Georgia 2020 Redistricting Discussion

[ProgressiveModerate]

Georgia drawn to the Muon2 rules. GA-02 does not need to be black performing. The blacks already have their "quota" out of the Atlanta MSA (which is absolutely monstrous by the way).

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a57ba42e-f4b5-4274-85f3-6fe8bd362f35

Actually, 5 seats is a little closer to proportional than 4. Also my understanding of Gingles (and I could be wrong about this so please correct me if so) is that proportionality doesn't enter into it, it only matters if a compact majority-minority performing district can be drawn. For these reasons I would argue that GA-02 is protected.

Nevertheless, interesting map. In Georgia specifically though I think it makes more sense to have a district that encompasses the entire City of Atlanta even if it spans Fulton and DeKalb. Also, I think counties like Morgan, Walton, and Barrow are a bit mismatched with the more core suburban counties like Gwinnett, Clayton, and Henry

There are 5 black performing CD's, plus whites are beginning to vote for blacks in the inner parts of the Atlanta MSA, so the VRA probably does not apply to the subject 5 CD's at all. Once the blacks get their quota, nothing further is protected, even if GA-02 could be drawn to get to 50% BVAP, triggering Gingles. In that sense, GA is like MD. You can draw another black performing CD, but do not have to.

Morgan, Walton and Barrow are in the Atlanta MSA, and that is all that counts. One MSA county is not more equal than others. So one focuses on what entails the smallest county cuts, subject to erosity concerns. Counties take precedence over cities when it comes to splitting. You give DeKalb and Cobb their own CD's since it leads to just tiny county micro-chops, which are favored. In fact, the map amazingly is all micro-chops except in two instances, so it is clearly the highest scoring possible map.

One follows the Muon2 rules mindlessly as it were, wherever they might lead. They generally lead to a pretty good place. One plus to them is that they give points to keeping multi county MSA's together, which tends often to lead to competitive districts, since it forces the placing of cities and their suburbs in one CD.

On your map, wouldn't 4, 5, and 13 be the only reliable functioning districts? Black voters would certainly have influence in 7 and 10, but to argue those districts will elect black voter's candidates of choice isn't exactly fair, especially since whites even in Atlanta generally have better turnout in primaries and whites are becoming more liberal in both districts.

I think currently, the VRA is only for districts that definitively will or at least should elect the candidate of that minority groups choice; opportunity seats are not recognized as contributing to the total proportionality of seats, a seat either is functional or it isn't. This is perhaps one of the flaws of VRA cause in many parts of this country, if you don't have racially competitive/diverse seats, you're not going to have competitive seats in terms of partisanship. This is most obvious in the deep South where a VRA lawsuit never leads to a competitive seat being created, even on state leg level. That's why with today's racial polarization, legislative compositions in states like LA, MS, and AL are remarkably stable across cycles; in all 3 chambers the vast majority of seats are safe; Republicans are willing to cede a few black VRA seats here or there since they can use it to still lock Dems into a permanent super-minority. Anyways, that's enough of me popping off for tonight.

Your 2nd map's GA-12 is quite an interesting district I'd never really seen/considered before.

[Torie]

The VRA does not apply to zones where liberal whites will vote for blacks. Both CD's also have a majority of the Dem voters as black. The Dems are not going to nominate a candidate the blacks don't want as a Dem, and both CD's are safely Dem now. I doubt a VRA suit would even be filed.

Here is a map which "works" vis a vis MSA integrity that cleans up the lines, and as a bonus makes GA-02 skin tight. There are a lot of multi county MSA's in GA which constrain the lines. It's an interesting game to try to find the path to thread the needle.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/0982d4d8-7d8e-4461-bd51-2102d8f335c5

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The VRA does not apply to zones where liberal whites will vote for blacks. Both CD's also have a majority of the Dem voters as black. The Dems are not going to nominate a candidate the blacks don't want as a Dem, and both CD's are safely Dem now. I doubt a VRA suit would even be filed.

Here is a map which "works" vis a vis MSA integrity that cleans up the lines, and as a bonus makes GA-02 skin tight. There are a lot of multi county MSA's in GA which constrain the lines. It's an interesting game to try to find the path to thread the needle.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/0982d4d8-7d8e-4461-bd51-2102d8f335c5

https://davesredistricting.org/join/d4c9f6c2-b823-4b2b-bf33-19e1554dbbf8
Thoughts on this reworked version of the 2nd and 8th on your map?

[Nyvin]

Georgia drawn to the Muon2 rules. GA-02 does not need to be black performing. The blacks already have their "quota" out of the Atlanta MSA (which is absolutely monstrous by the way).

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a57ba42e-f4b5-4274-85f3-6fe8bd362f35

There is no statewide "quota" for Section 2.   Bob Dole's amendment in the 1982 law (the one that gives the present day Gingles test) specifically denies that the means test for Section 2 gives any guarantee for proportional representation.  

Thus the black population in southwest Georgia would be judged by Gingles standards independently of the rest of the state, which is probably why the GAGOP still made GA-2 the way it was drawn.  It's drawn almost exactly like a Section 2 VRA district would be drawn according to all three Gingles standards.

If they could've just dropped the AA majority part of the district without fear of lawsuit they almost certainly would've, and given how Allen v. Milligan went they almost certainly would've lost the lawsuit had it come up.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Georgia drawn to the Muon2 rules. GA-02 does not need to be black performing. The blacks already have their "quota" out of the Atlanta MSA (which is absolutely monstrous by the way).

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a57ba42e-f4b5-4274-85f3-6fe8bd362f35

There is no statewide "quota" for Section 2.   Bob Dole's amendment in the 1982 law (the one that gives the present day Gingles test) specifically denies that the means test for Section 2 gives any guarantee for proportional representation.  

Thus the black population in southwest Georgia would be judged by Gingles standards independently of the rest of the state, which is probably why the GAGOP still made GA-2 the way it was drawn.  It's drawn almost exactly like a Section 2 VRA district would be drawn according to all three Gingles standards.

If they could've just dropped the AA majority part of the district without fear of lawsuit they almost certainly would've, and given how Allen v. Milligan went they almost certainly would've lost the lawsuit had it come up.

If Georgia gains a 15th CD it becomes practically inevitable that a very solid D seat comes in the region, regardless of black population decline.

[Torie]

The VRA does not apply to zones where liberal whites will vote for blacks. Both CD's also have a majority of the Dem voters as black. The Dems are not going to nominate a candidate the blacks don't want as a Dem, and both CD's are safely Dem now. I doubt a VRA suit would even be filed.

Here is a map which "works" vis a vis MSA integrity that cleans up the lines, and as a bonus makes GA-02 skin tight. There are a lot of multi county MSA's in GA which constrain the lines. It's an interesting game to try to find the path to thread the needle.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/0982d4d8-7d8e-4461-bd51-2102d8f335c5

https://davesredistricting.org/join/d4c9f6c2-b823-4b2b-bf33-19e1554dbbf8
Thoughts on this reworked version of the 2nd and 8th on your map?

Tim,

The “flaw” in your map is the split of the Houston-Peach Counties MSA. That put your fingers on the scale.



To get as close as perhaps one can to get where you wanted to go without splitting an MSA, this is the “best” I could come up with.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f3e71438-9b78-47ed-8ae7-a4f0da28fcbf

[Torie]

Georgia drawn to the Muon2 rules. GA-02 does not need to be black performing. The blacks already have their "quota" out of the Atlanta MSA (which is absolutely monstrous by the way).

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a57ba42e-f4b5-4274-85f3-6fe8bd362f35

There is no statewide "quota" for Section 2.   Bob Dole's amendment in the 1982 law (the one that gives the present day Gingles test) specifically denies that the means test for Section 2 gives any guarantee for proportional representation.  

Thus the black population in southwest Georgia would be judged by Gingles standards independently of the rest of the state, which is probably why the GAGOP still made GA-2 the way it was drawn.  It's drawn almost exactly like a Section 2 VRA district would be drawn according to all three Gingles standards.

If they could've just dropped the AA majority part of the district without fear of lawsuit they almost certainly would've, and given how Allen v. Milligan went they almost certainly would've lost the lawsuit had it come up.

I don't agree. The reason the Pubs had to draw a black performing GA-02 to get to the "quota" is that they did not cede a Cobb County based CD as black performing. The map I drew does.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The VRA does not apply to zones where liberal whites will vote for blacks. Both CD's also have a majority of the Dem voters as black. The Dems are not going to nominate a candidate the blacks don't want as a Dem, and both CD's are safely Dem now. I doubt a VRA suit would even be filed.

Here is a map which "works" vis a vis MSA integrity that cleans up the lines, and as a bonus makes GA-02 skin tight. There are a lot of multi county MSA's in GA which constrain the lines. It's an interesting game to try to find the path to thread the needle.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/0982d4d8-7d8e-4461-bd51-2102d8f335c5

https://davesredistricting.org/join/d4c9f6c2-b823-4b2b-bf33-19e1554dbbf8
Thoughts on this reworked version of the 2nd and 8th on your map?

