Forum Redistricting Commission

[jimrtex]

Maybe potential commissioners could vote for states they would be interested in (approval voting) and then count those votes after the commissioners were selected at lot.

Or perhaps rate the states + 0 -.

The first decision of the commissioners would then to be choose the state from among those which they had expressed the most interest.

This does not preclude doing additional states with the same commissioners or others.

[jimrtex]

Some would like to start with a smaller state, so let me add another specific vote to take. I'll pick three smaller states that could also make interesting candidates that had legislative gerrymandering. If simpler is better to start, it's helpful if they don't involve the VRA and do have lots of internal political units to guide map making.

KY: 6 CDs, no VRA issues, lots of counties, bipartisan compromise for incumbents.

WI: 8 CDs, no VRA issues, townships to guide county chops, Pub gerrymander.

IN: 9 CDs, no VRA issues, townships to guide county chops, Pub gerrymander.

VA: 11 CDs, VRA issue, lots of counties and independent cities, Pub gerrymander and court challenge.

Since the non-commissioners will also be participating with maps, I think everyone should vote for the state. I like the idea of approval voting, so vote for any number of the states in the list.

IN+
WI+
VA+

KY o

[jimrtex]

Here's my initial Virginia map.

District 1 (Blue)

• Deviation: 290
• Election 2008: John McCain - 54.4%, Barack Obama - 44.7%
• Racial Breakdown: 73% White, 15.3% Black, 6.2% Hispanic

District 2 (Green)

• Deviation: -422
• Election 2008: Barack Obama - 49.8%, John McCain - 49.4%
• Racial Breakdown: 62.6% White, 23.3% Black, 5.9% Hispanic

District 3 (Purple)

• Deviation: -30
• Election 2008: Barack Obama - 64%, John McCain - 35.2%
• Racial Breakdown: 48.8% White, 35.2% Black, 5.9% Hispanic

District 4 (Red)

• Deviation: 83
• Election 2008: Barack Obama - 67.6%, John McCain - 31.7%
• Racial Breakdown: 51.8% Black, 39.3% White, 5.2% Hispanic

District 5 (Yellow)

• Deviation: -903
• Election 2008: John McCain - 51.2%, Barack Obama - 47.8%
• Racial Breakdown: 71.7% White, 21.5% Black

District 6 (Teal)

• Deviation: 586
• Election 2008: John McCain - 56.4%, Barack Obama - 42.5%
• Racial Breakdown: 83.9% White, 7.9% Black, 5.1% Hispanic

District 7 (Silver)

• Deviation: 352
• Election 2008: John McCain - 57.9%, Barack Obama - 41.3%
• Racial Breakdown: 76.2% White, 13.1% Black

District 8 (Slate Blue)

• Deviation: 384
• Election 2008: Barack Obama - 68.2%, John McCain - 30.9%
• Racial Breakdown: 52.8% White, 12.9% Black, 18.2% Hispanic 19.7%, 11.5% Asian

District 9 (Light Blue)

• Deviation: 501
• Election 2008: John McCain - 59.5%, Barack Obama - 39.1%
• Racial Breakdown: 91.8% White

District 10 (Pink)

• Deviation: -219
• Election 2008: Barack Obama - 57.4%, John McCain - 41.9%
• Racial Breakdown: 61.4% White, 6.2% Black, 11.6% Hispanic, 17.3% Asian

District 11 (Light Green)

• Deviation: -624
• Election 2008: Barack Obama - 58%, John McCain - 41.3%
• Racial Breakdown: 51.3% White, 14.8% Black, 18.2% Hispanic, 12% Asian

-Clean Majority-Minority district (VA-03), along with a black majority district (VA-04)

Why don't your racial percentages don't total to 100%?

[jimrtex]

This is based on maintaining Urban County Clusters, and limiting the splitting of counties.  As I had done for the UCC definition, I used the original counties, subject to annexations of independent cities into adjoining counties.

For that purpose - the following pairings are used: Lynchburg-Campbell County, Galax-Carroll County, Radford-Montgomery County, Alexandria-Arlington County, Falls Church-Fairfax-Fairfax County, Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania County, Richmond-Henrico County, Dinwiddie-Petersburg, Colonial Heights-Chesterfield County, Hopewell-Prince George County, Franklin-Southampton County, Williamsburg-James City County, Poquoson-York County, Norfolk-Portsmouth-Cheasapeake (Norfolk County).

Newport News, Hampton, Virgnia Beach, have annexed the entirety of their original counties of Warwick, Elizabeth City, Princess Anne, and Nasemond counties, respectively.

There are 3 large UCC's in Virginia that cover multiple counties, Washington (NOVA), Richmond, and Hampton Roads.  Each requires more than one congressional district.

The three large UCC's isolate the area along the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac Rivers.  Shifting the southern extension of the Washington UCC (Stafford, Fredericksburg IC, Spotsylvania) to this district along with James City and York from the Hampton Roads UCC, and wrapping around the Richmond UCC got the necessary population.

The remainder of the Washington UCC had a population of 3.067, and I considered using a maximum deviation of 2.5%.

