US House Redistricting: New York

[muon2]

In a "fair" map, would Niagara Falls and Buffalo be placed into a district together or would they prefer to keep the Buffalo seat entirely within Erie county?

Under my rules for a fair map (similar to MI) there should be a district entirely within Erie. That forces Buffalo into the district entirely within Erie so it couldn't link to Niagara Falls. I assume that anyone mapping them linked was doing so to make a stronger R district. As it is, I ended up with an R+5 including Niagara Falls, and R+6 for the 200 K remainder of Erie so it's not that bad for the GOP.

I was thinking more in terms of a CA style mapping rather than a MI style map which many argue isn't that fair. As such partisan considersations were completely irrelevant and my primary concern was whether Niagara Falls had a better justification for being in an urban seat with Buffalo, then a bunch of rural Erie precincts.

Actually the MI rules worked very well in the 1980 and 90 remaps. They were so well-regarded that MI codified them. However they didn't put in any tests for partisan bias, since the issue hadn't occurred. When a single party had control the lack of a cross check allowed the rules to be bent to partisan advantage.

Certainly one could make a CA style judgement that NF should be with Buffalo and then draw a map accordingly. It will strengthen the adjacent GOP districts and make the area less competitive. I think that those type of judgement calls can lead to problems as well as seen in AZ this year.

So basically a gerrymander that doesn't look like a gerrymander. Even with the lipstick, the pig is still a pig. In my opinion, a fair map isn't what machine hack Repub and machine hack dem in a back room in Albany agree to scratch onto a map with their crayons. Therefore I don't think we can rely on bipartisan agreements to achieve the desired results. You can only do so much to leesh a legislature with standards, as MI proves and in FL is proving this time. Independent Non-Partisan Redistricting>Legislaitive Redistricting.

Whether it is your map or the one Torie did (if I recall it had a Buffalo seat then a Niagara Co. to PA seat surronding it), the question one has to ask is that "is it fair to put Niagara Falls, an urban area, into a district where it will be swamped by rural voters in a belt from Lake Ontario to PA, or place it into a district that would share similar urban rust belt issues, as it would with the city of Buffalo.

The MI standards came from the special master (Bernie Apol) appointed in the 80s, so they weren't the work of a bipartisan agreement. The bipartisan agreement was to codify the standards in 1999, thinking that they would tie the hands of whichever party might control the map in 2001. They failed to anticipate how far their geographic standards could be twisted. I would have no problem handing the MI standards to an independent commission, since that is essentially how Apol did his work. I just think that independent commissions can benefit from precise standards that are set before they begin mapping.

Yes, Torie wrapped Niagara around Buffalo and I wrapped it around Rochester. I looked at the former and found a very nice combination of counties with minimal deviation, but I wasn't wild about the connector along the eastern edge of Erie. Since I could wrap Rochester with whole counties and minimal deviation I went that way, but either path is a valid solution.

Niagara county didn't even give 50% to Obama. There are plenty of other upstate counties that have a strong Dem city in otherwise GOP turf. If Niagara should be split to link NF because of its interest, why not similar connections splitting counties throughout upstate?

[muon2]

According to the New York Post, New York Democrats are reportedly feuding over the shape of Charlie Rangel's district.  One plan has the district sprawling from Harlem to Westchester, presumably picking up African-American majority parts of the North Central Bronx and at least Mount Vernon.  That could be drawn as a majority black VAP district.  Another plan has the district becoming a Hispanic majority district in Manhattan and the Bronx.

It'll be interesting to compare the result to this thread started a year and a half ago.

Politico posted a story this week about a problem for Rangel and Waters unrelated to their ethics charges. The demographic changes in their districts are replacing blacks with Hispanics, and neither live in majority-black districts anymore.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Back in January I looked at majority-minority districts in NYC and LA. I see the same changes reported by Politico, though both districts could be preserved at the expense of other areas.

