US House Redistricting: North Carolina

[Sol]

Why would the Republicans back this initiative. The governor can't control the redistricting and it will be really difficult for the democrats to retake the state senate and the state house!

The Democrats used to gerrymander a great deal themselves, and that's left a bad taste in the NC GOP's mouth.

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The NC GOP may also feel that 10 years in a permanent minority is good enough punishment for the Democrats.

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Oh look, isn't this nice. Another lawsuit challenging CDs 1 and 12.

Wonderful News!

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There's actually a way to draw a whole county district 7. Unfortunately, it screws up the rest of the map.

If this challenge succeeds, 1 won't be majority-minority anymore, right?

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There's actually a way to draw a whole county district 7. Unfortunately, it screws up the rest of the map.

Yeah. Its basically my version minus Bladen, Carteret and Cumberland Counties but it would take in all of Robeson.  

Wait, really?! What I've been drawing is:
-Columbus
-Brunswick
-Hanover
-Pender
-Onslow
-Carteret
-Jones
-Duplin

There are also a lot of ways to draw whole county district 8s.

[Sol]

Wait, really?! What I've been drawing is:
-Columbus
-Brunswick
-Hanover
-Pender
-Onslow
-Carteret
-Jones
-Duplin

There are also a lot of ways to draw whole county district 8s.

Your plan is better in terms of deviations; your's is -187, mine is -1146:

It really messes up district 3 though.

[Sol]

Yeah; I don't like what it does to CD3. This is my opinion, but I always like to keep Craven and Carteret counties in the same district.

Yeah. I think you even have to put CD3 into Johnston County a little bit, depending on how you do CD1.

Oh, btw, I typically try to put Cumberland, Robeson, Scotland, and Hoke in CD 8. Splitting those from each other is extremely undesirable. Thus, you pretty much have to put Bladen in CD8 if you want whole counties.

[Sol]

Yeah; I don't like what it does to CD3. This is my opinion, but I always like to keep Craven and Carteret counties in the same district.

Yeah. I think you even have to put CD3 into Johnston County a little bit, depending on how you do CD1.

Oh, btw, I typically try to put Cumberland, Robeson, Scotland, and Hoke in CD 8. Splitting those from each other is extremely undesirable. Thus, you pretty much have to put Bladen in CD8 if you want whole counties.

I agree that Hoke, Scotland and Cumberland should be together (along with Anson and Richmond), but Robeson in CD8? Its been in the district with Brunswick/New Hanover Counties for at least the last century. Robeson belongs in CD7, IMO.

IMO, Robeson has to be with Hoke and Scotland- there are significant Lumbee communities in both of those. And Hoke is part of the same UCC as Cumberland. So you have to put them all in the same CD. And you can't really put Fayetteville in with Wilmington in a very pleasing way.

Thus, IMO, any fair map has to put Robeson in CD8.

[Sol]

You could make CD7 and CD8 whole with your plan:

You can also take CD8 into Harnett instead of Moore, or into Stanly and Montgomery.

I definitely like your fair map. But I think Hoke and Robeson really do need to be in the same district. There's definite VRA issues if they aren't. And if CD8 has Hoke, Robeson, and Cumberland, it has to have Bladen if you want a whole county map.

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Using a fair map theory of urban county clusters, Cumberland and Hoke should be entirely within the same district except for microchops. By that measure, I definitely like this version better.

You could make CD7 and CD8 whole with your plan:

The issue with that is that it messes around with the map as a whole. It really screws up CD3, which, depending on how CD1 is drawn, may be forced into the Raleigh suburbs in Johnston and Franklin Counties.

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Under that scenario, you could give Johnston/Sampson Counties to CD3 instead of having it reach up to Franklin/Granville Counties:

I'm beginning to think a map like this is probably the best possible in Eastern NC.

Quick question: Which of these is preferable?

This:

Or This:


The first has a higher deviation and is less competitive, but is more compact.