Adding in the two Delmarva counties, put the Hampton Roads area at 1.996.  I had considered going across Cheasapeake Bay, but this would not get better population equality.

The Richmond UCC had a population equivalent to about 1.5 CD so I kept adding into the Southside until there was enough population for two districts.

I then drew the three western districts.  It turned out that the last only had a population of 0.927.   I had a large surplus in the Washington area, but did not systematically create a deficit elsewhere, and the deficit ended up in one district.  Arguably, the 3-district Washington area with its deviation of 0.067 had a systematic error, since it would have required all 3 districts to be close to the 2.5% limit.   Combining the 3-district area with the northern area gives a population of 3.994.

Shifting a few counties resulted in all 6 regions within 1%, including the multi-district regions.

I then noticed that the Fairfax County-Arlington County-Fairfax-Falls Church-Alexandria area had a population of 2.013, and the remainder 1.981.   This will permit creation of four districts within 1% error.

This will require a single split of Fairfax County, rather than two, and chopping off a chunk of Loudoun or Prince William counties.

In the Hampton Roads area, there will likely be a split of Norfolk, with most of the city added to Newport News-Hampton-Portsmouth, and the other district wrapping around south of Nortfolk and Portsmouth.

A case could be made that the split of York County and Poquoson is a chop.

A split of Chesterfield County is likely necessary in the Richmond area.  The total population of Chesterfield County-Henrico County-Richmond is 1.138, and trying to reach around from Richmond to south of the James, displaces other districts.  Splitting Chesterfield will keep the Southside district somewhat remote from Richmond.

[jimrtex]

Initial Submission



There are four split counties/independent cities: Cheasapeake city; Chesterfield County; Fairfax County; and Loudoun County.   The split of Fairfax County is necessary because of its size.  The others are reasonable because they help confine districts to urban areas.


Newport News-Hampton-Poquoson-Portsmouth-Norfolk is about 8% short of a CD, so I added the South Norfolk area of Cheasapeake IC.  Norfolk and Portsmouth were both formed from Norfolk County.  The independent city of South Norfolk was created in 1921.  In 1963 South Norfolk and the remainder of Norfolk County merged to form the city of Cheasapeake.

The area included in the VA-10 is generally inside the Hampton Roads Beltway (I-64).



The area of Chesapeake placed in VA-10 is 27.7% of the city, 8.4% of the CD, it is slightly more Black than the CD as a whole (42.5% vs 41.6%), and slightly less Obama-supporting (66.2% vs 67.6%)


CD Population CD Pop. % County % CD    White   Black   Hisp.  Asian  AIAN   Other  2-way  Obama    McCain
10    61549   730192   27.7%    8.4%   48.8%   42.5%   5.1%   1.7%   0.4%   1.6%   27241   66.2%   33.8%
11   160660   728792   72.3%   22.0%   67.8%   23.6%   3.2%   3.5%   0.3%   1.6%   79378   45.3%   54.7%
     222209           100.0%           62.5%   28.8%   3.7%   3.0%   0.3%   1.6%  106619   50.6%   49.4%


Henrico-Hanover-Richmond is about 16% short of a CD.   The area added from Chesterfield County generally extends outward from the part of Richmond south of the James River.



VA-5 includes Arlington County, Alexandria, Falls Church, and the east part of Fairfax County, generally south of Washington, as opposed to west of Washington.

The area included is generally inside the Beltway, except on the west in the McLean area, or east of I-95 southward along the Potomac.   The western boundary is generally Lorton-Newington-Springfield-Annandale-Jefferson-Falls Church-Arlington County.



Loudoun plus Prince William (including Manassas and Manassas Park) have an excess of 5.4%.  The 13 county area to the south has a deficit of 7.3% (for a collective deficit of 1.9%).   Splitting the difference, an area with about 6.4% of CD needs to be split off.   This is roughly 15% of the total population of Loudoun County.

The area detached Loudoun County is in the less developed portion of the county, west of US-15 and Leesburg.



Statistics (right click, view image to make readable size).



Population Equality

Mean Absolute Deviation: 0.61%; Standard Deviation 0.65%; Range 1.76%.

Political:

Republican Uncompetitive (5): 1, 2, 3, 7, 9.
Republican Competitive (1): 11
Even (0):
Democratic Competitive (3): 4, 6, 8
Democratic Uncompetitive (2): 5, 10

Skew: Statewide(0) - Republican(6) + Democratic(5) = -1
Polarization: Even(0)*0 + Competitive(4)*1 + Uncompetitive(7)*2 = 18

[jimrtex]

Is there a way to get county splits in DRA?

I was going to increase the number of CDs, then color the extra "CDs" for the county parts.  This should give me demographic and political data for the split county parts.

But when I increment the number of districts, all the existing districts disappear.

[jimrtex]

Is there a way to get county splits in DRA?

I was going to increase the number of CDs, then color the extra "CDs" for the county parts.  This should give me demographic and political data for the split county parts.

But when I increment the number of districts, all the existing districts disappear.

Unfortunately no. The best I've found is to either reserve many additional districts and keep track of the real quota on my own spreadsheet, or to make a number of separate DRA files after the fact to highlight the chops.

