2020 New York Redistricting

[Brittain33]

Looks like they left virtually no Democrats on the table upstate. Well done.

[Brittain33]

[snip tweet]

what the actual fyck is that second Republican district. We've had hundreds of drafts posted by people in this thread that give Dems one more seat than this and are cleaner!

I think this is what happens when you make the Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse seats as safe as can be for Dems. You have two lobes of Republican territory that have to be connected.

[Brittain33]

They brought back Ben Gilman's Rockland-Catskills district which was dissolved in 2002.

[Brittain33]

Oh, NY-11 has park slope census tracks.

Park Slope is going to LOVE Nicole M.

[Brittain33]

I guess it depends on what backfiring means. If it means they lose 1 of the seats, then... they're no worse than if they drew 3-1.

There's some red-laser-eyes-needing-to-be-the-winner-in-all-scenarios cope going on with that one.

[Brittain33]

The NYS Dems seem to hate Orthodox Jews. They get screwed in every cycle.

Given Simcha Felder's behavior, you can see why the relationship may have some tension. Orthodox Jewish leaders have been, at best, highly transactional with NYS Dems.

[Brittain33]

The nonsense of looping a tendril NY-10 around NY-11 reminds me exactly of the vicious gerrymander TX Republicans did in northwestern Dallas County to ensure that VanDuyne's district was solid R and all the Hispanic communities in the area were satisfactorily drowned in Republican districts. It looks almost as bad - the Texas gerrymander pulls in more districts so looks worse.

[Brittain33]

Sure, but screwing an ethnic group like that because they tend to oppose you, looks really bad, at least to me.

It seems like many things in New York's redistricting look really bad to you, above and beyond events in the other 49 states, tbh.

[Brittain33]

Sure, but screwing an ethnic group like that because they tend to oppose you, looks really bad, at least to me.

It seems like many things in New York's redistricting look really bad to you, above and beyond events in the other 49 states, tbh.

TX was bad, Illinois was bad, but in those states there is nothing but the VRA to constrain the gerrymanderers. What makes NYS uniquely terrible is that by referendum a provision was added to the NYS Constitution, and the Dems are putting it on ignore, apparently confident that the high court is that hackish. That is one way to make governance the rule of "men" rather than law. In any event, that is the source of my dyspepsia. In Ohio and Florida the Pubs made a reasonable  effort to follow the law (which has similar provisions), coming up a bit short in Ohio, and looked bad with Hamilton County, but NYS is in a class by itself.

It's totally fair to say that there are general outlines and NY is breaking them - I get that - it's the outrage about NYS Dems breaking up an Orthodox Jewish community because it votes against them as if it were unusually bad, when it's exactly what happens in every other state, usually to African-Americans at the hands of Republicans, and everyone acknowledges it's BAU and good politics. And also, there's at least some deniability about violating mushy guidelines about unduly favoring etc. vs. outright ignoring actual directives as in Ohio. Both are bad but the latter isn't even plausibly deniable.

[Brittain33]

Will SI secede if a Afro Latina DSA wins? You think they will put up with that?

It’s a congressional seat so they’d have to secede from the U.S.!

[Brittain33]

Will SI secede if a Afro Latina DSA wins? You think they will put up with that?

It’s a congressional seat so they’d have to secede from the U.S.!

A more "modest proposal" is that it could "secede" from NY and become part of NJ, to which it is closer to anyway. I know all the uber nerds on the forum already know this, but Todt Hill on SI is the highest point on the coastal plain that runs from Florida to Montawk, aka the tidewater and back when the slave belt (with supposedly Long Island having the highest percentage of slaves anywhere circa 1700 or some such date). And decorating the top of that hill, is a set of perhaps the gaudiest gates in America.

Of course, all the parts of New Jersey nearest to Staten Island are Democratic voting as well-- that's not really a solution either, not to imply that this is a problem that should be solved.

Perth Amboy and South Amboy have 60,000 people + 475,000 in Staten Island. You can then head down the GSP and pick up mildly Trumpy towns in Monmouth County.

[Brittain33]

My father says the bridge itself was ruined when they raised the roadway, but that’s if you’re looking at it rather than from it.

[Brittain33]

By the way are the 2 r "sinks" in western NY that crazy ?
It mostly just seems like Morelle wanted absolute certainty so he took in Ontario and dropped conservative conservative  Rochester suburbs. If you reverse that one district just seems to be the southern tier and the other just seems to be various lakefront towns while keeping the Buffalo and Rochester metroes whole.

Yes, that lakeshore district is a leftovers district, not a gerrymander.
It’s obvious to have a Buffalo, a Rochester, and a Syracuse + Ithaca district. Once you do that, you are going to have bits that don’t have enough people to make a full district. 

