Georgia 2020 Redistricting Discussion

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I think that the GOP goes for a 9-5, with these 5 seats being hyperpacked.

[Bacon King]

It was created as a D vote sink by the legislature, not court order, and it is not majority black.  But in the case a court interprets the vra to require a 4th aa seat in Georgia, a 4th aa district in Atlanta would satisfy that.  A 10-4 map is doable, as long as all 4 d seats are in Atlanta.  pack all of the bluest precincts into 4 districts, then crack any blue/purple areas left. 

Respectfully, you are incredibly misinformed about the Voting Rights Act. The stated intent behind its creation is irrelevant, whether it was created by the legislature or the judiciary is irrelevant, and whether the district itself is majority black is irrelevant (although, for the record, it is absolutely majority black). What matters is that it passes all three elements of the Gingles test. That alone makes it a protected minority district and therefore its elimination would be an unconstitutional retrogression of minority representation

In addition, there's literally no example anywhere in VRA case law that works the way you're describing. Minority districts aren't suddenly required just because of the minority population of the entire state is above some arbitrary threshold (if it did, for example, Louisiana would absolutely warrant a second black-majority district) and you can't just remove a minority district from one portion of a state and add one to another part of the state if the minority group in the former area still passes the Gingles test. It's not about the racial breakdown of the state as a whole, it's about specific communities of specific minority groups. The most obvious example here is Miller v. Johnson, which directly and explicitly says that for the purposes of the Voting Rights Act, black people in Atlanta aren't members of the same minority community as blacks downstate (in the case itself, Augusta + Savannah). They're different communities of interest, so you can't remove a district from one and give it to the other if the group you're taking the district from still warrants its own district

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It was created as a D vote sink by the legislature, not court order, and it is not majority black.  But in the case a court interprets the vra to require a 4th aa seat in Georgia, a 4th aa district in Atlanta would satisfy that.  A 10-4 map is doable, as long as all 4 d seats are in Atlanta.  pack all of the bluest precincts into 4 districts, then crack any blue/purple areas left. 

Respectfully, you are incredibly misinformed about the Voting Rights Act. The stated intent behind its creation is irrelevant, whether it was created by the legislature or the judiciary is irrelevant, and whether the district itself is majority black is irrelevant (although, for the record, it is absolutely majority black). What matters is that it passes all three elements of the Gingles test. That alone makes it a protected minority district and therefore its elimination would be an unconstitutional retrogression of minority representation

In addition, there's literally no example anywhere in VRA case law that works the way you're describing. Minority districts aren't suddenly required just because of the minority population of the entire state is above some arbitrary threshold (if it did, for example, Louisiana would absolutely warrant a second black-majority district) and you can't just remove a minority district from one portion of a state and add one to another part of the state if the minority group in the former area still passes the Gingles test. It's not about the racial breakdown of the state as a whole, it's about specific communities of specific minority groups. The most obvious example here is Miller v. Johnson, which directly and explicitly says that for the purposes of the Voting Rights Act, black people in Atlanta aren't members of the same minority community as blacks downstate (in the case itself, Augusta + Savannah). They're different communities of interest, so you can't remove a district from one and give it to the other if the group you're taking the district from still warrants its own district

While much of this is inarguably true, there remains the fact the GOP could break apart GA-02, at least if Adam Griffin's word is anything to come by. He's told me previously that GA-02 was created mainly to prevent a Democrat from getting elected in Southern Georgia, and packing D voters in the region was a good way of limiting their potential.

[Bacon King]

TLDR for this thread: The GAGOP can draw 10 Safe R districts. There's no incentive for them not to. The only remaining question is whether it's Bishop that gets cut and McBath packed, or vice versa.

There, are we done?

I would absolutely love to see the GOP attempt a 10-4 gerrymander, because it would absolutely be a dummymander that would completely backfire in their faces.