There is one shortcut to all this that I've used quite effectively. Once the map is complete, I double check with the Find Unassigned Dists tool. After everything is assigned I can unassign any county fragment and look at the demographics of both the fragment and the remaining district. It can be time consuming for a lot of fragments, but it avoids clearing the original map.

I figured out a way.

Under file: Save VTD data as CSV,

This creates a CSV file.   For each VTD, there is the Census ID, District Assignment, VTD name, and County (or City), followed by the demographic and political data for the VTD.

I calculated my statistics for my CDs from the similar Save CD data as CSV.   It would seem useful to have people submit the CD CSV file to you, or maybe set up something on Google apps.

[jimrtex]

Since no commissioners have weighed in on the items before the commission, I'm not sure how to proceed. The process will drag out, and there will probably be a lack of interest if things don't keep moving. Commissioners morgieb, Miles, Del Tachi, and ElectionsGuy have all posted to the Atlas since Items 4 and 5 were posted, but not on those items. Only Fuzzybigfoot has been off since 11/26, and that's why there are two alternates: X and SLCValleyMan. Any feedback into how to get this on track is welcomed.

If the Virginia commission were operating under the terms of the Florida constitution, items 4 and 5 would be outlawed since they are politically-based.

The current litigation in Florida was whether or not the legislature was indirectly influenced to make political decisions.   The problem in Florida is that the legislature is a political body, and you would hope that they would be susceptible to political arguments.

In Britain, where the boundary commissions are independent, public representations by political parties are quite acceptable and ordinary, but they have to be cast in terms that the commission can recognize, such as communities of interest.

I would suggest that items 4 and 5 not be used directly by the commission, but that we (the forum community) use them as metrics for the process as a whole.

[jimrtex]

Since no commissioners have weighed in on the items before the commission, I'm not sure how to proceed. The process will drag out, and there will probably be a lack of interest if things don't keep moving. Commissioners morgieb, Miles, Del Tachi, and ElectionsGuy have all posted to the Atlas since Items 4 and 5 were posted, but not on those items. Only Fuzzybigfoot has been off since 11/26, and that's why there are two alternates: X and SLCValleyMan. Any feedback into how to get this on track is welcomed.

If the Virginia commission were operating under the terms of the Florida constitution, items 4 and 5 would be outlawed since they are politically-based.

The current litigation in Florida was whether or not the legislature was indirectly influenced to make political decisions.   The problem in Florida is that the legislature is a political body, and you would hope that they would be susceptible to political arguments.

In Britain, where the boundary commissions are independent, public representations by political parties are quite acceptable and ordinary, but they have to be cast in terms that the commission can recognize, such as communities of interest.

I would suggest that items 4 and 5 not be used directly by the commission, but that we (the forum community) use them as metrics for the process as a whole.

I included them as measures since political data is explicitly required by the AZ commission and were part of the proposal for an OH commission. Good government groups I've spoken with are divided as to the need to use or forbid the use of the political measures of a plan. Personally, I think that clever mappers will find a way to gain a political advantage even with extensive neutral rules (see MI). Political measures provide one means to determine if the rules have been gamed.

However, it is because of the political nature of this data that I placed SKEW and POLARIZATION as after-the-fact measures in Item 3. They can not be used to exclude a plan, but can be used to guide the commission's final selection. I also believe that commissioners will have inherent biases towards certain plans and the political data simply provides a check on those inherent biases.

In Arizona, the use of the rule may have led to skewing of the results.  With so much of the population in a few counties, it is unlikely that but for that measure the competitive seats would tend to be underpopulated.

And it may be contrary to good representation.   Putting Cuyahoga and Holmes counties into a single district does not lead to good representative, even if it somehow led to a competitive race.  The representative can not be representative of the district, nor effectively represent the district since its interests are so disparate.  The initial redistricting initiative in Ohio may have failed because of the maps  that were produced showing you can get a long way from Cleveland without splitting counties.

[jimrtex]

AZ suffered from the mandate of competitiveness, not its inclusion. Since the commission was compelled to maximize the number of competitive districts, they were sensitive to a data set that was prone to skew their resulting districts. The maps produced by the opponents of the 2005 OH initiative also used the maximization of competitive districts to get strange results. The competing initiatives in 2010 which did not reach the ballot used political data as part of a mix of factors and did not prioritize it in a way that was likely to warp the final plan.

IIRC, the illustrative map in Ohio was not produced by the opponents.

[jimrtex]

The Ohio thing failed because of the wording of the description Husted forced the measure to use at a point so close to the printing of the ballots that there wasn't time for any sort of legal challenge, IIRC.  He forced it to use wording that left most voters confused about what it would actually do.  I think we can all agree that 99.99% of voters didn't vote for or against that measure because of concerns about what type of district you could draw for Cuyahoga County without splitting counties.  As for Arizona, while the map was basically a pretty fair map.  Four safe Republican seats, two safe Democratic seats, one competitive seat that has a small Democratic tilt, and two competitive seats with a slight Republican tilt seems like about what you'd expect from a fair Arizona map.  It just happened that a fair map benefited Democrats more in Arizona just as it would have benefited Republicans more had their been a truly independent redistricting commission in Illinois. 

