2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Maryland

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is a hot take to some (I had an involved debate with Antonio about it on Discord a few days ago), but it's my belief that Baltimore should be split east/west in a nonpartisan map to avoid the Black vote being either packed (whole of the city + western Baltimore County) or diluted by a completely unrelated constituency (whites in southeastern Baltimore County or northern Anne Arundel County) and preserve better COI elsewhere.

In my nonpartisan map, Baltimore west of the "White L", but crossing it slightly at its narrowest and most cloudy point around Mount Vernon, is grouped in with western Baltimore County and adjacent parts of Howard (producing a 53% Black VAP seat), while the remainder is grouped with parts of Baltimore County to the east and north and the Edgewood-Aberdeen-Havre de Grace corridor of Harford. These configurations somewhat resemble the current 7th and 2nd respectively. I'm heavily reconfiguring the map right now after my discussion with Antonio and a few other decisions I've made since then, but I should be able to post it here soon.

A compact district taking in all of Baltimore and parts of SE Baltimore County is almost guaranteed to be majority black. I don't think the black vote is being diluted in that scenario.

MD-07 on the map I just posted is:
Total 772,381 100.0%
White 260,385 33.7%
Hispanic 63,522 8.2%
Black 404,115 52.3%
Asian 34,870 4.5%
Native 13,934 1.8%
Pacific 933 0.1%

A district like this is not diluting the black vote. It's making the seat only barely black  majority, but surely that doesn't count as "diluting"?
Also, the Baltimore County part of the seat is some 75% of the seat. That's dominated by Baltimore by default. It's dominated by Baltimore even more when you consider that the heavily R areas in the far SE part of the County will not be voting in the D primary in proportion to their numbers. Perhaps it would be a 5/1 or even a 6/1 ratio between the City and County.

It's been customary since the 80s map to have a seat that combines western Baltimore with the Black communities in adjacent parts of Baltimore County, so this is in part a choice of custom. In addition, though, I feel that the resulting three-way split of Baltimore County (although three-way county splits typically make one recoil for good reason) are a better reflection of COI for a county with a disjointed identity, in the same way that most Minnesota maps worth their salt will group the southern "tongue" of Anoka County with one of the Twin Cities, or the astute Virginia mapper will cleave Prince William County in twain along an east-west axis. The post-industrial Dundalk-Sparrows Point simply has nothing in common with Randallstown or Reisterstown, which have far closer cultural ties to and hold less antagonism regarding the City of Baltimore, and trying to keep most of Baltimore County whole will produce an awkward crescent-shaped seat unless one is willing, as you were, to group it with much more Republican areas. The southeast does, though, have much in common with coastal Harford County, and that's where the present division of that area emerges.

Ok, there is history backing up the idea of splitting Baltimore and making that an acceptable choice, I  agree one can opt for that - I just was disputing the idea that Baltimore whole means a dilution of the black character of MD-07.

[If my soul was made of stone]

This is my revised nonpartisan map, based on my discussions in this thread and privately:



Four of the eight seats are majority-minority, with two of them (western Baltimore + western BoCo and the SoMD seat that Hoyer would never let through) being Black-majority. The 6th here is becoming quite competitive; Trump 2020 only won it by eight points.

DRA is screaming at me for the quantity of county splits, but COI in this state isn't that simple.

[Sol]

This is my revised nonpartisan map, based on my discussions in this thread and privately:



Four of the eight seats are majority-minority, with two of them (western Baltimore + western BoCo and the SoMD seat that Hoyer would never let through) being Black-majority. The 6th here is becoming quite competitive; Trump 2020 only won it by eight points.

DRA is screaming at me for the quantity of county splits, but COI in this state isn't that simple.

Do you have the DRA link? My first instinct is to argue for keeping Baltimore whole and getting the excess population from white suburbs (allowing for a Black influence district based in the west) but I'd want to take a closer look at your lines.

[If my soul was made of stone]

This is my revised nonpartisan map, based on my discussions in this thread and privately:



Four of the eight seats are majority-minority, with two of them (western Baltimore + western BoCo and the SoMD seat that Hoyer would never let through) being Black-majority. The 6th here is becoming quite competitive; Trump 2020 only won it by eight points.

DRA is screaming at me for the quantity of county splits, but COI in this state isn't that simple.

Do you have the DRA link? My first instinct is to argue for keeping Baltimore whole and getting the excess population from white suburbs (allowing for a Black influence district based in the west) but I'd want to take a closer look at your lines.

My rationale for splitting Baltimore City is explained in my above exchange with Tim.

Here's the DRA link: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::f1738ad6-d3d9-49ac-83d0-c22c0deb46d3

[Sol]

This is my revised nonpartisan map, based on my discussions in this thread and privately:



Four of the eight seats are majority-minority, with two of them (western Baltimore + western BoCo and the SoMD seat that Hoyer would never let through) being Black-majority. The 6th here is becoming quite competitive; Trump 2020 only won it by eight points.

DRA is screaming at me for the quantity of county splits, but COI in this state isn't that simple.

