FL: Rereredistricting

[Nyvin]

It looks like the FL Republicans in the state legislature are pushing for a mixed minority district in Orange County, similar to Torie's earlier map.    It doesn't seem to be favored by the FL Supreme Court though.

[Torie]

It looks like the FL Republicans in the state legislature are pushing for a mixed minority district in Orange County, similar to Torie's earlier map.    It doesn't seem to be favored by the FL Supreme Court though.

Where did you pick that up?

It all depends on how the numbers work. My revised map gives a black a pretty good chance of winning the primary in FL-10, because so many of the white voters vote in the Pub primary (55% WVAP, 24% BVAP, 15% HVAP), so a black has a pretty good chance of winning the Dem primary, and then has to win a 2% Dem PVI CD. Possible but no slam dunk. The max Hispanic CD for FL-11 gets up to about 41% HVAP (44% WVAP, 41% HVAP, 9% BVAP), not enough to elect an Hispanic probably. So if you draw a mixed black and Hispanic CD (that also packs the Dems), the percentage of blacks voting will go up since fewer Hispanics vote than whites, but those Hispanics who do vote would tend to vote in the Dem primary, so the percentage of blacks who vote in the Dem primary might go down. But assuming a black wins the primary still, then it's a slam dunk for the black to win the General election.

So it all comes down to the number crunching, as to what extent Hispanics will vote for a black, and blacks for Hispanics for that matter, in Dem primaries. If my revised map elected both a black and an Hispanic, then it's the winner that SCOFLA would have to accept really. If it will elect a black, with another CD that maxes the Hispanic influence as well, but without actually electing an Hispanic, it's still pretty attractive. The legislative map will probably elect a black in FL-10, but no Hispanic (45% WVAP, 25% BVAP, 23% HVAP), and with no Hispanic influence CD. The mixed Hispanic-black Dem pack CD will have more Hispanic influence (37% WVAP, 22% BVAP, 35% HVAP), than the legislative map, but if Hispanics tend to vote for a white in the Dem primary, it's possible it will be less likely to elect a minority than any of the other options. For it to really fly, the opposite needs to be shown really, to wit, that only such a mixed CD will elect a minority from the Orlando area. That strikes me as going to be rather difficult to show.

The important thing to bear in mind here, in playing will all of this, is about two thirds of the whites in the area vote in the Pub primary. That is what creates the potential to elect a black in a CD that is only about 24% BVAP, and otherwise largely white, with the impact of having more Hispanics and fewer whites a subject for speculation, which really needs some data to know one way or the other.

As to FL-05, I repeat that the legislative map makes it vulnerable to a Constitutional challenge as a racial gerrymander. It needs to minimize county chops to insulate it from that kind of challenge. Thus I stand by my map that minimizes such chops. It has 39% BVAP, which means that a majority of the Dem primary voters will be black (outside of Leon County, again most whites vote in the Pub primary), so that percentage is enough to elect a minority in all events, assuming black primary voters mostly vote for a black, which is all that even Florida law requires.

[edtorres04]

Torie, where are you seeing that the Pubs want to do a mixed minority district in Orlando?  I can't find that anywhere.

[Torie]

Torie, where are you seeing that the Pubs want to do a mixed minority district in Orlando?  I can't find that anywhere.

That comment came from Nyvin, and I asked him the same question.

[Nyvin]

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https://twitter.com/mcimaps

[Torie]

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https://twitter.com/mcimaps

This means that staff considers the FL-10 that they drew to be a coalition district. It sort of is in fact, but it's light on Hispanics. Playing with spreadsheets and certain assumptions, the district they drew will probably have a higher percentage of blacks voting in the Dem primary, than the Dem pack CD that I originally drew, that has 35% HVAP, as opposed to their 25% or so HVAP CD. As the percentage of Hispanics goes up, the odds that a white will be nominated in the Dem primary will also go up, is my conclusion from playing with the numbers, assuming that no more than about 15% of the Hispanics would vote for a black in the primary, all things being equal.

I conclude that if the Pubs want to Pub up FL-10, the way to do it, is to the way of my second map, where the black percentage in the Dem primary will be almost as high, the CD is still lean Dem (modestly, about 55% Obama 2008), and you get a second CD that is 41% HVAP, and probably more now, and avoid splitting the contiguous Hispanic community in the Orlando metro area. The much less Hispanic CD that the staff drew (FL-11) is about 55+% Obama 2012, so more Dem by a couple of points than my FL-10, and no doubt trending Dem more rapidly than my version of FL-10, that has a lot of white suburban area. So the Pubs in essence gain close to half a seat this way, with pretty low legal risk vis a vis SCOFLA.

The closed partisan primary system in Florida results in surprising outcomes, in areas where the percentage of whites voting in the Dem primary is so low.

[Torie]

The House subcommittee in Florida voted for the staff map with no changes, with 4 Democrats voting no, I think on a 9-4 vote. Maybe they are just terrified of SCOFLA, and think anything they do to change things, will give an excuse to SCOFLA to draw an even less pleasant map for them.