Husted was not Secretary of State in 2005.

It failed because the proponents produced a map which had "competitive" districts running across the state.   These maps were published in editorials by newspapers opposing the measure.

[jimrtex]

Let's add to the discussion the I in SPICE: Inequality.

Definition: Quota. The quota is the total population of a state divided by the number of districts rounded to the nearest whole number.
Definition: Deviation. The deviation is the difference between the population of a district and the quota. Negative numbers indicate a district that has a population that is smaller than the quota.
Definition: Range. The range is the difference in population between the largest and smallest district in a plan.
Definition: Average Deviation. The average deviation is the average of the absolute values of the deviations for all districts in a plan.

Background: SCOTUS has set two different standards for districts. Legislative and local districts must be substantially equal and that has been interpreted to be a range not exceeding 10% of the quota. Congressional districts must be as equal as practicable, and for some time that was assumed to mean that only exact equality would do. However, the recent WV case makes it clear that a range of up to 1% of the quota is acceptable when driven by other neutral redistricting factors. Greater than 1% might also be acceptable, but 10% would presumably not be because that is set by a different standard. It's an evolving area in the law.

Item 6. All plans must have a range not exceeding 1% of the quota. For VA the quota is 727,366 and the maximum range would be 7,273.

Background: Some time ago there were some threads that tried to optimize the population equality of districts with no county splits. The result of that exercise was the following graph.



Each square represents a state. New England states used towns instead of counties, and states with counties too large for a district assumed that a whole number of counties would nest inside the large county. The more counties available per district, the closer to equality one could achieve, and the relation is logarithmic in population. The green line represents the best fit to the data. Data for average deviation can be fit as well, but the result is not substantially different other than the scale factor that has the average deviation equal to about 1/4 the range.

The average state has about 72 counties and if one divides that number into 2, 3, 4, etc. districts then one can use the fit from the data in the graph to predict a likely range. That in turn can be built into a table.

Item 7. The INEQUALITY score for a plan is found by taking the range for a plan and comparing it to the table below.

Range	Inequality
0-1	0
2-10	1
11-100	2
101-400	3
401-900	4
901-1600	5
1601-2400	6
2401-3200	7
3201-4000	8
4001-4800	9
4801-5600	10
5601-6300	11
6301-7000	12
7001-7700	13

I'd like discussion/voting to conclude by Friday 12/5 at 11:59 pm EST.

There is no reason for such a tight limit on range since it leads to gratuitous chops and gerrymandering.

[jimrtex]

There is no reason for such a tight limit on range since it leads to gratuitous chops and gerrymandering.

The commission can amend an item. However, a 10% range is presumably too large, since it is the allowed state standard and the federal standard is stricter. Federal ranges of up to 1% have been upheld, and like with the VRA the commission has to determine if it wishes to push federal law by extending beyond what is clearly permissible.

Speaking of the commission, ElectionsGuy has PM'ed me to say that he declines to take a seat on the commission. That moves X into the role of commissioner. JerryArkansas now joins SLCValleyMan as an alternate.

'Tennant' makes it clear that 'Karcher' was misread, and that "practicable" must take into account whether the deviations of a plan are necessary as a consequence of other state objectives.  There is nothing in 'Karcher' nor 'Kirkpatrick' that says 1% is an outside limit.

It happens that New Jersey, using townships could reach such a limit, and so could West Virginia.

Ideally, a Virginia commission would have established its other criteria first rather than after the population equality criteria.

[jimrtex]

Ideally, a Virginia commission would have established its other criteria first rather than after the population equality criteria.

I understand that, but a commission will still have a number in mind as to the outside limit of range. Even in local jurisdictions that I've worked with the body sets a range if they want to be tighter than 10% before they weigh in on other criteria. Practicable is still going to be tighter than substantially equal, so the federal standard is going to be stricter than the state standard. How far can SCOTUS go before it looks like the federal standard isn't really different than the state standard?

Wesberry v Sanders was decided on the wrong basis.   Read Justice White's concurring opinion.  And it was a mistake to set a safe harbor of 5% for state and local redistricting.  Both lead to gerrymandering.

Consider the current Virginia litigation.  Virginia reduced the number of chops, but then claimed that some were necessary to get equal population, and therefore it was OK to have bunches for VA-3.  Had they set a higher standard for political integrity, then they couldn't have done all the chops for VA-3.

If we are going to use the fundamental principle behind 'Wesberry v Sanders', then we should be balancing CVAP.

[jimrtex]

As an interest group representative from the Shenandoah Valley, I would like to express my opinion of the various preceding maps.

Jimrtex: Your plan slices and dices the natural community of interest in NW Virginia. It is unacceptable.

Do you like this better?

[jimrtex]

[Wesberry v Sanders was decided on the wrong basis.   Read Justice White's concurring opinion.  And it was a mistake to set a safe harbor of 5% for state and local redistricting.  Both lead to gerrymandering.