Do you have the DRA link? My first instinct is to argue for keeping Baltimore whole and getting the excess population from white suburbs (allowing for a Black influence district based in the west) but I'd want to take a closer look at your lines.

My rationale for splitting Baltimore City is explained in my above exchange with Tim.

Here's the DRA link: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::f1738ad6-d3d9-49ac-83d0-c22c0deb46d3

Thanks!

I have no problem with splitting up Baltimore County for the reasons you mentioned (it is a true donut of a county without much a common character) but I do have some qualms about carving up Baltimore City.

I personally default to keeping central cities together in the absence of other considerations, like illogical city lines resulting in weird CoIs, VRA issues, or some other pressing population-based necessity.

None of those are true in the case of Baltimore--the city has logical boundaries and is a pretty logical community (though of course as there always are there are communities across county lines too), it's easy to do a Black-majority seat with Baltimore kept whole, and keeping it whole doesn't mess up with other logical communities.

Baltimore County does seem to divide well into three pieces--but that doesn't necessarily mean that those pieces all need their own seat.

[If my soul was made of stone]

This is my revised nonpartisan map, based on my discussions in this thread and privately:



Four of the eight seats are majority-minority, with two of them (western Baltimore + western BoCo and the SoMD seat that Hoyer would never let through) being Black-majority. The 6th here is becoming quite competitive; Trump 2020 only won it by eight points.

DRA is screaming at me for the quantity of county splits, but COI in this state isn't that simple.

Do you have the DRA link? My first instinct is to argue for keeping Baltimore whole and getting the excess population from white suburbs (allowing for a Black influence district based in the west) but I'd want to take a closer look at your lines.

My rationale for splitting Baltimore City is explained in my above exchange with Tim.

Here's the DRA link: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::f1738ad6-d3d9-49ac-83d0-c22c0deb46d3

Thanks!

I have no problem with splitting up Baltimore County for the reasons you mentioned (it is a true donut of a county without much a common character) but I do have some qualms about carving up Baltimore City.

I personally default to keeping central cities together in the absence of other considerations, like illogical city lines resulting in weird CoIs, VRA issues, or some other pressing population-based necessity.

None of those are true in the case of Baltimore--the city has logical boundaries and is a pretty logical community (though of course as there always are there are communities across county lines too), it's easy to do a Black-majority seat with Baltimore kept whole, and keeping it whole doesn't mess up with other logical communities.

Baltimore County does seem to divide well into three pieces--but that doesn't necessarily mean that those pieces all need their own seat.

Grouping the east of Baltimore County with the Eastern Shore seat is a nice idea in theory, but will inevitably result in an awkward split for population reasons. Harford and north and east Baltimore County were grouped together in the 90s for the seat that Bentley and Ehrlich represented, but this required the Eastern Shore seat crossing the Bay Bridge (yuck) and would probably be a headache to implement now either way due to population shifts. The lines in the City are also a natural by-product of the Harford split, which fellow Marylanders have insisted on when I've presented maps to them, unless you want an ugly donut stretching around towards Pikesville, Reisterstown, and so on.

I tried to keep most of the whitest parts of Baltimore in the 2nd, although this configuration inevitably requires cutting off most of the eastern "wing" of the "Black Butterfly" from the actual Black seat, which is kept performing by the heavily Black suburbs in the west such as Randallstown and the Blacker parts of Columbia. Combining Baltimore as a whole with these parts of the world may be an option, although some might consider it a racial pack depending on what specific communities one includes.

I have no trouble owning that this is a Hot Take™ of mine; in all the discussion of this map that I've done with him privately, Antonio has taken your side as he has now with his rec. I spent most of my formative years in Baltimore County, so I'm more than willing to admit that I'm perhaps much more attuned and favorable to that county's internal divisions than most others. I could get truly ludicrous with county splits for specific communities of interest (I've joked about drawing a map where the heavily Jewish precincts of northwestern Baltimore are grouped with the extension of that community in Pikesville and thereabouts, for instance), but this is what I consider the best compromise between COIs, compactness, and minority representation.

[If my soul was made of stone]

My first instinct is to argue for keeping Baltimore whole and getting the excess population from white suburbs (allowing for a Black influence district based in the west) but I'd want to take a closer look at your lines.

I'd neglected this proposal earlier, but I tried to draw a map that incorporates this idea with a seat stretching from Reisterstown to Laurel (which ended up 40% white VAP) and Baltimore City grouped in with the Dundalk-abouts that hopefully are polarized enough not to interfere with Democratic primaries. It failed for a number of reasons:

a) unless you're willing to accept water contiguity without bridges, the bulk of Anne Arundel has to be grouped with a good chunk of PG as in the current 4th, but unlike the current 4th this seat isn't Black-majority even if you instead group the City with Glen Burnie and so on instead of parts of BoCo (which then brings the City seat under 50% Black VAP)
b) as Harford can't be split here, this demands an illogical four-way split of Baltimore County (west to the Black influence seat, east to the Baltimore seat, north has to be awkwardly divided between the Eastern Shore seat and whatever seat has Carroll County) – I tried grouping the City in with Towson/Parkville/etc instead, but this also brought it under 50% Black VAP
c) I then tried nuking my prior configuration of the 5th and instead giving it the lion's share of Anne Arundel, but this is a combination of both Black cracking (separating Charles from PG entirely) and packing (having a district entirely within PG that's far more dense than it needs to be to be performing), as well as shoddy COI regardless

In short, this paints you into a corner vis-a-vis the other districts in the region and makes VRA compliance on the whole much harder.

