US House Redistricting: Ohio

[TJ in Oregon]

Here's an OH-1 Compromise map:

I started off with the current OH-1 and added all the black areas that aren't in it now first. Then I added the more suburbs nearby that weren't already part of it.

Obama 53.5-McCain 45.4
Democrat 51.0-Republican 49.0

It includes all of the black areas in Hamilton County and has a PVI close to even.

[jimrtex]

It will be a bit tricky to put all of the Cinci blacks in one CD without making it fairly marginal, unless those precincts are combined with the most hyper GOP ones in the area.

Is Chabot's current district marginal?

You can just shift the boundary east in Hamilton County and take in all of Cincinnati and not move the partisanship at all.

[muon2]

The OH House will debate a new GOP map tomorrow.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I fail to see how you could draw a map where Chabot is still heavily favored and argue this is the best map for blacks to get black Democrats on board. Has any black Democrat expressed interest in cooperating? Seems like grasping at straws to me...

[muon2]

I fail to see how you could draw a map where Chabot is still heavily favored and argue this is the best map for blacks to get black Democrats on board. Has any black Democrat expressed interest in cooperating? Seems like grasping at straws to me...

A Hamilton-only district can get up to about 27% BVAP. Dropping the east side of Cinci and near suburbs with low black pop while replacing them with a lot of Warren Co still leaves 25% BVAP but a GOP lean.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

OK but why would black Democrats be excited about stranding thousands of black voters in a Republican district?

[TJ in Oregon]

OK but why would black Democrats be excited about stranding thousands of black voters in a Republican district?

I have no idea. Even if they gerrymander it to be a Democratic seat, I still highly doubt it'll elect a black congressman.

[jimrtex]

These are the Black or part-Black parts of Hamilton County. 285k people, 79.7% Obama. Do the math. Of the areas enclosed, the northern one and the little bit by the river are quite marginal; the mid-southern one is almost as Democratic as the sum of the parts in yellow.

Almost all of that area is in Chabot's current district, which is underpopulated.  You have to add population to the east to his district.

[krazen1211]

New map.

http://media.cleveland.com/open_impact/other/New-GOP-Congressional-Map.pdf

Appears to have weakened the Turner district a bit. Some minor changes with the Columbus district as well perhaps.

[Torie]

New map.

http://media.cleveland.com/open_impact/other/New-GOP-Congressional-Map.pdf

Appears to have weakened the Turner district a bit. Some minor changes with the Columbus district as well perhaps.

[Miles]

New map.

http://media.cleveland.com/open_impact/other/New-GOP-Congressional-Map.pdf

Appears to have weakened the Turner district a bit. Some minor changes with the Columbus district as well perhaps.

It does look cleaner than the original, at least statewide.

I'm glad they got rid of that funky 15th.

Does this alter the dynamics of the Kucinich/Kaptur situation or was all the action downstate?

[Torie]

New map.

http://media.cleveland.com/open_impact/other/New-GOP-Congressional-Map.pdf

Appears to have weakened the Turner district a bit. Some minor changes with the Columbus district as well perhaps.

It does look cleaner than the original, at least statewide.

I'm glad they got rid of that funky 15th.

Does this alter the dynamics of the Kucinich/Kaptur situation or was all the action downstate?

Yes, it helps Kaptur, because she gets all of Toledo now, and so the population balance is more in her favor than it was. Thus Kuch was pushing for the prior map.

[krazen1211]

Turns out the 2/3 vote failed and now the OH GOP is threatening a more partisan map.

[dpmapper]

They're still routing Fudge's district down to Akron via a horribly inefficient route.  And they seem to be obsessed with triple-splitting Mercer County. 

[Torie]

Turns out the 2/3 vote failed and now the OH GOP is threatening a more partisan map.

The Pubs are banking that their map will be used as the temporary map for the 2012 elections. They think that is their leverage against the Dems. Maybe their next map might chop Columbus.

[TJ in Oregon]

And they seem to be obsessed with triple-splitting Mercer County. 

That seemed strange to me too. Why slice off that one township to tack on to Jordan's district when there are plenty of others they could use without splitting any counties? It's not like Jordan's seat is super marginal, even if it was, they split off one of the more moderate townships in Mercer County insead of the super Republican one just to the south.

My suspicion is that there is someone else who lives in that district waiting in the wings to run in OH-4 after Jordan leaves to run for something else. I checked the bios of the State House Rep (who lives in Darke County, so it's not him) and the State Senator Keith Faber, who's bio says he lives "outside of Celina". Lo and behold, that township borders Celina. I have a feeling the Ohio GOP (or Faber himself) wanted Faber to be in OH-4 instead of OH-5 for some reason that will appear in due time.

Edit: LOL. Not only is Faber a State Senator, he's the President Pro Tempore.

[muon2]

New map.

http://media.cleveland.com/open_impact/other/New-GOP-Congressional-Map.pdf

Appears to have weakened the Turner district a bit. Some minor changes with the Columbus district as well perhaps.

The changes were designed to improve BVAP in some districts.

CDs 6, 11, 13, and 14 are unchanged from the earlier plan. I think all sides are resigned to CD-11 needing over 50% BVAP, so it must go into Akron.

The Columbus CD-3 was the biggest black gainer going to almost 31% BVAP.

Montgomery was made whole in CD 10, raising the BVAP to 17%, though it go up another 1% by adding Springfield, but that would drop the GOP lean by about 2%.