Consider the current Virginia litigation.  Virginia reduced the number of chops, but then claimed that some were necessary to get equal population, and therefore it was OK to have bunches for VA-3.  Had they set a higher standard for political integrity, then they couldn't have done all the chops for VA-3.

If we are going to use the fundamental principle behind 'Wesberry v Sanders', then we should be balancing CVAP.

I agree with you about how VA could have fared better in court, but that doesn't address population variance. The theoretical question of constitutional law doesn't necessarily solve the problem that would face a real commission today. In general a commission acts after a Census has released new population data. If the districts are malapportioned due to the new populations, then they must be redrawn. That forces the question as to how much variance in a CD would be construed as malapportioned after a Census, since that then sets the inequality goal for the commission. Despite the lack of clarity on that point in Karcher and other cases, experts will advise redistricting panels as to what range inequality may be a safe harbor when other neutral criteria are used in the plan. Given that SCOTUS has upheld plans of nearly 1% range, that number seems like sound advice to a commission, unless that commission specifically wants to set up a test case to demonstrate that larger ranges will survive SCOTUS scrutiny.

That a commission acts after the census has been released is a flaw in process.

If Virginia had set a more relaxed population standard in order to better conform to political subdivisions and UCCs, then they would never been able to produce VA-3, or if they had, it would have been so off the charts in terms of chops, that it could not be created.  Virginia is hiding their use of exact population equality, and purported intent to reduce chops.

Experts will advise legislators that they can get away with murder if they adhere to strict population equality.

The principle behind an independent commission is that they don't want to commit murder.  Any advisers would take that into account.

Alternatively, the commission could do like was done in Arkansas after the 2000 census, when the legislature passed two plans, one a whole-county plan, and another with three county splits that would make the districts identical in population.

Nobody challenged the whole county plan.

Anybody who sues over population equality is not trying to get population equality.  They are trying to use any population inequality as a basis for a larger attack, which will cause a court to redraw the map.

Making small gratuitous chops of a few 1000 people won't be worth the effort of suing.

I have produced a plan with 3 chops, all within UCC within 1% deviation.  If an alternative within 0.5% deviation balloons the number of chops and ignores UCC, then the greater equality serves no legitimate or rational purpose.

[jimrtex]

That a commission acts after the census has been released is a flaw in process.

If the Census shows the population changes to the district have induced minimal variations to equal population, there is no reason for the commission to act at all. Therefore the commission must wait for the Census results.

There is an 8.4% difference between VA-9 and VA-10 according to the 2013 ACS.  It would gross negligence to wait until 2021.

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I have no disagreement, other than to add that VA still had the constraint of creating a CD where the black population would be likely to elect the candidate of their choice.
[/quote]
There is no area in Virginia that satisfies the first prong of the Gingles test.

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True, but in local redistricting the question is still put the body as to what maximum range they will tolerate, and many adopt a standard tighter than 10%. In light of Tennant, I would expect advisers to congressional commissions to do the same, but pose the question in terms of what range will they consider to be consistent with a minor variance: 0.79%, 1%, 2%, etc.
[/quote]
Did West Virginia do this?

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The range of the AR plan was very nearly 1% (1.002% from the Statistical Abstract for 2003). Even if it was challenged and upheld it wouldn't give us much guidance beyond the 0.8% allowed in Tennant.
[/quote]
Kanawha County has 191,000 persons.  The next most populous county, Berkeley, barely half of that.  Pulaski County has 391,000.

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And if a 2% range is ok, then someone else will propose a plan with fewer chops or less erosity and a 5% range and claim its ok by the same logic. But at some point variances cease to be minor. I don't know where that point is but it is presumably somewhere between 0.8% and 9.6% based on the facts in Tennant. As an adviser I would leave that decision to the commission.
[/quote]
Even more reason to put emphasis on the standard deviation or mean absolute deviation.

It may be worthwhile for the commission to consider the zero chop plans, rather than a priori setting a hard deviation limit.

[jimrtex]

There is no area in Virginia that satisfies the first prong of the Gingles test.

I can construct a >50% BVAP CD that includes none of Richmond or Petersburg and is all whole counties/cities (Brunswick to Surry to Suffolk) plus the black areas of the independent cities of the Hampton Roads. It is compact by almost any standard geographic measure, since the erosity is confined to those relatively small areas in the Hampton Roads. The fact that it links rural and urban areas would not cause it to fail Gingles 1.

Brunswick is at least as far from Hampton Roads as Richmond.   I assume you crack Newport News, Hampton, Portsmouth, Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.   Do you exclude Isle of Wight?

You have violated traditional redistricting concepts such as integrity of political subdivisions, and unnecessary agglomeration of rural and urbam areas makes it conceptually non-compact.  Your proposed district is no better than the district turned down in Lulac v Perry

[jimrtex]

Proposed combinations of counties and independent cities.

While independent cities in Virginia are treated as county equivalents by the Census Bureau, they really don't represent separate communities of interest, and in some cases are not totally legally separate, with some sharing county offices with their surrounding counties.  The Bureau of Economic Affairs only treats independent cities as a separate entity if they have a population over 100,000, or have absorbed all of their former county.  To some extent in Virginia, "independent city" and "city" are almost synonymous.  The largest towns that are not independent cities are Leesburg and Blacksburg, both with less than 50,000 persons.