"GA GOP attempting to draw a 10R-4D map in 2020" would easily overtake "AR Dems attempting to draw a 3D-1R map in 2010" as the worst ever self-inflicted redistricting failure

https://twitter.com/CARepublicanMap/status/1205669677482930177?s=20

This is incredibly stupid as a take. The Arkansas D districts were literally McCain-Bush-Bush districts, not Trump+28

This map would never be implemented, most obviously because District 1 would cause a long and expensive legal challenge and almost certainly be found unconstitutional. And still, the 3rd district would be at risk almost immediately and the 8th, 9th, 11th, and 12th would all be at risk of falling before the end of the decade.

Though you're right, perhaps I am understating the stupidity of Arkansas Democrats. Instead let's call it the "worst Georgia redistricting plan since the Roy Barnes 2002 monstrosity"

[Bacon King]

While much of this is inarguably true, there remains the fact the GOP could break apart GA-02, at least if Adam Griffin's word is anything to come by. He's told me previously that GA-02 was created mainly to prevent a Democrat from getting elected in Southern Georgia, and packing D voters in the region was a good way of limiting their potential.

again, regardless of the intent behind its creation, it's still protected by the Voting Rights Act regardless.

Though I'd be curious to hear Adam's explanation there? Because I've not heard that before and it doesn't seem right although i could very well be wrong

[Bacon King]

Bishop's seat isn't vra protected, but a 4th aa district should be drawn in atl to preempt any challenges.

1. where is this idea coming from that the 2nd District isn't protected by the VRA? Because it absolutely is.

2. That is not at all how the Voting Rights Act works, for so many different reasons

It was created as a D vote sink by the legislature, not court order, and it is not majority black.  But in the case a court interprets the vra to require a 4th aa seat in Georgia, a 4th aa district in Atlanta would satisfy that.  A 10-4 map is doable, as long as all 4 d seats are in Atlanta.  pack all of the bluest precincts into 4 districts, then crack any blue/purple areas left. 

So, leaving aside whether or not this would be VRA compatible, remember this map is supposed to hold until 2030. Is the GA GOP really reckless enough to assume that this map you're proposing will hold? It'd involve a lot of cracking of the ATL suburbs just so that whatever can't be fed into the D districts are split up, but those suburbs are growing at lightspeed.

this map holds until 2030: https://davesredistricting.org/join/27ac753b-33e0-40f1-8acc-6fb947deb3ee
if they wanna be even more careful, they could do this: https://davesredistricting.org/join/781485f1-efa6-4aad-b355-2976a15a9f3b
but a 10-4 is very possible, if done carefully.  we're talking precinct-by-precinct precision and no regard for anything other than partisanship.  It's ugly, but very doable.

I've already explained why these maps wouldn't be constitutional but I want to compliment you here because these are very skillfully drawn maps! Would you happen to have the 2016 results for these districts?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Bishop's seat isn't vra protected, but a 4th aa district should be drawn in atl to preempt any challenges.

1. where is this idea coming from that the 2nd District isn't protected by the VRA? Because it absolutely is.

2. That is not at all how the Voting Rights Act works, for so many different reasons

It was created as a D vote sink by the legislature, not court order, and it is not majority black.  But in the case a court interprets the vra to require a 4th aa seat in Georgia, a 4th aa district in Atlanta would satisfy that.  A 10-4 map is doable, as long as all 4 d seats are in Atlanta.  pack all of the bluest precincts into 4 districts, then crack any blue/purple areas left. 

So, leaving aside whether or not this would be VRA compatible, remember this map is supposed to hold until 2030. Is the GA GOP really reckless enough to assume that this map you're proposing will hold? It'd involve a lot of cracking of the ATL suburbs just so that whatever can't be fed into the D districts are split up, but those suburbs are growing at lightspeed.

this map holds until 2030: https://davesredistricting.org/join/27ac753b-33e0-40f1-8acc-6fb947deb3ee
if they wanna be even more careful, they could do this: https://davesredistricting.org/join/781485f1-efa6-4aad-b355-2976a15a9f3b
but a 10-4 is very possible, if done carefully.  we're talking precinct-by-precinct precision and no regard for anything other than partisanship.  It's ugly, but very doable.

