2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Missouri

[Sol]

I guess here and in several other states there's a basic conflict of interests between the national Republican Party's interest in making it easier to retake the house, and the state Republican Party's interest in not stirring up trouble for little direct benefit to them. The tiebreaker is whether the current incumbents are willing to put up with awkward lines, districts that are harder to represent and slightly more competitive elections, and whether there are sufficient ambitious politicians in the legislature living in the right bits of the state who want to represent new gerrymandered districts.

Pretty sure Tennessee passes that test, whereas I suspect Indiana doesn't. Missouri is somewhere in the middle, I guess?

Agreed. There's also I think sometimes a bit of a political culture between states; certain states in 2010 (I'm thinking of NC and Texas here in particular) have a very national-GOP extremist mindset and would do anything to keep power, while other states were more cautious.

[Sol]

lol

[Sol]

What exactly is the problem with putting Jefferson in MO-02 then? Not rich and snooty enough for Wagner? It shores up MO-2 beautifully without having to really do anything ugly.

[Sol]

Something like this oughta be doable though? Keeping Ladue and St. Robert in the same district seems like a fools errand, but I can try that if it's really such a dealbreaker. MO-02 is only 45% Biden and can get more diluted if you're willing to get a little ugly.

[Sol]

Something like this oughta be doable though? Keeping Ladue and St. Robert in the same district seems like a fools errand, but I can try that if it's really such a dealbreaker. MO-02 is only 45% Biden and can get more diluted if you're willing to get a little ugly.

If Ladue+St. Robert is absolutely necessary this should probably be workable eh?

[Sol]

What an utter clown show. They really can't agree on a map? It's not even a hard or contentious (in theory) state to draw

[Sol]

https://twitter.com/EmilyManleyTV/status/1517186179355062273

Current talk in town is that there's a chance we might end up holding the election under old lines due to the Purcell Principle. Apparently there's a pretty widespread view that state courts don't have the authority to impose a remedial map, so any solution would come from Federal Courts who might be reluctant to get involved given the proximity to the primary.

Seems unlikely there will be a formal conference committee, but there seems to some discussions between house and senate members to modify the House map to shore up MO-2 (albeit in a less visually disgusting manner than the Senate map). Whether that will actually get passed or not remains to be seen.

Isn’t that illegal? States are required to redistrict every 10 years, and the old districts have significant variation in population by now. Also unlike VA they’ve had the data they need for more than enough time.

In short, Yes, but the argument is the remedy might be worse, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Stuff like this makes me so angry, especially since it should be easy to meet everyone’s demands within reason. Keep KC whole and shore up MO-02! There ya go!

In terms of least change map, here's one that moves less than 200k people:

https://twitter.com/Missouri_Mapper/status/1512569914573443079

https://davesredistricting.org/join/0b2c7a4c-6ffa-4342-9bfa-9dc9d6ec7e46

MO-2 probably isn't as shored up for the GOP as much as they'd want, though it's kind of hilarious how little the House and Senate maps change MO-2's lean from a "baseline" map.

It would be hilarious if courts going with least change results in the Ike Skelton Salient staying in MO-05 for another decade.

[Sol]

I still don't really get why they didn't just put Jefferson in MO-02.

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If you aren't going to crack MO-05 you might as well minimize the Republican votes wasted in case someone in the surrounding seats screws up.

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Is this a reasonably good map of Kansas City, or should I try to keep MO-05 more in Jackson and maybe Clay?

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Is this better?

Two followups:
-Is it ok to put Hannibal in the 3rd? I had to do this to relieve excess population from the 6th.
-Is it worth it to try putting Cass in the 6th?

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Sure, here you go.

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For the sake of transparency, here are the two maps I've been debating:

Option 1


Option 2

[Sol]

In both of these iterations, you are putting Luetkemeyer's Miller County home just outside of MO-3. That doesn't prevent him from running again in MO-3, but it does mean he couldn't vote for himself unless he moves to a new home somewhere in your versions of MO-3.

For context, I'm trying to draw fair and logical maps which don't take into account incumbents.

Also, that's a pretty tiny little dot of St. Charles County you've got in  MO-2. Isn't that just an uninhabited piece of the Missouri River floodplain?

It's about 6,200 people in unincorporated St. Charles; not much at all but necessary to lower population deviation. Looking at it now, it might be wiser to put Pacific in MO-02 instead.

[Sol]

I am not sure what you guys are doing, and why, but I think MO pretty much draws itself.

Tbh the main points of differentiation between are maps are basically just my CoI prioritization (which is why Washington stays in my 6th and why I split both Clay and Jackson) and then what looks like you preferring smaller county cuts, which I suppose is fair. Though I don't feel too bad about my splits because they're mostly fairly small or follow county-internal cleavages.