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A black majority district 1 can be drawn much more prettily.

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f) The VRA doesn’t exist, because it is a truth universally acknowledged that just because two people share the same colour skin doesn’t mean they have any community of interest at all.

The basic idea behind the VRA, particularly in NC and other Southern states is to assure that minorities aren't gerrymandered out of power. This is particularly important in the south because you often see racial block voting- whites voting overwhelmingly for Republicans (and vice-versa). In some parts of Mississippi, you can draw a 54% White, 45% black district that's pretty much safe R. Thus, blacks can be pretty easily disenfranchised.

Of course, in NC, it isn't that polarized, but there is definitely racial block voting.

Now, I do agree that a black majority district isn't necessary in NC. But NC-1 should probably be plurality black and whatever district is based in Charlotte should not have any racial group as a majority.

Otherwise, sounds good, although I can't see your image.

[Sol]

f) The VRA doesn’t exist, because it is a truth universally acknowledged that just because two people share the same colour skin doesn’t mean they have any community of interest at all.

The basic idea behind the VRA, particularly in NC and other Southern states is to assure that minorities aren't gerrymandered out of power. This is particularly important in the south because you often see racial block voting- whites voting overwhelmingly for Republicans (and vice-versa). In some parts of Mississippi, you can draw a 54% White, 45% black district that's pretty much safe R. Thus, blacks can be pretty easily disenfranchised.

Of course, in NC, it isn't that polarized, but there is definitely racial block voting.

Now, I do agree that a black majority district isn't necessary in NC. But NC-1 should probably be plurality black and whatever district is based in Charlotte should not have any racial group as a majority.

There may be bloc voting, but all the VRA seems to achieve - from a Western European perspective - is the ability of Republicans to gerrymander majority-minority districts that vote 70, 80, 90% Democrat, and almost take a gleeful pleasure in it, because the courts force them to do so.

On this side we don't have these issues. There are safe, 99% white, Conservative constituencies in Britain where the central party have arranged it for BME (minority) candidates to run for the candidacy, the candidate has been selected by the party members, the candidate has then been elected (see North West Cambridgeshire or Stratford-upon-Avon) and no-one blinks an eyelid, because the content of the candidate's character (or perhaps the colour of his rosette) was more important than the colour of his skin.

No, no - this whole apparatus should go. If there was an impartial redistricting commission, concerns that minorites would be gerrymandered out of power would be moot.

The VRA is absolutely necessary because it prevents splitting ethnic communities of interest. For instance, me and Miles's debate up-thread was all about the fact that splitting up Robeson,  Scotland, and Hoke counties from each other splits up the Lumbee tribe, one of the largest native groups (although it doesn't have federal recognition for some dumb reason). Similarly, it can be used to keep other COI's together- not putting Cubans in Miami in with Collier County, for example (this actually exists on the current map, of course).

It's necessary to have the VRA, even with independent commissions, because ethnic minorities can be diluted if you draw reasonable looking districts. You can do this in NC for example:



CD4, CD3, and CD2-none of them would probably elect the black candidate of choice (with a racialized Democratic primary in CD4, of course).

Now, of course, my defense of the VRA does not necessarily mean I think NC needs a black-majority district. But it definitely needs a black plurality district in NE NC.

[Sol]

Also, it appears that a plurality black VAP district has to go into Durham/Raleigh in some way.

With regards to your image, does this work for display? I can see it if I put the url in and go to the site.



I like your map. There are a few issues however, besides our VRA disagreement:
-I would avoid splitting Robeson County
-Similarly, I'd try to either split one of Johnston and Wayne.
-I would definitely avoid putting district 1 in Northern Wake. The two are quite different, even excluding the VRA stuff involved.
-You can have a whole county CD11 that isn't too different from what you have:

[Sol]

This attempt involves the urban county cluster model. Urban clusters are made from counties in an MSA that have over 40% population in an urbanized area (or have 25K urbanized population). Minority clusters are contiguous counties that are over 40% BVAP. The map shows the UCCs in pink and the MCCs in green. The number in the circle is the minimum number of CDs it takes to cover the UCC.