In Manhattan, I found a district similar to Rangel's would be about 51% hispanic. To make that district black either requires cutting into Long Island, or going into the Bronx. I did the latter, and had to include Mount Vernon in Westchester as well to get a district that is 54% black (CD 15). It was easy to make two hispanic districts with over 60% (CD 7, 14) with the remaining area in those two boroughs less a small part to connect white districts from upstate to NYC. The yellow district at the bottom of the picture is a majority-asian district.

[muon2]

I didn't see the time deadline for public submissions to the court. Does anyone know if there is a time other than midnight eastern time?

[muon2]

I don't take kindly to insinuations that I'm prejudiced against elements of my own ethnic and cultural background. Also 'anti-Semite' does not mean 'prejudiced against Jews who practice what NY Jew considers 'acceptable' Judaism'. It means 'prejudiced against Jews'.

Why do you assume I would 'sell you down the river for a dollar'? I have no interest in keeping Borough Park and Flatbush split as they are. Almost every aspect of the division of New York City at present is absurd. There is a difference between wanting a more reasonable split and insisting that a specifically Orthodox Jewish district be created just because you personally don't like the Jews currently in the US House, which is frankly ridiculous. It is not equivalent to insisting that an LGBT district be created (which is absurd anyway. If it looked like it was being intentionally split up to dilute representation of a specific group and not other groups that would be one thing, but in this case almost the entire City of New York looks like grass script and there are plenty of other pissed-off groups, I assure you) but rather to saying that even though LGBT people are in Congress at several times the rate of their preponderance in the population (which they are not, for what it's worth), they're the wrong kind of LGBT people and the VRA needs to be exercised to ensure representation of specific interest groups within that set of people.

This is certainly a horrible and uncalled-for gerrymander, but it's political, not ethnic or religious. The things that you're complaining about and feel persecuted based on are political in character.

What you're asking for isn't ridiculous or even particularly unreasonable but it hasn't got terribly much to do with the VRA and the way you're going about asking for it is...well, yeah. I can try to draw a district for you of the sort that you'd want (it actually might be a lot of fun looking over demographic stats to see how the 'white' areas of southern Brooklyn break down ethnically), but I'd like an apology first.

actually it is 100% based on religiosity (the gerrymandering started before we started voting Republican ) and there is no area in the country that comes even close to this in terms of gerrymandering and it is done even for relatively small communities.

All right, fine. I'll take a crack at doing a New York redistricting and we'll see if the resulting district  makes sense. My prediction is that I can get it up to about 40-42% Jewish before it starts getting ridiculous.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The reasons why I'm not immensely fond of Borough Park and 'Flatbush' have nothing to do with the religion of the people there, even if I take your word for it that the gerrymander does.

The population of Brooklyn only has enough blacks for 1 full district. If one operates under the assumption that they get 2 districts, obviously, 1 has to come at the expense of something else.


The 11th district was 74% black after the 1990 redistricting, 71% black in 2000, 60% black after the 2002 redistricting, and about 58% black now.

Brooklyn is about 3 and a half CDs with about 32% black population. The natural division would be for 1 black-majority CD. However with 25% of the population of NYC (with 11.4 CDs), one would reasonably expect there to be 3 black-majority CDs citywide. Brooklyn and Queens are the best places to put them, so that implies 2 Brooklyn-based black-majority CDs.

[muon2]

I had hoped to put together a plan for submission last night, but my DRA hung at about 10:30 when I was checking the districts prior to creating a file. But I can still share my work here.

I based my plan on the same model I used in the CA exercise. I started with regions of whole counties that were nearly equal to a whole number of districts:

Southern NY (CD 1-19, +1398)
Northern NY (CD 20-22, -702)
Western NY (CD 23-27, -695)

The regions were divided based on nearly whole counties with at most one town split in a county. Splits were used to get all deviations under 0.1% at the precinct level, and all but two districts are under 300 deviation. This is the resulting map for the state:



Within the NYC area districts were grouped to fit counties as well:
LI (CD 1-4, -37,948)
Queens (CD 5-7, +77,600)
Brooklyn/SI (CD 8-11, +102,600)
Manhattan/Bronx (CD 12-15, +100,151)
Lower Hudson (CD 16-19, -241,005)

Shifts and additional county breaks were made to get 3 Black-majority districts and 3 Hispanic-majority districts. The NYC area map look like this:



Here are the demographics including VAPs over 20%. Estimated PVIs are based on the 2008 Pres using Torie's spreadsheet factor.