I've already explained why these maps wouldn't be constitutional but I want to compliment you here because these are very skillfully drawn maps! Would you happen to have the 2016 results for these districts?

my reading of that map is that its a defacto 9-5, with the 10th flipping in all certainty (tons of McCain-Clinton territory). However the GOP would find it really hard to lose any other seats.

[Idaho Conservative]

Bishop's seat isn't vra protected, but a 4th aa district should be drawn in atl to preempt any challenges.

1. where is this idea coming from that the 2nd District isn't protected by the VRA? Because it absolutely is.

2. That is not at all how the Voting Rights Act works, for so many different reasons

It was created as a D vote sink by the legislature, not court order, and it is not majority black.  But in the case a court interprets the vra to require a 4th aa seat in Georgia, a 4th aa district in Atlanta would satisfy that.  A 10-4 map is doable, as long as all 4 d seats are in Atlanta.  pack all of the bluest precincts into 4 districts, then crack any blue/purple areas left. 

So, leaving aside whether or not this would be VRA compatible, remember this map is supposed to hold until 2030. Is the GA GOP really reckless enough to assume that this map you're proposing will hold? It'd involve a lot of cracking of the ATL suburbs just so that whatever can't be fed into the D districts are split up, but those suburbs are growing at lightspeed.

this map holds until 2030: https://davesredistricting.org/join/27ac753b-33e0-40f1-8acc-6fb947deb3ee
if they wanna be even more careful, they could do this: https://davesredistricting.org/join/781485f1-efa6-4aad-b355-2976a15a9f3b
but a 10-4 is very possible, if done carefully.  we're talking precinct-by-precinct precision and no regard for anything other than partisanship.  It's ugly, but very doable.

I've already explained why these maps wouldn't be constitutional but I want to compliment you here because these are very skillfully drawn maps! Would you happen to have the 2016 results for these districts?

my reading of that map is that its a defacto 9-5, with the 10th flipping in all certainty (tons of McCain-Clinton territory). However the GOP would find it really hard to lose any other seats.

My second map would likely be 9-5, but I made it so one Clinton seat would be vulnerable in a wave election.  If a Dem wins in 2020, a McCain/Clinton district in northern Atlanta would absolutely be competitive in 2022.  Especially since it's majority white. 

[Idaho Conservative]

It was created as a D vote sink by the legislature, not court order, and it is not majority black.  But in the case a court interprets the vra to require a 4th aa seat in Georgia, a 4th aa district in Atlanta would satisfy that.  A 10-4 map is doable, as long as all 4 d seats are in Atlanta.  pack all of the bluest precincts into 4 districts, then crack any blue/purple areas left.  

Respectfully, you are incredibly misinformed about the Voting Rights Act. The stated intent behind its creation is irrelevant, whether it was created by the legislature or the judiciary is irrelevant, and whether the district itself is majority black is irrelevant (although, for the record, it is absolutely majority black). What matters is that it passes all three elements of the Gingles test. That alone makes it a protected minority district and therefore its elimination would be an unconstitutional retrogression of minority representation

In addition, there's literally no example anywhere in VRA case law that works the way you're describing. Minority districts aren't suddenly required just because of the minority population of the entire state is above some arbitrary threshold (if it did, for example, Louisiana would absolutely warrant a second black-majority district) and you can't just remove a minority district from one portion of a state and add one to another part of the state if the minority group in the former area still passes the Gingles test. It's not about the racial breakdown of the state as a whole, it's about specific communities of specific minority groups. The most obvious example here is Miller v. Johnson, which directly and explicitly says that for the purposes of the Voting Rights Act, black people in Atlanta aren't members of the same minority community as blacks downstate (in the case itself, Augusta + Savannah). They're different communities of interest, so you can't remove a district from one and give it to the other if the group you're taking the district from still warrants its own district

Well then, don't eliminate Bishop's seat, just move a lot of it into Atlanta, keeping a bit in the black belt.  There is good justification for this, black populations are shrinking in rural areas but growing in Atlanta.  In the long term, Republicans should get try to get the court to make a ruling where it's unconstitutional for map makers to even access racial demographic data.  Redistricting should be color blind.  They already struck down part of the VRA.  The evidence for why this should happen is the fact majority white electorates elected blacks like Tim Scott, Antonio Delgado, and Mia Love as well as Hispanics like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.  Majority minority districts simply aren't necessary for minorities to be elected anymore.  