For this plan UCCs and MCCs are each covered with the fewest number of CDs. Only Mecklenburg and Wake are chopped, and 4 microchops are used to keep all CDs within 0.5% of the population quota. There is no forced linking of the urban minority populations in Raleigh or Durham with CD 1, so it is left with only 40.3% BVAP. However, CDs 1, 3, 4 and 13 could be rearranged to provide a 50% BVAP CD without changing the rest of the map.

If I force a VRA CD unto the plan above, I get the following plan. CD 1 is at 50.3% BVAP. The other eastern CDs are adjusted to keep chops and erosity down.

That VRA map is pretty much as good as it gets for a black-majority NC-01. Well done!

[Sol]

BTW Muon, your map of Charlotte needs to be fixed asap. Gaston county should not go all the way into the city.

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I understand what you're saying about bridges inviting mischief. But there should definitely be a Mecklenburg-based district- it is a strong COI relative to the suburbs. Perhaps there could be a method to grant exemptions to rules like this that mess up COIs?

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What about this for the Charlotte UCC? Both CD9 and CD12 are vaguely competitive (the former would probably be a total tossup by 2020).

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How does this map look? Eastern NC is screwy, of course.



Charlotte:

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I think that county chops should still penalized with large MSAs, although perhaps less so- this Mecklenburg example is one of many clear issues with that practice. In a way, in fact, it kind of does open the door to gerrymandering like-so:


which is obviously sub-optimal.

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Also, here is a revised map. It neatens up CD3 and CD4 at the expense of CD1, which becomes majority white by VAP.

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I don't think it's possible without impinging in on the Hickory UCC.

[Sol]

I understand what you're saying about bridges inviting mischief. But there should definitely be a Mecklenburg-based district- it is a strong COI relative to the suburbs. Perhaps there could be a method to grant exemptions to rules like this that mess up COIs?

CoI's are typically very subjective things, and its easy to use their existence to gerrymander. To that end, I'm only comfortable using CoIs that can be quantified like UCCs and MCCs, and existing political units like counties and munis.

That doesn't mean that a Mecklenburg-only CD can't be in the plan, it can be and if it gets to the appropriate body for consideration the local CoI may win the day. However, before it gets to that point the plan needs to be able to compete against other plans that chop Charlotte in other ways. I'm still curious as to the ability to make a plan with the five counties N and E of Mecklenburg then attach Gaston and the Mecklenburg fraction to counties to the west. If it can be done, it avoids this whole problem.

I fiddled around with this a little bit and the problem you run into is that such a plan forces a split of Hickory-Lenoir-Morgantown, or Asheville (which also upsets the whole-county CD 11).

I happen to find the logic of an all-Mecklenburg district sufficiently compelling that I'm willing to accept the de facto Mecklenburg bridge of the proposed CD 9 here; in general I tend to prefer giving at least a little preference to plans that create whole districts inside of large counties, and the size and shape of the Charlotte UCC is such that you're going to have some sort of problem no matter what you do; my first inclination is to let the 150K-strong de facto Mecklenburg bridge happen on the grounds that a) the technical water connectivity of Iredell-Lincoln, b) the ability of such a plan to keep the Charlotte UCC in three districts, including one core and two hinterlands districts, and c) not screwing with Hickory-Lenoir-Morgantown, all work as mitigating factors that ought to make it acceptable.

I guess that, in general, I'm not particularly bothered by bridges when they are comprised of the balance of large metro counties that are otherwise entirely one district.  I expect that is somewhat loosey-goosey for you, though.

Exactly.

It's Morganton though. [/pedant mode]

[Sol]

muon, do you like this map?

I'm not muon, but I don't like the fact that you split Chapel Hill from Durham at all.