Treating independent cities as counties for redistricting purposes causes problems for erosity and chop measurements because of their typical small size.

Hampton, Newport News, and Virginia Beach qualify under both the population criteria and having absorbed their orignal county.  Chesapeake does in a certain sense, since it has 222,000 persons, and since it was created by the merger of the independent city of South Norfolk and remainder of Norfolk County, not in Norfolk or Portsmouth.   Suffolk city qualifies based on its annexation of Nansemond city, which itself was created from the remnant of Nansemond County not in Suffolk city.

The only large independent cities that have not absorbed all of their original counties are Richmond, Roanoke, and Alexandria.  This leaves Henrico, Roanoke, and Arlington counties as the only remainders of counties from which the larger cities have separated.  Roanoke County also includes the smaller independent city of Salem.   The District of Columbia originally had two counties, Washington (the portion ceded by Maryland) and Alexandria (the portion ceded by Virginia) and three municipalities, Alexandria, Georgetown, and Washington.  When the area south of the Potomac was retroceded to Virginia, it became Alexandria County, Virginia.  The portion not within Alexandria city was renamed to Arlington County in 1920.

The Bureau of Economic Affairs combines Colonial Heights with Dinwiddie County and Petersburg city.  This is problematic since Colonial Heights is barely contiguous with Petersburg, and was created from Chesterfield County.  Placing it with Dinwiddie County would give greater importance to economics than political history, and would call in to question the whole concept of using political subdivisions as representing communities of interest.  So in the following tables, I have placed Colonial Heights with Chesterfield County.

Most independent cities were created from a single county, though some have annexed areas in adjacent counties.   Galax city is the exception, having been created from almost equal population from Carroll and Grayson counties.  The Census Bureau and BEA both place Galax with Carroll County.

Independent Cities that are combined with original counties, or are treated as counties for chop and erosity analysis.

Albemarle + Charlottesville
Alexandria  (IC)
Alleghany + Covington
Augusta, Staunton + Waynesboro
Bedford + Bedford city (as of 2013, Bedford is no longer an independent city).
Campbell + Lynchburg
Carroll + Galax
Chesapeake (IC)
Chesterfield + Colonial Heights
Dinwiddie + Petersburg
Fairfax, Fairfax City + Falls Church
Frederick + Winchester
Greensville + Emporia
Hampton (IC)
Henry + Martinsville
James City county + Williamsburg
Montgomery + Radford
Newport News (IC)
Norfolk (IC)
Pittsylvania + Danville
Portsmouth (IC)
Prince George + Hopewell
Prince William, Manassas + Manassas Park
Richmond (IC)
Roanoke (IC) (Roanoke city is separate from Roanoke County because of its population)
Roanoke + Salem (but Roanoke County includes Salem (IC)).
Rockbridge, Buena Vista + Lexington
Rockingham + Harrisonburg
Southampton + Franklin
Spotsylvania + Fredericksburg
Suffolk (IC)
Virginia Beach (IC)
Washington + Bristol
Wise + Norton
York + Poquoson

Counties with no associated independent cities for measurement of chop and erosity.

Accomack
Amelia
Amherst
Appomattox
Arlington
Bath
Bland
Botetourt
Brunswick
Buchanan
Buckingham
Caroline
Charles City county
Charlotte
Clarke
Craig
Culpeper
Cumberland
Dickenson
Essex
Fauquier
Floyd
Fluvanna
Franklin
Giles
Gloucester
Goochland
Grayson
Greene
Halifax
Hanover
Henrico
Highland
Isle of Wight
King George
King William
King and Queen
Lancaster
Lee
Loudoun
Louisa
Lunenburg
Madison
Mathews
Mecklenburg
Middlesex
Nelson
New Kent
Northampton
Northumberland
Nottoway
Orange
Patrick
Powhatan
Prince Edward
Pulaski
Rappahannock
Richmond county
Russell
Scott
Shenandoah
Smyth
Stafford
Surry
Sussex
Tazewell
Warren
Westmoreland
Wythe

[jimrtex]

Proposed combinations of counties and independent cities.

While independent cities in Virginia are treated as county equivalents by the Census Bureau, they really don't represent separate communities of interest, and in some cases are not totally legally separate, with some sharing county offices with their surrounding counties.  The Bureau of Economic Affairs only treats independent cities as a separate entity if they have a population over 100,000, or have absorbed all of their former county.  To some extent in Virginia, "independent city" and "city" are almost synonymous.  The largest towns that are not independent cities are Leesburg and Blacksburg, both with less than 50,000 persons.

Treating independent cities as counties for redistricting purposes causes problems for erosity and chop measurements because of their typical small size.

Hampton, Newport News, and Virginia Beach qualify under both the population criteria and having absorbed their orignal county.  Chesapeake does in a certain sense, since it has 222,000 persons, and since it was created by the merger of the independent city of South Norfolk and remainder of Norfolk County, not in Norfolk or Portsmouth.   Suffolk city qualifies based on its annexation of Nansemond city, which itself was created from the remnant of Nansemond County not in Suffolk city.