[EastAnglianLefty]

You really need to read up on what the VRA is for - it's not about electing minority candidates, it's about ensuring that concentrated minority populations are able to elect the candidate of their choice. Black voters in SC aren't likely to be Tim Scott voters.

[Brittain33]

Carving up one district is getting rid of the district, even if you create another district in another part of the state. It isn’t about Bishop, it’s about the voters he represents, and if you “move the district to Atlanta”, it no longer represents those voters in rural Georgia.

[Oryxslayer]

Carving up one district is getting rid of the district, even if you create another district in another part of the state. It isn’t about Bishop, it’s about the voters he represents, and if you “move the district to Atlanta”, it no longer represents those voters in rural Georgia.

However one can make the argument that the belt no longer has the concentration of AA voters needed to have an opportunity district. I tend to disagree, but it is an argument that can be made if the GOP moves against Bishop. The counties down here are not flipping red because AA voters are now considering the GOP, they.are flipping because the AA pop is shrinking faster than the white pop. We are only a few years away from the Georgian belt being just the urban counties and a straggler or two. A district that goes from Albany to Augusta isn't compact  But the AA pop is concentrating hard into the Atlanta metro. Since the state AA pop is overall growing, a fact magnified by the shrinking belt, that is the ideal place for a new AA seat.

[Bacon King]

Well then, don't eliminate Bishop's seat, just move a lot of it into Atlanta, keeping a bit in the black belt.

Respectfully, did you even read what you're responding to?

As I literally just said, Miller v. Johnson specifically ruled that urban Atlanta and the rural black belt are not the same community of interest, and therefore a district that stretches to combine the two is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Like Brittain33 said, if you do that then it stops representing the will of the district's rural voters even though the nominally remain represented by it.

There is good justification for this, black populations are shrinking in rural areas but growing in Atlanta.

Using the most recent available local level census estimates, it remains trivially easy to draw a compact and normally-shaped majority black district in SW GA -- in fact, it's even easier to draw now than it was during the 2010 redistricting! I drew a 51% black district using 2016 estimate only splitting one county.

Because such a district can be drawn, the conditions of the Gingles test are still met, therefore it's constitutionally mandatory to draw a district that can be reasonably expected to elect that specific minority community's candidate of choice.

In the long term, Republicans should get try to get the court to make a ruling where it's unconstitutional for map makers to even access racial demographic data.  Redistricting should be color blind.  They already struck down part of the VRA.

That would be an insane ruling and contrary even to basic expectations of judicial precedent.

Only a single element of the Voting Rights Act has actually been overturned: the specific formula to determine which jurisdictions are required to do preclearance, and that was only made unconstitutional because the formula was based on data that was over half a century out of date. Literally the only reason the VRA has become less prominent since Shelby County v Holder is because Congress has thus far declined to pass any new/updated formula. Preclearance will almost certainly be back the next time Democrats control both chambers of Congress, and it will be perfectly constitutional when they bring it back.

The evidence for why this should happen is the fact majority white electorates elected blacks like Tim Scott, Antonio Delgado, and Mia Love as well as Hispanics like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.  Majority minority districts simply aren't necessary for minorities to be elected anymore. 

EastAnglianLefty is correct here.

Tim Scott is black but he is not the candidate of choice of any black community. Likewise, Steve Cohen is the candidate of choice of the black community of Memphis even though he's white.



edit: this got posted after I started typing

However one can make the argument that the belt no longer has the concentration of AA voters needed to have an opportunity district. I tend to disagree, but it is an argument that can be made if the GOP moves against Bishop. The counties down here are not flipping red because AA voters are now considering the GOP, they.are flipping because the AA pop is shrinking faster than the white pop. We are only a few years away from the Georgian belt being just the urban counties and a straggler or two. A district that goes from Albany to Augusta isn't compact  But the AA pop is concentrating hard into the Atlanta metro. Since the state AA pop is overall growing, a fact magnified by the shrinking belt, that is the ideal place for a new AA seat.

