2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[Dan the Roman]

Back to two State Senate maps, seems like the "compromise" map is dead.

The new D plan is exactly the same as the compromise except that it retains the Roanoke to Blacksburg gerrymander for incumbent John Edwards.

https://www.vpap.org/redistricting/plan/2021-senate-commission-statewide-b4/

The new R plan is a pretty serious gerrymander. It packs all the most Democratic areas of Prince William County in one seat to create a more competitive outer district that voted for Hillary by 1. There's a Richmond to Petersburg pack to make the Southside district less competitive. The Eastern Shore to Virginia Beach seat goes from Trump +1 to Trump +7

https://www.vpap.org/redistricting/plan/2021-senate-commission-statewide-a4/

I suspect Democrats were too pessimistic re the VA Supreme Court. It is GOP majority but it is very old-line

3 members were initially D appointees
Majority of Rs were elected unanimously.

They will not do Ds any favors but they are not the WI Supreme Court. They will apply the rules, probably on coin flips err in favor of GOP, but the compromise was probably already about as far as they would go. Ie. I don't see the VA SC producing more than 20 Trump 2016 districts.

[Dan the Roman]

Have enjoyed random coverage of the commission hearings:






Doomed to fail

November results = whether Ds hold HOD. If they do they will get two VASC seats to fill in 2023, which probably will effect GOP calculations.

Those appointments have not been ultra partisan, but I suspect if these do go to the VASC after this experience, Ds in the legislature will be bitter enough to make redistricting even middecade a litmus test for judicial elections in 2023 and 2027.

[Dan the Roman]

Have enjoyed random coverage of the commission hearings:






Doomed to fail

November results = whether Ds hold HOD. If they do they will get two VASC seats to fill in 2023, which probably will effect GOP calculations.

Those appointments have not been ultra partisan, but I suspect if these do go to the VASC after this experience, Ds in the legislature will be bitter enough to make redistricting even middecade a litmus test for judicial elections in 2023 and 2027.

Going to be really tough for VA Dems to hold the HoD if the governor's race is too close to call, though.

Well there are still the 2022 elections, which will likely be held on a slightly better map for Dems.

On the contrary, court-ordered 2022 HoD elections on a map drawn by the conservative-leaning VASC with no statewide elections on the ballot and Biden's approval in the 40's would be a disaster for Democrats.

*Unless things have gotten to the point where McAuliffe is dragging everyone else down?

VASC I think will not want to commit suicide. This is not WI where every election involves personal vitriol. If you strike to kill you need to succeed. With trends being what they are in VA, I don't think there is a majority on the VA SC to strike to kill, or at least to do so hard enough to be successful. Note the GOP proposed maps for the Senate and HOD still had 20/51 Clinton seats.

And if you strike to kill and fail you basically ensure the Democrats will destroy the VASC which they can.

Given trends I think the VASC will do what the Constitutional Amendment intended. They will save the VA GOP from oblivion, and maybe give them a chance at legislative majorities in a very good year if everything goes right. And probably 4-5 House seats v. 2-3 on a D drawn map.

Democrats will grumble, when the vacancies come up in 2027 they will fill them with anti-gerrymandering good government types who care about things like the effiency gap and they will get better maps in 2031.

Ironically, Democrats in VA will be helped by the narrow majorities the VASC will give them, as it will prevent them from going hard left, and that will prevent them from self-destructing during the transition period of the 2020s.

[Dan the Roman]

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.

[Dan the Roman]

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

It's probably just one congessional seat at stake here realistically.

The bigger question is whether the new state legislative maps give Youngkin a trifecta in 2023.  In theory, it should get harder, because adjusting for equal population forces an additional senate seat and at least 2 HoD seats into NOVA.

Maybe, barely, but only in a year better for the GOP slightly than 2021. So I suspect it depends less on the maps and more do Democrats still run the sort of turnout operation they did in 2021, as I suspect in that case they probably would hold ties or narrow majorities under the most likely new maps.

Median seats will very likely be Clinton 2016 by 3 or so.

[Dan the Roman]

Are the VA GOP trying to goad the VASC to appoint Trende as the R master consultant by nominating two people that are completely unqualified for the role?  I noticed they did this strategy last time by nominating two partisans directly from the national party and then a third guy that was like, kinda sorta okay-ish.   

Basically pick two god awful nominees and then a C-rate nominee so the VASC has no real choice but to pick the C-rate (but still partisan) nominee?

This is basically what they did the first time and the court said gtfo. Trende is on the surface more acceptable then their goaded pick from previously, but trying the same strategy twice might result in the same result twice only now they could be locked out through contempt.

Trende would be a pretty fair pick, he's been R aligned but not pro-Trump. I could see a Biden +10 VA-2 as it would be the 6th Dem seat in a Biden +10 state and VA-7 becoming a Biden +2-5 type seat.

Trende's track record of actively defending Republican gerrymanders in Court absolutely disqualifies him as an acceptable special master.