The Lucas split was cut down to two CDs, and the black areas of Toledo increased, but not all of Toledo is in CD-9.

CD-1 had a minimal change swapping out Greenhills in favor of Lincoln Heights. At under 22% BVAP it is still well short of maxing the BVAP percentages for the district which would be at about 27%.

[nclib]

If Chabot can be made pretty safe with most of Cincy's black population (since 2008 black turnout overstates Obama numbers), can there even be a Kerry CD based in Cincinnati?

[jimrtex]

They're still routing Fudge's district down to Akron via a horribly inefficient route.  And they seem to be obsessed with triple-splitting Mercer County. 

Not really.   If you go further east you have to go through Cuyahoga Falls.  This takes two relatively skinny cities in Cuyahoga (Seven Hills and Broadview Heights) and then a couple of townships in Summit County.

Further east, and you start cutting into OH-14 and OH-17 (now OH-13).

Let's say that you want to keep this out of the federal courts.   As soon as a referendum puts any plan on hold, you go to the Ohio Supreme Court.   They look at the precedent from California and order the 2012 election to be conducted on boundaries drawn by the legislature.  They reason that there is nothing unlawful about the boundaries, just that some voters don't like it.

How do you get this into federal court?  Voting Rights Act?   No.   Political gerrymander?  Even if you can find some novel claim that Justice Kennedy wants to hear, you are going to have to convince a federal court to enjoin the Ohio Supreme Court and convince the US Supreme Court that there is some reason to not let the case percolate through the federal court system.  That leaves you challenging the authority of the Ohio Supreme Court to act, which means the federal court is going to have to claim that they have more knowledge and understanding of the Ohio Constitution and statutes than the Ohio Supreme Court does.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If Chabot can be made pretty safe with most of Cincy's black population (since 2008 black turnout overstates Obama numbers), can there even be a Kerry CD based in Cincinnati?

Oh yeah. Easily. The current OH-01 only voted for Bush in 2004 by a point, and that's with the Butler County portion and some of the black areas taken out (and most of the few white liberal areas in Cincinnati in OH-02)

[dpmapper]

They're still routing Fudge's district down to Akron via a horribly inefficient route.  And they seem to be obsessed with triple-splitting Mercer County. 

Not really.   If you go further east you have to go through Cuyahoga Falls.  This takes two relatively skinny cities in Cuyahoga (Seven Hills and Broadview Heights) and then a couple of townships in Summit County.

Further east, and you start cutting into OH-14 and OH-17 (now OH-13).

Well, Cuyahoga Falls can be split if necessary.  Use Macedonia/Twinsburg (bluer) and Boston Township (sparsely populated) to get down south. 

And OH-14 can make up population by taking more of the rural parts of Portage County, and OH-13 can make up population by taking Canton.  Perfect. 

[muon2]

They're still routing Fudge's district down to Akron via a horribly inefficient route.  And they seem to be obsessed with triple-splitting Mercer County. 

Not really.   If you go further east you have to go through Cuyahoga Falls.  This takes two relatively skinny cities in Cuyahoga (Seven Hills and Broadview Heights) and then a couple of townships in Summit County.

Further east, and you start cutting into OH-14 and OH-17 (now OH-13).

Well, Cuyahoga Falls can be split if necessary.  Use Macedonia/Twinsburg (bluer) and Boston Township (sparsely populated) to get down south. 

And OH-14 can make up population by taking more of the rural parts of Portage County, and OH-13 can make up population by taking Canton.  Perfect. 

Your plan works for OH-11, but it would reduce the GOP margin in OH-14 by cutting off Brecksville, Independence and Sagamore Hills. There's not much population in the GOP rural townships of Portage to make up for those aforementioned suburbs.

[minionofmidas]

They really thought that carve-up of Lorain would fly as a compromise?

[muon2]

They really thought that carve-up of Lorain would fly as a compromise?

I don't think Lorain is much of an issue for either side. No incumbent has a significant base there, so it's just a question of dividing the heavily Dem north of the county.

The issue is about how many districts will give the Dems a real chance, and how well urban minorities are kept intact.

[jimrtex]

They're still routing Fudge's district down to Akron via a horribly inefficient route.  And they seem to be obsessed with triple-splitting Mercer County. 

Not really.   If you go further east you have to go through Cuyahoga Falls.  This takes two relatively skinny cities in Cuyahoga (Seven Hills and Broadview Heights) and then a couple of townships in Summit County.

Further east, and you start cutting into OH-14 and OH-17 (now OH-13).

Well, Cuyahoga Falls can be split if necessary.  Use Macedonia/Twinsburg (bluer) and Boston Township (sparsely populated) to get down south. 

And OH-14 can make up population by taking more of the rural parts of Portage County, and OH-13 can make up population by taking Canton.  Perfect. 

OH-14 would be cut off from about 50,000 persons or more.   Which means that Ravenna is part of rural Portage County.  You can't go down the east side of Portage because that cuts off OH-13 (currently OH-17).  OH-13 currently takes Alliance from Stark, but that is all.  And Canton is already split two ways.   And then OH-16 would have to take the parts of Cuyahoga county dropped by OH-14.

The current delegation is 13:5.  They pair two Republicans and create a Democratic seat in Columbus.  That makes it 12:6.  They pair two Democrats to make it 12:5.   And they split another district between 7 other districts.  That makes it 12:4.  Move the path a bit east, and the 7-way split is harder to achieve.