As I said above, it's still very easy to draw a black-majority district covering Albany, Macon, and Columbus.  The African American population is declining in that area, sure, but the white population is shrinking just as quickly.

Also there's definitely not enough population to warrant a fourth black majority seat in the Atlanta metro, attempting to force one would be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander

[Tintrlvr]

One thing that is appealing about Bishop's district to the Republicans is that it's a fourth AA district that may be winnable for the Republicans by the middle of the decade...

[Oryxslayer]

edit: this got posted after I started typing

However one can make the argument that the belt no longer has the concentration of AA voters needed to have an opportunity district. I tend to disagree, but it is an argument that can be made if the GOP moves against Bishop. The counties down here are not flipping red because AA voters are now considering the GOP, they.are flipping because the AA pop is shrinking faster than the white pop. We are only a few years away from the Georgian belt being just the urban counties and a straggler or two. A district that goes from Albany to Augusta isn't compact  But the AA pop is concentrating hard into the Atlanta metro. Since the state AA pop is overall growing, a fact magnified by the shrinking belt, that is the ideal place for a new AA seat.

As I said above, it's still very easy to draw a black-majority district covering Albany, Macon, and Columbus.  The African American population is declining in that area, sure, but the white population is shrinking just as quickly.

Also there's definitely not enough population to warrant a fourth black majority seat in the Atlanta metro, attempting to force one would be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander

Only thing I have to say to this is that you don't know the demo's of your state . I didn't even try that hard and I got four AA seats in Atlanta between 49% and 52% AA, more than enough to lock in the candidate of choice. I also even had some AA pop left over to go with the Hispanic and Asian groups of Gwinnett as a 5th Dem pack, but that is just a feature of this map, which was drawn as a "protect our GOP ATL seats for a decade" style map. The Atlanta metro is the main destination for all those AA's leaving the Midwest and the Belt, the city is booming.

And this is with the 2016 block data. I expect it to be even more AA when the e new census data is unveiled.

[Sol]

Carving up one district is getting rid of the district, even if you create another district in another part of the state. It isn’t about Bishop, it’s about the voters he represents, and if you “move the district to Atlanta”, it no longer represents those voters in rural Georgia.

If it's helpful, Idaho Conservative, think about if the Florida Democrats deleted Diaz-Balart's seat and replaced it with a Latino majority district in Orlando.

[Oryxslayer]

Carving up one district is getting rid of the district, even if you create another district in another part of the state. It isn’t about Bishop, it’s about the voters he represents, and if you “move the district to Atlanta”, it no longer represents those voters in rural Georgia.

If it's helpful, Idaho Conservative, think about if the Florida Democrats deleted Diaz-Balart's seat and replaced it with a Latino majority district in Orlando.

Difference is both the Miami and Orlando Latino geographic groups in Florida are growing. The belt is shrinking, and Atlanta is not just covering the losses, it is adding AA voters in droves to the state.

[Brittain33]

Carving up one district is getting rid of the district, even if you create another district in another part of the state. It isn’t about Bishop, it’s about the voters he represents, and if you “move the district to Atlanta”, it no longer represents those voters in rural Georgia.

If it's helpful, Idaho Conservative, think about if the Florida Democrats deleted Diaz-Balart's seat and replaced it with a Latino majority district in Orlando.

Difference is both the Miami and Orlando Latino geographic groups in Florida are growing. The belt is shrinking, and Atlanta is not just covering the losses, it is adding AA voters in droves to the state.

That distinction isn’t relevant.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Slightly different way of thinking about the redistricting challenge for Republicans: what metric do you use to assess whether a seat is safe enough for the decade?

I'd suggest you probably want a gerrymander that holds up even if you're losing that state by around about 5% - and if that happens the swing will probably be proportionally greater in Atlanta than elsewhere in the state, due to population growth and more voters switching.