TBF Trende didn't defend them. He attacked the effiency gap which tbh he is 100% right on

1. It is ill-defined
2. Unworkable
3. Provides no easy cutoff point for what is and is not constitutional(ie. he concedes you could draw some sort of arbitrary line as with 10% population deviations but in that case states would game the system and every map would end up in court while confused judges listened to competing partisan statisticians producing gibberish) 

The embrace of the efficiency gap was a massive blunder by anti-gerrymandering advocates who should have focused instead on a separation of powers argument (ie. legislature can be checked by referendums but what if referendums require legislative approval? Governors elected by majority vote, but what if they have no veto? Basically argue that North Carolina is unconstitutional not because it is gerrymandered but because there is no recourse due to lack of gubernatorial veto, initiative process, etc . Would have appealed to the Court's preference for never mandating a single remedy)  It was the height of elitism to create a constitutional argument only those with calculus could understand and most of those who actually understood math thought was unworkable.

[Dan the Roman]

Are the VA GOP trying to goad the VASC to appoint Trende as the R master consultant by nominating two people that are completely unqualified for the role?  I noticed they did this strategy last time by nominating two partisans directly from the national party and then a third guy that was like, kinda sorta okay-ish.  

Basically pick two god awful nominees and then a C-rate nominee so the VASC has no real choice but to pick the C-rate (but still partisan) nominee?

This is basically what they did the first time and the court said gtfo. Trende is on the surface more acceptable then their goaded pick from previously, but trying the same strategy twice might result in the same result twice only now they could be locked out through contempt.

Trende would be a pretty fair pick, he's been R aligned but not pro-Trump. I could see a Biden +10 VA-2 as it would be the 6th Dem seat in a Biden +10 state and VA-7 becoming a Biden +2-5 type seat.

Trende's track record of actively defending Republican gerrymanders in Court absolutely disqualifies him as an acceptable special master.

TBF Trende didn't defend them. He attacked the effiency gap which tbh he is 100% right on

1. It is ill-defined
2. Unworkable
3. Provides no easy cutoff point for what is and is not constitutional(ie. he concedes you could draw some sort of arbitrary line as with 10% population deviations but in that case states would game the system and every map would end up in court while confused judges listened to competing partisan statisticians producing gibberish)  

The embrace of the efficiency gap was a massive blunder by anti-gerrymandering advocates who should have focused instead on a separation of powers argument (ie. legislature can be checked by referendums but what if referendums require legislative approval? Governors elected by majority vote, but what if they have no veto? Basically argue that North Carolina is unconstitutional not because it is gerrymandered but because there is no recourse due to lack of gubernatorial veto, initiative process, etc . Would have appealed to the Court's preference for never mandating a single remedy)  It was the height of elitism to create a constitutional argument only those with calculus could understand and most of those who actually understood math thought was unworkable.

The efficiency gap was a transparent attempt to force Dem-optimized cracking of cities while maintaining all VRA seats.  It was way too much of a flex for the current court.  Dems probably assumed they would get to replace Scalia or Kennedy by the time it got to SCOTUS.  The 1st Amendment viewpoint discrimination argument from the Maryland R's was noticeably stronger.  You can see it was tempting for Kavanaugh.  

I agree the best approach was to argue that NC, et al. were not giving their residents a "republican form of government" because all power is effectively concentrated in the legislature.  The problem is that would have obviously implicated Maryland Dems (where the legislative maps cannot be vetoed, there is no initiative process, the legislature can block state court appointments, and they have drawn a consistent Dem supermajority for 100 years) and would threaten the Massachusetts and Illinois maps as well.    

Overall, the simple majority veto override/no initiative states do skew R so this still wouldn't have been a bad Dem strategy.  It doesn't fix the Midwestern R maps, though, which was the big focus in the 2010's.  

  

Rucho also used the 1st amendment clause.
Well there were 2 parts to the lawsuits.

Is partisan gerrymandering illegal?

If it is illegal what should be used to stop it?
"Efficiency gap?
"I know it when I see it?"
other methods?

The plaintiffs somewhat had an argument that may have gotten Roberts/Kavanaugh's attention but it wasn't enough to establish it as illegal. However when it came to the so called tests Roberts flat out called them gobbledygook.

The error was missing the clear signal that unless they provided a clear answer to the second question Roberts would never vote for the first. And in fact Kennedy said in Vieth exactly that. Namely that partisan gerrymandering might be subject to review, but only if there could be a clear standard that wouldn't simply result in judges drawing all maps.

They had a decade to meet that challenge and they kind of flubbed it. It was never going to be math, and it was never going to be an exact thing. This court pretty clearly hates writing policy. It likes telling states and the federal government what they can't do, not what they have to do. So the only way they were going to get anywhere was with a standard which was

1. Clear
2. Nonpartisan
3. Negative

Which is why I felt the "Republican Form of Government" was a very nice one which would provide a way for the Court to set "limits" on partisan gerrymandering, without taking over redistricting. Because the center of the court clearly was a combination of

1. Partisan Gerrymandering to some degree is not unconstitutional
2. There probably is a point beyond which it likely becomes so

Hence the court was favorable to limiting, not abolishing gerrymandering. Instead the plaintiffs demanded it be abolished.