LONG ISLAND
CD 1 (Smithtown) W 80.1% [R+2]
CD 2 (Islip) W 66.2% [D+1]
CD 3 (Hicksville) W 71.2% [R+1]
CD 4 (Hempstead) W 64.2% [D+1]

QUEENS
CD 5 (Flushing) W 43.4%, A 33.9% [D+9]
CD 6 (S Jamaica) B 50.4% [D+33]
CD 7 (Corona) H 59.4% [D+30]

BROOKLYN/STATEN ISLAND
CD 8 (Borough Park) W 55.7% A 23.4% [R+5]
CD 9 (Staten Island) W 67.1% [R+5]
CD 10 (East NY) W 23.6%, B 50.2% [D+38]
CD 11 (Flatbush) W 30.6%, B 50.3% [D+38]

MANHATTAN/BRONX
CD 12 (Manhattan) W 64.2% [D+31]
CD 13 (Harlem) B 28.2%, H 52.1% [D+40]
CD 14 (Triboro) W 54.1%, H 23.8% [D+24]
CD 15 (South Bronx) B 29.3%, H 63.1% [D+41]

LOWER HUDSON
CD 16 (Yonkers) W 41.3%, B 29.0%, H 23.3% [D+18]
CD 17 (White Plains) W 67.9% [D+5]
CD 18 (Newburgh) W 75.1% [D+1]
CD 19 (Albany) W 77.3% [D+5]

NORTHERN NY
CD 20 (Schenectady) W 90.0% [R+1]
CD 21 (Utica) W 90.2% [R+2]
CD 22 (Syracuse) W 85.8% [D+3]

WESTERN NY
CD 23 (Binghampton) W 88.9% [D+0]
CD 24 (Niagara Falls) W 91.6% [R+6]
CD 25 (Rochester) W 76.0% [D+6]
CD 26 (Elmira) W 93.1% [R+8]
CD 27 (Buffalo) W 76.5% [D+9]

[muon2]

That map is very well done, Mike - considerably better than the maps the Pubs submitted, even though yours is a quite Pub friendly map obviously. Did you find it as difficult as I to find a good map of the town lines in Nassau County (clearly you did find such a map)? (Nassau has 3 towns and 2 cities, the rest being villages, I now find out.) The towns do not appear on the DRA maps.

Thanks, I can only wonder what the special master would have made of my work. Unfortunately there was no time other than Friday for me to put a plan together, and when DRA hung at the end of the day, I had no chance to get all the parts in. Alas.

I have town maps, but there is a way to get it directly on DRA. The first two digits of a VTD in NY are the town code. When you hover over a VTD in DRA the VTD ID is at the top of the box.

[muon2]

That map is very well done, Mike - considerably better than the maps the Pubs submitted, even though yours is a quite Pub friendly map obviously. Did you find it as difficult as I to find a good map of the town lines in Nassau County (clearly you did find such a map)? (Nassau has 3 towns and 2 cities, the rest being villages, I now find out.) The towns do not appear on the DRA maps.

Newsday's DRA-like mapper has a layer that shows town lines instead of villages and whatever else DRA uses (census designated areas, perhaps).

The Plaintiffs and other parties would have made the same argument about muon2's map as they did Common Cause's - it pits incumbents against each other and is not a least change map from current lines.  It also doesn't have exact population equality (in this case, largely due to limitations in the DRA software).  The racial grievance groups would have attacked the map because it eliminates the awful NY-12, putting Chinatown and Sunset Park in separate districts, diluting the Chinese vote.  That seems to be a big bugaboo with the Asian legal defense group.

Too bad muon2 missed the deadline.  The order wanted public submissions to include a block equivalency file.  Does DRA even do that? 

You can save a DRA plan as a csv. It has the VTD equivalencies instead of blocks, but it can be reconstructed. This was used for public submissions for WA.