[Sol]

Carving up one district is getting rid of the district, even if you create another district in another part of the state. It isn’t about Bishop, it’s about the voters he represents, and if you “move the district to Atlanta”, it no longer represents those voters in rural Georgia.

If it's helpful, Idaho Conservative, think about if the Florida Democrats deleted Diaz-Balart's seat and replaced it with a Latino majority district in Orlando.

Difference is both the Miami and Orlando Latino geographic groups in Florida are growing. The belt is shrinking, and Atlanta is not just covering the losses, it is adding AA voters in droves to the state.

That distinction isn’t relevant.

Black people in Southern Georgia still pass the Gingles test even as they decrease in population. This would imply that Georgia is obligated to maintain something like Bishop's district unless the courts decide to gut VRA protections entirely.

[Adam Griffin]

Yeah, it looks like I was informed about GA-2's status under the VRA (and not due to it being plurality-black VAP, of course). My initial understanding was that - after all the chaotic rounds of redistricting between 2001-2006 - the district was not required by the VRA when it was drawn in 2011.

For what it's worth and has already been said, population loss across the region isn't necessarily making it more difficult to redraw the broader 2011 boundaries: it's pretty easy (surprisingly) to draw a comparably geographically compact GA-2 using 2016 data, especially if you include parts of Houston County and all of Bibb...even though basically everything save for Houston (+16k), Muscogee (+3k) and Lee (+1k) have lost population (second map below; red = growth & blue = loss). The district below as a whole has only lost 7k people since 2010.

The only questions are 1) how much change will occur between 2016-2020 in population estimates and 2) how much of a difference exists between BPOP & BVAP (it is worth noting that the district below went from 49% black to 51% black between '10-'16). I figure that a new GA-2 is probably going to want to include parts of Houston unless the GOP wants to aim for a mid-decade win here (while Bishop overperforms, he won't be around forever: Clinton only won the district below by 9 and Isakson came within a half-point of carrying it in 2016).

 

[Idaho Conservative]

Well then, don't eliminate Bishop's seat, just move a lot of it into Atlanta, keeping a bit in the black belt.

Respectfully, did you even read what you're responding to?

As I literally just said, Miller v. Johnson specifically ruled that urban Atlanta and the rural black belt are not the same community of interest, and therefore a district that stretches to combine the two is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Like Brittain33 said, if you do that then it stops representing the will of the district's rural voters even though the nominally remain represented by it.

There is good justification for this, black populations are shrinking in rural areas but growing in Atlanta.

Using the most recent available local level census estimates, it remains trivially easy to draw a compact and normally-shaped majority black district in SW GA -- in fact, it's even easier to draw now than it was during the 2010 redistricting! I drew a 51% black district using 2016 estimate only splitting one county.

Because such a district can be drawn, the conditions of the Gingles test are still met, therefore it's constitutionally mandatory to draw a district that can be reasonably expected to elect that specific minority community's candidate of choice.

In the long term, Republicans should get try to get the court to make a ruling where it's unconstitutional for map makers to even access racial demographic data.  Redistricting should be color blind.  They already struck down part of the VRA.

That would be an insane ruling and contrary even to basic expectations of judicial precedent.

Only a single element of the Voting Rights Act has actually been overturned: the specific formula to determine which jurisdictions are required to do preclearance, and that was only made unconstitutional because the formula was based on data that was over half a century out of date. Literally the only reason the VRA has become less prominent since Shelby County v Holder is because Congress has thus far declined to pass any new/updated formula. Preclearance will almost certainly be back the next time Democrats control both chambers of Congress, and it will be perfectly constitutional when they bring it back.

The evidence for why this should happen is the fact majority white electorates elected blacks like Tim Scott, Antonio Delgado, and Mia Love as well as Hispanics like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.  Majority minority districts simply aren't necessary for minorities to be elected anymore.  

EastAnglianLefty is correct here.

