Redistricting - Jimrtex, Alternate Process, Scoring System

[traininthedistance]

While there will be some county division in this phase, multiple spanning of counties will not be permitted.  Multiple spanning is when two or more districts share portions of two counties. 

I do worry that, while it is a good rule for 95% of our districts, absolute prohibition of double-spanning might be problematic in several cases.  Most importantly, it might be mutually incompatible with following the VRA in some areas– VA-3 and NJ-10/8 come immediately to mind; and I can imagine similar situations arising in places like South Florida and east of Los Angeles. 

To which I can imagine you saying, "so much the worse for the VRA", and that's fair– holding 50% BVAP districts sacrosanct is not really necessary in those areas for electing the candidate of choice.  But if we're trying to make an action plan that has a chance of being adopted, it would be better to build in some flexibility for those situations.

And, well, there are a couple other cases where double-spanning might be appropriate.  Say, if you have a county which is discontiguous (as exist in Massachusetts and Louisiana), or functionally discontiguous by dint of having two areas which aren't accessible to each other except by leaving the county (the rural NE corner of King comes to mind).  Or, and this is admittedly a loosey-goosey "community of interest" plead but it is a universally accepted one that oughtn't be dismissed lightly, double-spanning Nassau and Suffolk to get a North Shore and South Shore district.

[traininthedistance]

VA-3 doesn't conform to the Gingles test.  When it was first drawn the district court said if doubted that a compact majority BVAP district could be drawn.   And that district had a 60% BVAP.  They "corrected" that district by removing Portsmouth.  It hardly makes a district more compact by removing the largest concentration of blacks, and forcing the district to jump back and forth across the James, and skip Portsmouth, but include parts of Norfolk.  In the latest litigation, Virginia claimed they were trying to reduce the number of county splits - but couldn't explain why a majority of the splits were because of VA-3.

I think the Long Island example sounds like a political gerrymander to either help or hurt Peter King.

While the current VA-3 is indeed a monstrosity that ought not be protected, you can make something pretty compact that is black-majority, but which requires double-spanning Richmond and Henrico:



51.8% BVAP.

I'm not even sure how to respond to your thoughts on Long Island, except to cite Emerson's quip about how "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".  I mean, have you seen the current NY-2?  Do you have any sense of the history and geography of Long Island?  Does anyone think that the current district (which is, BTW, an R+1 PVI district surrounded by R+2, EVEN, and D+3 districts) was drawn for the purposes of being a gerrymander?  

I mean, I respect that this might be a corner case where optimal lines end up being sacrificed for the good of better redistricting everywhere else.  But it's a sacrifice all the same.