The plan is to suggest districts to the special master. The master will provide a final plan, so if the suggestion is not exact in population, the master can make the necessary adjustments. In any case I assume that the population used by the special master is LATFOR data and is adjusted from the raw census data. Any submission that was not LATFOR would need to be corrected by the master.

The Asian objections are noted, but there is no VRA protection since there is not a compact 50% AVAP district available. Both compact neighborhoods are kept intact. My plan improves on the current CD 12 by making CD 7 more Hispanic than 12 is now and better able to elect a candidate of choice.

[muon2]

Try it. I'd be interested to see what you come up with. I'm skeptical that you can get it over 50%, especially if we're using VAP, but I'd definitely like to see.

When I tried to eyeball a compact South Brooklyn CD earlier, I was using DRA so it wasn't clear how much of 'white' was Jewish, and also I ended up having to include more Democratic parts of Brooklyn in Grimm's district such that it actually shifts several points Democratic, so it seems likely to me that were you to successfully create the district that you're talking about we'd still end up with only the one Republican CD in the city most years (possibly zero if some hawkish, religiously conservative Jewish Democrat got elected from the hypothetical district that we are discussing).

I don't know how to upload maps on this website.
the key is to move Grimm out of Brooklyn and towards the Rockways
Grimm would be +2
and the New Jewish district would be +9

and in regards to weather or not the there was a Democrat or a Republican though I would prefer a Republican I would vote for someone like Noach Dear, or Dov Hikind way before I would vote for most NY state Republicans.

If you are looking for the Orthodox precincts in DRA, use the option to color by election. They will show up as strongly McCain compared to everything else. Though I was motivated by geography and the black-majority districts, I suspect it would look similar to CD 8 in my map above (reposted here).

[muon2]

muon, about what's the PVI on your NY-09?

Both 8 and 9 are R+5 as drawn on my map. I wanted to have a road connection from SI to the Rockaways. The greater gains for 8 on my map are to pick up Mill Island and Bergen Beach from CD 11 in exchange for Hispanic areas along the harbor. I can increase the McCain percent by 2 without changing my CD 9.

[muon2]

"Whatever that Asian area just north-east of Bay Ridge is" is Brooklyn's Chinatown (also sort-of considered part of Sunset Park), and it's arguably the main reason for the continued existence of Velasquez's district: they will raise holy hell if they're not in a district with Manhattan's Chinatown as well, and they seem to prefer being part of an Asian-Hispanic coalition district with Velasquez. 

The real reason why is because Nydia's residence is in the tiny Hispanic enclave near the harbor by Sunset Park.

Is she that compelled to live in the district she represents? Gutierrez hasn't been living in his IL-4 district for some years now, though the new map puts him back within his district boundaries.

[muon2]

Isn't the special master drawing the maps deliberately being kept in the dark per the judge's order as to where incumbents live?

That's the way I read the order. No political data or incumbent addresses. Seeing that I drew my map the same way, and I only looked at political data afterwards.

[muon2]

"Whatever that Asian area just north-east of Bay Ridge is" is Brooklyn's Chinatown (also sort-of considered part of Sunset Park), and it's arguably the main reason for the continued existence of Velasquez's district: they will raise holy hell if they're not in a district with Manhattan's Chinatown as well, and they seem to prefer being part of an Asian-Hispanic coalition district with Velasquez. 

The real reason why is because Nydia's residence is in the tiny Hispanic enclave near the harbor by Sunset Park.

Is she that compelled to live in the district she represents? Gutierrez hasn't been living in his IL-4 district for some years now, though the new map puts him back within his district boundaries.

The residency laws here are really lax, but if you've met Velasquez a number of times, as I have, you would discover that she's as stubborn as a mule (and looks kinda like one too).

For Congress the only rule is that they live in the state unless NY believes they can make more stringent conditions than the US Constitution. IL has no congressional residency statutes at all, but we do have members like Rush who have a history of wanting their residence in the district and all possible opponents out. Perhaps Velasquez is from the Rush school of residency.

[muon2]

Source from within the Cuomo administration on current proposed lines: "If they are drafting now then they are drafting for a veto."