The only large independent cities that have not absorbed all of their original counties are Richmond, Roanoke, and Alexandria.  This leaves Henrico, Roanoke, and Arlington counties as the only remainders of counties from which the larger cities have separated.  Roanoke County also includes the smaller independent city of Salem.   The District of Columbia originally had two counties, Washington (the portion ceded by Maryland) and Alexandria (the portion ceded by Virginia) and three municipalities, Alexandria, Georgetown, and Washington.  When the area south of the Potomac was retroceded to Virginia, it became Alexandria County, Virginia.  The portion not within Alexandria city was renamed to Arlington County in 1920.

The Bureau of Economic Affairs combines Colonial Heights with Dinwiddie County and Petersburg city.  This is problematic since Colonial Heights is barely contiguous with Petersburg, and was created from Chesterfield County.  Placing it with Dinwiddie County would give greater importance to economics than political history, and would call in to question the whole concept of using political subdivisions as representing communities of interest.  So in the following tables, I have placed Colonial Heights with Chesterfield County.

Most independent cities were created from a single county, though some have annexed areas in adjacent counties.   Galax city is the exception, having been created from almost equal population from Carroll and Grayson counties.  The Census Bureau and BEA both place Galax with Carroll County.

Since there hasn't been much discussion on this point, and only one alternate vote, this seems like a potential amendment to Item 8 before the commission. The originally proposed Item 8 is

Item 8. The primary units of redistricting in VA are the counties and independent cities. Independent cities are treated as equal to counties for redistricting, and are understood to be included when scoring describes counties. Secondary units in redistricting may include larger communities of interest made up of groups of whole counties and smaller communities of interest that wholly divide a county as adopted by the commission.

An amended version to consider is
Item 8A. The primary units of redistricting in VA are the counties. Independent cities are treated as equal to counties for redistricting when the independent cities have populations in excess of 100,000 or have absorbed all of their former county. These qualified independent cities are understood to be included when scoring describes counties. Other independent cities are considered to be part of the county that they are assigned to by the Bureau of Economic Affairs. Secondary units in redistricting may include larger communities of interest made up of groups of whole counties and smaller communities of interest that wholly divide a county as adopted by the commission.

I avoided creating a special exception for Colonial Heights. There are a number of states that have discontiguous counties and municipalities, and I'm not troubled by creating one here in the interest of uniform rules. Of course the commission is free to vote on either Item 8, 8A, or 8A with the Colonial Heights exception.

An alternative definition is provided in the publication Population of States and Counties of the United States, 1790 to 1990.  See Virginia section beginning on publication page 166, PDF page 177.

The BEA standard does provide an objective standard for separating larger cities.   But a state commission would be competent to make its own standard.   I regard the BEA standard for Colonial Heights to be exceptional, rather than other way around.

If creating its own standard based on population of cities, the commission might consider the following:  The largest towns in Virginia are Leesburg and Blacksburg, with populations in the mid-40,000s.   Virginia does not have "independent cities" per se, but rather cities are indepedent of their county, while municipalities which are towns are not.  The independent cities that are of comparable size, Charlottesville, Danville, and Harrisonburg are well interior to their respective counties of Albermarle, Pittsylvania, and Rockingham, such that to even reach the cities with a district boundary, the county would necessarily be split/

The next largest independent city is Lynchburg, with a population of just over 75,000.  A threshold of 50,000 might be used, since that is the threshold for classifying an area as metropolitan statistical area.  On the other hand, metropolitan statistical areas are comprised of counties, so using an independent city is somewhat anomalous, on a national scale.  Lynchburg is also problematic because of its location at the intersection of three counties.   Rather than being treated of a community of interest, it might serve as an attractor for a district boundary.

Cities and counties of interest in setting a standard:

Citiies that have absorbed all of their former counties:

Hampton (Elizabeth City county).
Newport News (Warwick)
Suffolk (Nansemond)
Virginia Beach (Princess Anne)

Three independent cities formed from the former Norfolk County.  The city of Norfolk has also annexed territory from Princess Anne County, prior to that county becoming Virginia Beach.  Norfolk and Portsmouth were from created from Norfolk County, as was the independent city of South Norfolk.  In 1963, South Norfolk merged with the remainder of Norfolk County to become the city of Chesapeake.  Note that Portsmouth no longer has a population over 100,000.  Combination of Portsmouth with Chesapeake seems somewhat odd.  And combining all three may encourage chopping of the cities, which might count as a single chop.  It might also be possible to distinguish a city chop from a county chop.

Norfolk (IC)
Portsmouth (IC)
Chesapeake (IC)

Two entities that were originally ceded to the United States to form the District of Columbia, and then retroceded to form Alexandria County.  After Alexandria city separated, the remainder was renamed Arlington County.  Alexandria has also annexed considerable territory from Fairfax County.  A division between the two is not a problem, and treating cuts of both as one would be.

Alexandria  (IC)
Arlington

Richmond has annexed south of the James River, including the independent city of Manchester, and other territory from Chesterfield County, such that the logical unit for a metropolitan government might consist of Chesterfield and Henrico counties and Richmond.  Chesterfield now is the most populous of the three.  Combining as a single entity might encourage additional chops of the separate entities.

Richmond (IC)
Henrico
Chesterfield + Colonial Heights

It would be impossible to split Roanoke city without splitting Roanoke County, so combining might encourage splitting of both.

Roanoke (IC)
Roanoke + Salem (but Roanoke County includes Salem (IC)).

Cutting the threshold to 50,000 would permit Lynchburg to be treated as a separate entity, which appears to be on a map at the junction of three counties.

Campbell + Lynchburg

Colonial Heights was formed from Chesterfield County but is nearer to Petersburg than Richmond.  Petersburg is in the corner of Dinwiddie County, and when formed also included territory from Chesterfield and Prince George counties, and has also annexed territory from Prince George county.  A case might be made for making Petersburg separate on VRA reasons (is is 77% black).  Physically, it appears to have largely cut out from Prince George county.

Chesterfield + Colonial Heights
Dinwiddie + Petersburg

[jimrtex]

District numbering.   To make it easier to compare plans, may a suggest the following numbering scheme.

Generally, there will be two districts in the Hampton Roads area, three in the remainder of the eastern Piedmond/Tidewater areas, three in the western mountain areas, and three in the Washington/NOVA areas.

So specifically.

1) The district that includes the largest share of Virginia Beach.
2) The other district than includes the largest share of the Hampton Roads UCC (York and James City counties, plus independent cities of Poquoson, Williamsburg, Newport News, Hampton, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Norfolk, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach).

3) District containing areas north of the James River to the Potomac.
4) District containing the largest share of Richmond (if 4 and 2 are the same, then another district that is generally between 3 and 5.
5) District containing the Southside.

6) District containing the western tip of Virginia.
7) Next more northerly district.
8) Next more northerly district.

11) District containing largest share of Arlington County and Alexandria city.
10) District containing largest share of Fairfax and Arlington counties, Alexandria, Fairfax, and Falls Church county.
9) District including largest share of Washington UCC (above plus Loudon, Prince William, Stafford, and Spotsylvania counties, and the cities of Manassas, Manassas Park, and Fredericksburg).

Even if all your districts don't fit the above scheme, some will.  Fit those districts to the scheme, and then assign the other numbers.

[jimrtex]

8A) Jimrtex suggested that most should be merged into their original counties which brings the three additional variations. His initial variation merges all but the 7 ICs with populations over 100K (Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Richmond, Newport News, Alexandria, and Hampton), but that leaves the awkward case of Suffolk which has absorbed all of its county but is only 85K, and Portsmouth which is 95K but has no county to merge into since Chesapeake already took it all.

My original rule would have included cities that had absorbed their original county; and cities with over 100,000 population.   So Suffolk is not an awkward case, while Virginia Beach, Hampton, and Newport News qualify under both criteria.   Portsmouth and Roanoke have at one time had over 100,000 population, so that you could conceivably have had a grandfather clause.  They certainly are of "county scale".   The median Virginia county is around 25,000.  You could make a reasonable case for them remaining "independent" of their county, other than them having spilled over into their surrounding county.

8B) The next variation merges only those cities under 50K, which solves the above problem and also leaves Roanoke and Lynchburg acting as counties for redistricting purposes. Lynchburg is the smallest of these at 75K.

In addition, the largest towns, Blacksburg and Leesburg are just below 50,000.  Lynchburg-Campbell County would remain a UCC.  I had originally set the threshold at 50,000, but had changed it to 100,000 to match the Bureau of Economic Analysis definition.  But it turns out that the BEA does not follow its own criteria in the case of Portsmouth and Roanoke (I was quite sure they must have 100,000 population, until I actually checked).

8C) When we worked on urban areas last year the agreed standard for a county to be urban was for it to have at least 25K urbanized population or 40% urbanized. If the 25K population threshold is applied to ICs, then 6 more ICs would be treated as separate counties: Harrisonburg, Charlottesville, Danville, Manassas, Petersburg, and Winchester. The most important of these is Petersburg since is is overwhelmingly black and whether it is counted as independent or part of Dinwiddie county is likely to affect the scoring of plans dealing with the VRA district.

A problem with this definition is that I deliberately included the surrounding counties when defining the UCC, because the independent cities included enough of the urban areas that the counties were being disqualified.   Yet, without the urbanized areas overlapping the city limit, the 50K threshold to be a metropolitan area would not be met.

The independent cities proper are close 100% urbanized.  If they do have any open areas, very few persons live in them.

The 40%/25K standard should really be read as:

40% or more urban; or if less than 40% urban, at least 25K in urbanized areas.   While mathematically equivalent, the second version connotes the derivation as a county that is substantially (at minimum large plurality) urban or has a large urban presence (1/2 the population needed to qualify as a metropolitan area.

You could also it formulate as:

25K or more urban; or if less than 25K urban, 40% urban.  Mathematically accurate, but missing the point, and in this case, giving Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, and Danville a metropolitan status that they would not have without the surrounding county.