[windjammer]

Any big changes between these versions and the initial version?

[Nyvin]

Any big changes between these versions and the initial version?

It looks like the Senate version added the rest of the heavy hispanic areas of Orange to FL-9, and then let FL-10 go a bit into Lake Co. to compensate.   FL-9 will be a point or two more Dem, FL-10 will be a point or two more GOP. 

Also Sarasota Co is completely in FL-16, which is a good change imo.

That's all i can see from the map.

[muon2]

It looks like the Senate map has eliminated one county chop compared to the House plan.

[muon2]

Rep. Jose Oliva has proposed an amendment to move 11 further into Lake, with 9 & 17 pushed further into Polk, and the three-district split of Hillsborough (and, consequently, the two-district split of Sarasota) being restored.

I assume you mean 4-district split of Hillsborough and you just left off the piece of FL-12. With that split, it still looks like the Senate map has fewer county chops in central FL.

Chop count (add one in each county to get the number of fragments instead of chops)
House-12: Pinellas-1, Sarasota-1, Hillsborough-3, Polk-2, Lake-2, Orange-3.
Senate-11: Pinellas-1, Manatee-1, Hillsborough-2, Polk-2, Lake-2, Orange-3.

[Nyvin]

Seems like the meeting between the Senate and House is getting intense.   

[Flake]

http://didmydistrictchange.com/result



They really split up my town

[Nyvin]

So is today it?   Will we know the official map the legislature puts out by the end of today?

[JerryArkansas]

So is today it?   Will we know the official map the legislature puts out by the end of today?

If they can pass a map, we will know, but if they can't get past the impass they are at, then the state court will be drawing the map.

[Nyvin]

So is today it?   Will we know the official map the legislature puts out by the end of today?

If they can pass a map, we will know, but if they can't get past the impass they are at, then the state court will be drawing the map.

I'd imagine the Supreme Court would choose either the House map or Senate map.     I'd be shocked if they draw an entirely new one.

[Gass3268]

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It's a Redistmas Miracle!

Any chance we could get a 13-13-1 map?

[Nyvin]

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It's a Redistmas Miracle!

Any chance we could get a 13-13-1 map?

It'd be pretty easy to draw 14 seats that Obama won in 2012 - entrenched incumbents (Mica in FL-07, IRL in FL-27) would mean that wouldn't be the result, but it's fairly easy to do.

As it is Obama won 13 seats with the map either chamber made right now.

Mica will almost be 74 years old by the time he starts his next term in 2017,  so I'd think he only has so much time left before retirement probably.   It's feasible to unseat Curbelo in a good election year.    Lehtinen is unbeatable for the forseeable future though.

FL-18 might "possibly" be competitive too.

[windjammer]

Sjoyce and other Floridans,
Could you confirm the GOP is literally stupid?

[windjammer]

Sjoyce and other Floridans,
Could you confirm the GOP is literally stupid?

There have been a number of cunning and devious leaders throughout the past few decades who have turned the RPOF into a formidable political force.

Blaise Ingoglia is not one of them.

Wait, why are Republicans "letting this happen"?

Because there's no "Republicans" - the Republicans in the House and the Republicans in the Senate have different aims and interests.

And can Graham be saved in the end?

[TJ in Oregon]

Sjoyce and other Floridans,
Could you confirm the GOP is literally stupid?

There have been a number of cunning and devious leaders throughout the past few decades who have turned the RPOF into a formidable political force.

Blaise Ingoglia is not one of them.

Wait, why are Republicans "letting this happen"?

Because there's no "Republicans" - the Republicans in the House and the Republicans in the Senate have different aims and interests.

And can Graham be saved in the end?

Graham? Absolutely no way. The Florida Supreme Court made that impossible the moment they required an East-West configuration of FL-5. The question is how many other seats the Dems will pick up in addition to Jolly and Webster.

[Nyvin]

If I could choose one of the two,   I'd probably go with the Senate map.    I don't think either one would make much difference, but the Senate map does unite the Hispanics in FL-9 better.

[Gass3268]

Slightly off topic, but is there any litigation on the state legislature maps?

[muon2]

This process shows one problem with the FL amendment. Like other states there are specific criteria that must be achieved. However, FL both requires that the map be drawn and voted on by the legislature, but bars making political decisions in drawing the map. It was the use of political decisions that the court used to toss the map. Other states either take the action away from the legislature in a commission (CA), allow political bias (MI), or leave the legislature with a simple up or down vote (IA).

The legislature is an inherently political body, and in a bicameral system there are two such bodies. In FL, even through the Pubs have both chambers, they can't negotiate on the map since that would entail political discussions and would get the map tossed again. They need to work like IA and have an agreed group draw the map for both chambers and then give the chambers an up or down vote on the map. If it goes down then the group draws another map based on the criteria and criteria-related comments from the rejecting chamber. That would avoid the problem of each chamber having their own preferred map, since the second (or third) map wouldn't be known until the first is rejected.

[windjammer]

Maybe Mica could be in trouble?