Source

It appears that Cuomo is looking for a constitutional change to redistricting in the future in exchange for his support of a map this cycle.

[muon2]

I have NY-13, which is about tied or R+1, take in only Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, and the Rockaways, Howard Beach, and some of Ozone Park in Queens. Dyker Heights and Bath Beach are in the Jewish district, which is hence probably a little less Jewish than yours, but it means that I was able to get it all the way up to what I'm pretty sure is R+11. I might switch some of Dyker Heights and Bath Beach into the Grimm district and put whatever that Asian area just north-east of Bay Ridge is in with the Jews.

"Whatever that Asian area just north-east of Bay Ridge is" is Brooklyn's Chinatown (also sort-of considered part of Sunset Park), and it's arguably the main reason for the continued existence of Velasquez's district: they will raise holy hell if they're not in a district with Manhattan's Chinatown as well, and they seem to prefer being part of an Asian-Hispanic coalition district with Velasquez.  

I continue to maintain that "hipsters" are a coherent CoI which keeps getting unfairly sliced and diced in all of these maps.  There are plenty of white liberals in Brooklyn, why don't they have a seat?

Hmph. Would you attach them to the east side, the west side, or to Astoria?

NOTA.  A "hipster" district would be pretty similar to what I already proposed as the Ninth District here:

though it would withdraw somewhat from South Brooklyn to take in (the whiter areas of) Fort Greene, Ditmas Park, and more of East Village/Alphabet City- the one part of Manhattan that does belong there.  There would be various ripple effects, but the surrounding districts could mostly be kept as is.

I suppose Long Island City could also be a reasonable addition.

What are the BVAPs on your CD 6, 10, and 11?

[muon2]

What are the BVAPs on your CD 6, 10, and 11?

45.5, 51.0, 51.7.  Enough voters in Meeks' district are either black Hispanics being counted as Hispanic, or "Other" voters from the Caribbean, such that in actuality he might be over 50%.  And if he isn't, I would be surprised and dismayed if it was required to take him into Nassau to hit a magic number when that seat will safely elect an AA anyway.

It's an interesting issue. The "Other" category is unusually large in that district, but I don't know if there are any cases that say that they should count as black or as a coalition partner for purposes of electing a black candidate of choice. The difference matters for voting rights purposes, but I suspect that Meeks would take your district if it was helping make other districts lean more D.

[muon2]

Any map that eliminates Bob Turner's seat is unacceptable.  If we have to bend over backward to draw Hispanic and black seats, they can keep two Republican seats.





This shouldn't be that hard, and the map shouldn't look like a piece of garbage, esp in NYC

I have the same question about minority VAPs in the minority districts. What did you get for yours?

[muon2]

Any map that preserves the earmuffs and makes them even more urban is a gerry, IMO. Those suburban towns in Monroe County you shed in order to make it more of a D vote sink include Louise Slaughter's home town of Fairport.

The court is likely to draw a least-change map, meaining the earmuffs might actually end up staying.

It will be interesting to see since the court is not using political data or incumbent addresses. Much of the current upstate shape is precisely due to those factors. If they aren't there at best they can use communities of interest as a proxy.

[muon2]

I stopped paying it serious attention as soon as I saw what was done to the Capital District and that the earmuffs still existed.

The earmuffs are terrible, but would you like the capital district to look like? TimothyinMD's map looks pretty much the same as muon's in that area. Pretty much all of them are ugly in some way around there.

You know, the Albany CD does not have to be an ugly duckling.

My Albany district is similar:

All of Albany, Schenectady, Rensselaer, optionally Schoharie, and then finish up with the bottom tip of Saratoga.  It's not that hard to make a good district there!

Yes, I did split the Capital Region, but I did so with justification. The two districts covering the region are each nearly whole counties. The four counties including Albany are under population by 3698 and the six counties with Schenectady are over by only 510, and very little population was shifted accordingly. As a bonus both districts have the potential to be competitive in the right year.

CD 19 (Albany) W 77.3% [D+5]
CD 20 (Schenectady) W 90.0% [R+1]

[muon2]

No Muon, that this is quite unjustifiedly bizarre. Quite frankly everything from 18 to 23 there is Wrong with a capital W.