Tim Scott is black but he is not the candidate of choice of any black community. Likewise, Steve Cohen is the candidate of choice of the black community of Memphis even though he's white.



edit: this got posted after I started typing

However one can make the argument that the belt no longer has the concentration of AA voters needed to have an opportunity district. I tend to disagree, but it is an argument that can be made if the GOP moves against Bishop. The counties down here are not flipping red because AA voters are now considering the GOP, they.are flipping because the AA pop is shrinking faster than the white pop. We are only a few years away from the Georgian belt being just the urban counties and a straggler or two. A district that goes from Albany to Augusta isn't compact  But the AA pop is concentrating hard into the Atlanta metro. Since the state AA pop is overall growing, a fact magnified by the shrinking belt, that is the ideal place for a new AA seat.

As I said above, it's still very easy to draw a black-majority district covering Albany, Macon, and Columbus.  The African American population is declining in that area, sure, but the white population is shrinking just as quickly.

Also there's definitely not enough population to warrant a fourth black majority seat in the Atlanta metro, attempting to force one would be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander

Miller v Johnson wasn't about coi's, it actually struck down a gerrymander that benefited blacks.  A district can include both rural GA and Atlanta, as long as it is not as messy as the one in the case where  it was just blatantly racial.  

As for the VRA, there is no guarantee preclearance will be back, unless Dems get close to 60 votes in the senate.  Republicans would be moronic to concede that without something in return, like nationwide voter id.  It's the era we live in.  

As for candidates of choice, that's a very stupid metric to use, hard to calculate as well.  So minorities elected by white electorates don't count?  Absurd.  While I certainly won't convince you the requirement needs to go, you aren't the one needing the convincing, just 5 judges on the court do.  The fact a majority minority  districts are clearly no longer needed for minority candidates to win is a great case against interpreting section 2 to require such districts.  The whole "minority candidate of choice" thing was just created so the court didn't have to be explicitly racial.  Thornburgv Gingles happened because of the simple fact black people weren't getting elected in the region of America where a majority of them reside.  But that's no longer the case.  I understand Atlas leftists won't be convinced, but the conservative court could be.  The argument against what I'm saying is that more minorities are elected because of Thornburg, and eliminating that would reverse the trend of minorities getting elected.  That was the argument used in favor of keeping preclearance too, look how that went. 

[Sol]

As for the VRA, there is no guarantee preclearance will be back, unless Dems get close to 60 votes in the senate.  Republicans would be moronic to concede that without something in return, like nationwide voter id.  It's the era we live in.  

The VRA still exists--despite the absence of preclearance maps can still be struck down by the courts for violating the VRA.

[Brittain33]

As for candidates of choice, that's a very stupid metric to use, hard to calculate as well.  So minorities elected by white electorates don't count?  Absurd.  

I appreciate your perspective on this, but on the Forum we're either drawing maps for the world as it exists or is likely to exist, not the world which matches our own preferences. The metric of a community electing the candidate of its choice may seem "absurd" to you, but I think it's more absurd to consider Allen Keyes being elected by a rural white district to be a better reflection of African-American voting rights than Steve Cohen successfully winning primary after primary with African-American voter support. It's about the right of the voters, not the right of the representative him or herself.

[Idaho Conservative]

As for candidates of choice, that's a very stupid metric to use, hard to calculate as well.  So minorities elected by white electorates don't count?  Absurd.  

I appreciate your perspective on this, but on the Forum we're either drawing maps for the world as it exists or is likely to exist, not the world which matches our own preferences. The metric of a community electing the candidate of its choice may seem "absurd" to you, but I think it's more absurd to consider Allen Keyes being elected by a rural white district to be a better reflection of African-American voting rights than Steve Cohen successfully winning primary after primary with African-American voter support. It's about the right of the voters, not the right of the representative him or herself.

I am arguing against the current standard.  Again, you are a leftist who I won't convince.  There is an excellent chance the Supreme Court might change the standard.  The current one basically segregates voters on the basis of race, and legally mandates a certain number of whites be placed into districts where THEIR candidate of choice won't win, like with the Texas "fajita strips".