[Brittain33]

The class of 1992 will always have the worst gerrymanders because that’s when they pushed the envelope on fractals and spindly collections of precincts with no concern for smoothness or compactness before getting smacked down by the SCOTUS. Texas, Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, and less so Georgia.

[Brittain33]

Why did they keep that stupid snaking Assembly seat in the Catskills? It’s so terrible!

[Brittain33]

This analysis was too amazing not to share.

https://twitter.com/rrhelections/status/1488946970223906816?s=21

[Brittain33]

Cinyc, what do you think of RRH’s suggestion that Curtis Sliwa could be a strong candidate to defeat Grace Meng in NY-6 based on his performance against Eric Adams in the mayor’s race?

[Brittain33]

On this one, I think the Dems may win the battle but lose the war, because this will be a textbook example of a party gaming the system, and going lawless, and giving the finger to the voters, and that story will be told by the Pubs for a very long time.

I am skeptical of any party paying a price for bad behavior, but I agree that Dems will win the battle and lose the war over redistricting, because I don't think Congressional Democrats will ever pass an effective anti-gerrymandering law now that the IL and NY delegations will be dependent on gerrymanders. I fear this Congress was the window for change to happen and it's slammed shut for decades.

Once Texas flips, Republicans may change their view on gerrymandering, but I don't think it will change what their justices on the SC think and our government isn't set up for Republicans to partner with good government Dems to make a majority.

[Brittain33]

Personally I'd be pretty okay if we're in the "all the gerrymanders are killed" timeline.

Funny though how the GOP gerrymanders are getting away with it and the Dem ones are getting killed.

That's not really true; North Carolina's was killed, Ohio's is probably still going to be killed, Oregon lived, New Mexico is probably going to live.

Texas has entered the chat

[Brittain33]

Personally I'd be pretty okay if we're in the "all the gerrymanders are killed" timeline.

Funny though how the GOP gerrymanders are getting away with it and the Dem ones are getting killed.

That's not really true; North Carolina's was killed, Ohio's is probably still going to be killed, Oregon lived, New Mexico is probably going to live.

Texas has entered the chat

Illinois and California have entered the chat

LOL no

Any court case overturning California’s map would wipe out at least six Republican seats (invalidating commissions.)

[Brittain33]

Um what… many types of Orthodox Jews do NOT consider secular or more liberal Jews to be Jewish. At best, we’re considered people who could return to the Jewish community from our present goyish lives without converting. The person who believed I could eat a ham sandwich and still be Jewish was Hitler, not the Hasidim.

Anyway, the whole idea of an Orthodox seat is Republican fantasy, VRA isn’t involved.

[Brittain33]

Splitting a community in a way that both halves still get representation—the candidate of their choice wins and is elected—is not the same as splitting a community to make each half weak enough they can be outvoted by the other party in both districts (DeSantis).

I think some people genuinely forget that the VRA was written to help African-Americans get representation and not in order to provide Republicans a tool to minimize the number of representatives African-American voters can help elect. The latter was an unintended effect, not the sole and best use of the law.

[Brittain33]

Splitting a community in a way that both halves still get representation—the candidate of their choice wins and is elected—is not the same as splitting a community to make each half weak enough they can be outvoted by the other party in both districts (DeSantis).

I think some people genuinely forget that the VRA was written to help African-Americans get representation and not in order to provide Republicans a tool to minimize the number of representatives African-American voters can help elect. The latter was an unintended effect, not the sole and best use of the law.

And what about the candidate of the suburbs?

I think some people genuinely forget that the VRA was written to help African-Americans get representation

[Brittain33]

I'll look forward to hearing from right wing posters how unethical and immoral it is for New York Democrats to gerrymander the state while they cheer and boost about North Carolina Republicans doing the same thing.

The respective state constitutions have different provisions.

That’s a distinction without a difference. There’s no justification for Republicans who celebrate a newly Republican NC Supreme Court throwing out a good map for a gerrymander then feeling aggrieved for a newly Democratic NY Supreme Court doing the same thing, even if the legal rationales don’t 100% align.

Democrats oppose gerrymandering as a federal policy, and tolerate Dem gerrymanders when necessary to avoid getting wiped out. Republicans support gerrymandering for Republican states and oppose it for Democratic states.

[Brittain33]

I would also like to hear left-wing posters ostensibly opposed to gerrymandering to denounce the evils of NYDP as well.

I oppose gerrymandering, but until we can pass a federal ban, Democrats have to compete according to the rules we have or surrender to minority rule. It’s not hard.