Muon2 gives high salience to minimizing county splits (I had one more in the Albany area than Muon2 because I wanted to keep the Albany metro area together). It was interesting that the Minnesota court gave pretty high salience to minimizing county splits too, messing with the prior court drawn lines to cut territory from MN-04 that it had before to kick it out of Dakota County (territory that are inner-burbs tied to the hip to St. Paul), and having it take most of Washington County instead. That was sort of a surprise.

I was raised in MN. Perhaps that's where I get that predilection. Truthfully it shows up in many other states as a priority as well.

[muon2]

The application of the least change rules, where the number of CD's is changed, may be a case of first impression. And I am not sure if for federal courts, it is mandatory or not in any event. And does it matter whether the old map was a bipartisan one (albeit a bipartisan gerrymander), which it was in NY, or a one party partisan gerrymander, in which event, that one party gerrymander would go on forever unless the other party captured the power trifecta, or it got into state court. Just how things end up in federal or state court is another mystery.

In the case of the MN state courts in 2002 there was little regard for the traditional 4-corners plan, and they switched to a 5 and 3 plan.

[muon2]

The special master has posted a proposed plan. Comments due by Wednesday.

State and Regional maps
District maps
Demographics

[muon2]

That's kind of exciting. Like California. Are there two AA districts in Brooklyn?

I'm certain 8 is still AA majority, and 9 probably is as well.

There are three BVAP majority districts, but only one HVAP majority, with two plurality. I'm not sure why the Latinos would be happy with that.

[muon2]

That's kind of exciting. Like California. Are there two AA districts in Brooklyn?

I'm certain 8 is still AA majority, and 9 probably is as well.

There are three BVAP majority districts, but only one HVAP majority, with two plurality. I'm not sure why the Latinos would be happy with that.

I think you missed Rangel's district- there are two HVAP majority (Rangel and Serrano), and two HVAP plurality (Crowley and Velasquez).

Also of interest: NY-6 (which is presumably where Ackerman would move to, but also where Rory Lancman probably wants to run) appears to be plurality Asian, but whites have a higher VAP?

Thanks, that makes more sense. I was getting up the post and missed the new 13. I wonder if 55% HVAP is considered high enough to elect a candidate of choice?

NY-6 would still be plurality white VAP: NHWVAP 39.9%, AVAP 38.8%.

[muon2]

any one have a non antisemitic reason why the Jewish Community in Far Rockway is not united with the community in the 5 Towns (in district 4).  But Inwood is put in to district 5.

Inwood was put in NY-05 for VRA reasons, being cautious. Jews are not part of the VRA game. Jews are white. 

wouldn't it be easier to have a majority black district if they didn't include 90% Jewish areas in the district?
toss the super majority Jewish part of Far Rockway into district 4 would do a lot more for the black majority

No, you can't get to 50% black VAP for NY-05 without it sneaking into Nassau County. I tried.

MY point was they go into Nassau twice it is very easy to make a 50% black district without Inwood. crosing county borders at 2 points is unjustified if there purpose is only for a black district.  If they wanted to do it for uniting districts of similarity you see why I'm right (if they cross NYC borders in 5 different places) then there is no justification not to cross there.

The alternative to Inwood is to cross into Brooklyn as I did on my map. Even then I split the Rockaways to get the needed 50%.

[muon2]

Here is the complete matrix chart which illustrates why one party is probably considerably happier with the court map than the other party. In a Pub tsunami, the delegation would be 15 (R) - 12 (D). Of course, with the reverse, it would be 1 (R) - 26 (D).  Notice how in general things get more competitive, with the more extreme partisan colors moving towards something less so in many instances (the Buffalo seat being the spectacular exception as the earmuffs were undone). That is what happens when you unravel a prior bi-partisan gerrymander. New York should be a fun place for the next decade.

Out of curiosity, what is your source of McCain/Obama numbers? I've drawn up the entire map on DRA and differ by 0.1% here and there.

Here's your corrected table: