn it before.

I don't know if mid-decade redistricting was allowed in VA, but drawing a gerrymander just before getting destroyed would have given the new party in power the political capital to do that.

Plus, if we plug in tonight's results into the 8-3 maps everyone was drawing, would they still be 8-3 or would they end up like 5-6 or 4-7?

In 2011 the legislative maps were passed before the 2011 elections.

[lfromnj]

Was the last map drawn by a GOP trifecta?

No, the Democrats controlled the State Senate at the time. But in any event recall that the Democrats had held VA-09 right up until the 2010 elections (the Republicans failed to even field a candidate there in 2008!), so "gerrymandering" in 2011 would not feel like gerrymandering these days anyway.

It actually was drawn by a GOP trifecta in 2012 after they flipped the state senate in 2011.

[lfromnj]

A major question is what to do with the 2 black majority seats. Its clear they were intended as black opportunity seats and both failed at that. However the GOP currently really needs those seats for the majority.

[lfromnj]

For the consultants sent to to the VA Supreme Court to draw the districts -

Democrats sent academics from Universities (all three are professors) who have worked on civil cases regarding redistricting before.

Republicans sent two partisans from the national party that helped draw partisans gerrymanders in other states, and a former Census Bureau advisor who's now part of a right wing think tank.

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/1457779329279037444

lol VA Republicans.

One of the dem special masters is the PA redraw prof and another drew the unpacked black districts in VA. Surprised the black caucus agreed to the latter after he unpacked the districts a bit too much.

[lfromnj]

Don't get too excited folks, I still expect 5-5-1

The picks insulted the court. No self-respecting lawyer who reached a State Supreme court is going to do anything but empathize with an Ivy league professor forced by law to work with some random kid plucked from a 25k a year job with the Wisconsin GOP daddy got them. By picking these folks when the Ds picked who they did, the GOP insulted the dignity of the professional qualifications of the D picks, which also by implication insulted the professional dignity of the judges.

This was the least bad option for the GOP. Worse one was the COurt decided they could do nothing, then when the two special masters failed to work together, the court just took the map the D Professor produced because by that point they detested the GOP kid so much they wanted to see their reaction.

This seems dumb, Bryan was clearly well qualified to work on redistricting and literally heads a  redistricting  data firm . He worked with other professors on redistricting  papers and the like. He just was far too partisan and or too directly connected to the VIRGINIA GOP.