[BoiseBoy]

Maryland House votes down amendment that would replace the state's redistricting proposal with the fairer map crafted by Gov. Hogan's panel. The 8-1 gerrymander is, for all intents and purposes, the final map.

https://twitter.com/bpsears/status/1468268062407340038?s=21

[ProgressiveModerate]

So Maryland Dems really gonna let individual politicians wants get in the way, idk about you, but gerrymandering or not it’s pretty messed up.

[If my soul was made of stone]

So Maryland Dems really gonna let individual politicians wants get in the way, idk about you, but gerrymandering or not it’s pretty messed up.

It's a longstanding tradition, unfortunately. Last time, Sarbanes insisted that he get a chunk of the DC media market as well as Annapolis, despite living in Towson. Since he's surely the heir apparent to Cardin, who succeeded his father, I imagine that the legislature sees their sycophancy towards him as prudent.

I went to high school with one of his sons; he was a right preppy prick of a band kid.

[Zaybay]

So Maryland Dems really gonna let individual politicians wants get in the way, idk about you, but gerrymandering or not it’s pretty messed up.

This is quite literally how redistricting works in every state.

[Stuart98]

So Maryland Dems really gonna let individual politicians wants get in the way, idk about you, but gerrymandering or not it’s pretty messed up.

This is quite literally how redistricting works in every state.

I think Maryland's a bit more extreme than the average state.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I'd prefer a stronger gerrymander than this that banishes R hopes of getting a Representative elected in the Old Line State to Davy Jone's Locker, but this map is still a net improvement from the current map, in both compactness and partisan composition.

[ProgressiveModerate]

So Maryland Dems really gonna let individual politicians wants get in the way, idk about you, but gerrymandering or not it’s pretty messed up.

This is quite literally how redistricting works in every state.

I think Maryland's a bit more extreme than the average state.

Exactly. Sarbanes is treated like royalty making the entire map a mess

[If my soul was made of stone]

So Maryland Dems really gonna let individual politicians wants get in the way, idk about you, but gerrymandering or not it’s pretty messed up.

This is quite literally how redistricting works in every state.

I think Maryland's a bit more extreme than the average state.

Exactly. Sarbanes is treated like royalty making the entire map a mess

His son was treated as royalty by everyone I shared my school environment with, too. They'd always give John a shoutout when "little Leo", as my band teacher called him, was playing the damn oboe. Political dynasties, loathsome as they are, carry undeniable clout, and the northern suburbs of Baltimore County were as devoted to the cult of Sarbanes as the cult of Michael Phelps.

[ProgressiveModerate]

So Maryland Dems really gonna let individual politicians wants get in the way, idk about you, but gerrymandering or not it’s pretty messed up.

This is quite literally how redistricting works in every state.

I think Maryland's a bit more extreme than the average state.

Exactly. Sarbanes is treated like royalty making the entire map a mess

His son was treated as royalty by everyone I shared my school environment with, too. They'd always give John a shoutout when "little Leo", as my band teacher called him, was playing the damn oboe. Political dynasties, loathsome as they are, carry undeniable clout, and the northern suburbs of Baltimore County were as devoted to the cult of Sarbanes as the cult of Michael Phelps.

Honestly kinda hoping MD-SC somehow overturns this map just to poop in Sarbanes face. The fact that this one dude literally gets to shape the rest of the map, making it not represent COIs, horrendously ugly, and not even be an effective gerrymander is just wrong.

[GALeftist]

Hogan vetoes, House has overridden, Senate about to debate.

Update: The Senate has now overridden the veto as well, making the maps law. Lawsuit time!

[ProgressiveModerate]

Disappointing on so many levels

[patzer]

they passed the map that doesn't even make MD-1 safe? Sad

[Gass3268]

Lol

https://twitter.com/mdhousedems/status/1468364014422044677?s=20

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Wonderful news.
Great map.
God bless the Maryland Democrats.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Wonderful news.
Great map.
God bless the Maryland Democrats.

May Lady Inanna smite the entire Sarbanes family for their solipsist insolence.

[Minnesota Mike]

DRA Map.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c5a707bb-33d7-4696-b80a-ecfbcb7fb506

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

DRA Map.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c5a707bb-33d7-4696-b80a-ecfbcb7fb506

2016/2020 PVIs:
1 R+4
2 D+6
3 D+9
4 D+34
5 D+19
6 D+8
7 D+27
8 D+14

[Tekken_Guy]

DRA Map.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c5a707bb-33d7-4696-b80a-ecfbcb7fb506

2016/2020 PVIs:
1 R+4
2 D+6
3 D+9
4 D+34
5 D+19
6 D+8
7 D+27
8 D+14

Aren’t those PVIs skewed by Hogan 2018?