US House Redistricting: Washington

[jimrtex]

Ok... I tried to take a stab at two Cascade crossings. Basically Reichart gets to take in Kittitas and Chelan counties, helping to make his district much, much more moderate. Although in this map I do have the 8th gaining a little bit of Redmond which serves to cancel out many of the conservatives on the east side of the mountains.

Anyways, here you go:





Honestly after looking this over I think I still prefer a district that crosses over via the Columbia (basically the 3rd taking in Yakima), it would mean there are only three CDs in the East rather than 4. And personally I refuse to connect Yakima to the 8th, for some reason Chelan and Wenatchee make more sense to me than Yakima.

Thoughts?

I think it does a better job in the west where you have clearly defined districts for Vancouver, Olympia, and Tacoma.

I'd probably include E Wenatchee in the Transcadia district.  Would that be enough to put all of the Yakima Indian Reservation in the East?

And then I'd move Mason into the Olympia district, move the Tacoma district a bit further east (does it split the city), and drop the mid-cities district a bit south.  Possibly include all of the Mount Rainier area in the Transcascadia district, unless there is a problem with splitting counties.

Congressmen don't have to live in their district.  Dicks is 70 and may retire or die before 2020, but the districts live on.

A minor tweak would be to put Skyhomish in the purple district.

[jimrtex]

Here is Gorton's plan:

Lol.

If the US would build a border fence, there would be a road along the fence, and this would be just like Imperial County to Chula Vista.

[jimrtex]

The Republican map of Spokane is really sickening. So is their Clark County map, though the Democrats' map is still somewhat ugly...

Anyway, the Republicans are moving forward with full blown gerrymanders while the Democrats seem to be going in with more sensible maps. I have a bad feeling this is not going to end well.

I think the Huff-Gorton plan is more reasonable in keeping Seattle in fewer districts rather than having them stretched out so much.

How much of LD-6 is actually NE of Spokane, populationwise?

If you were to slide LD-17 and LD-49 east, would LD-18 get yanked down into Vancouver?

[jimrtex]

I think it works beautifully. And I also eliminated all those Puget Sound crossings that had always bothered me.

They are part of the regular transportation network of the state.

[jimrtex]

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.