Tim,

The “flaw” in your map is the split of the Houston-Peach Counties MSA. That put your fingers on the scale.



To get as close as perhaps one can to get where you wanted to go without splitting an MSA, this is the “best” I could come up with.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f3e71438-9b78-47ed-8ae7-a4f0da28fcbf

I was trying to minimize the amount of occasions highways were crossed by district boundaries while maintaining a black-controlled GA-02. I was not considering keeping MSAs whole or not.
In any case, I found that it's possible to make a Biden+3 seat out of the following counties:
Crawford, Bibb,  Twiggs, Jones, Monroe, Upson, Taylor, Macon, Harris, Talbot, Muscogee, Chattahoochee, Marion, Stewart, Schley, Sumter, Webster, Quitman, Early, Clay, Calhoun, Randolph, Terrell, Dougherty, Worth, Lee. It would be 46.9% Black and 45% White in 2020 total population. 764,468 people, -668 from ideal.

[Nyvin]

This is probably the cleanest 5 black majority district map I can make.  I think the southern Cobb-Douglas-southwest Fulton seat (GA-11 on here) is mandatory in some form or another, the other three Atlanta AA seats just fall into place from that one.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a32d6e19-2cb6-4638-a0db-87879cba867f





I also did some small tweaks to GA-2 to make it >50% Black CVAP.

[Roll Roons]

This is probably the cleanest 5 black majority district map I can make.  I think the southern Cobb-Douglas-southwest Fulton seat (GA-11 on here) is mandatory in some form or another, the other three Atlanta AA seats just fall into place from that one.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a32d6e19-2cb6-4638-a0db-87879cba867f





I also did some small tweaks to GA-2 to make it >50% Black CVAP.

Your GA-06 is a good contender for the fastest left-trending seat in the country.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is probably the cleanest 5 black majority district map I can make.  I think the southern Cobb-Douglas-southwest Fulton seat (GA-11 on here) is mandatory in some form or another, the other three Atlanta AA seats just fall into place from that one.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a32d6e19-2cb6-4638-a0db-87879cba867f





I also did some small tweaks to GA-2 to make it >50% Black CVAP.

Your GA-06 is a good contender for the fastest left-trending seat in the country.

And if it took from Forsyth instead of Cherokee it would trend left even faster.

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1681033115937001472

Federal racial gerrymandering trial for Georgia will be held on September 5.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/28e211cc-d061-4dc3-811e-00fd381d9492

Here's a map I threw together that has 4 Black districts in Atlanta but tries to limit Democrats to 5 seats total and mess around with other districts as little as possible. It's not easy, though. If you shift 7 enough to be majority Black, you end up with over 500k voters in Fulton and Gwinnett who are now like Biden+8; the approach I took above made GA-09 about Trump+8 in 2020. That by itself is not safe in a blue wave, but the hypothetical district above was actually Trump+19 in 2016! Of course, you could try to siphon off some of the libs into GA-10 or GA-14, but you're already cracking the northern suburbs three ways in the above map and it starts getting ugly fast. Bottom line, if black voters prevail in this lawsuit, it will not be good news at all for the GOP.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/search?q=georgia%20redistricting&src=typed_query
Federal racial gerrymandering trial for Georgia will be held on September 5.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/28e211cc-d061-4dc3-811e-00fd381d9492

Here's a map I threw together that has 4 Black districts in Atlanta but tries to limit Democrats to 5 seats total and mess around with other districts as little as possible. It's not easy, though. If you shift 7 enough to be majority Black, you end up with over 500k voters in Fulton and Gwinnett who are now like Biden+8; the approach I took above made GA-09 about Trump+8 in 2020. That by itself is not safe in a blue wave, but the hypothetical district above was actually Trump+19 in 2016! Of course, you could try to siphon off some of the libs into GA-10 or GA-14, but you're already cracking the northern suburbs three ways in the above map and it starts getting ugly fast. Bottom line, if black voters prevail in this lawsuit, it will not be good news at all for the GOP.

What is the margin in GA-10?

[GALeftist]

What is the margin in GA-10?

Like Trump+23. Didn't change that one; one reason is that Athens being towards the north of that district makes it kind of awkward to use it to crack Gwinnett

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What is the margin in GA-10?

Like Trump+23. Didn't change that one; one reason is that Athens being towards the north of that district makes it kind of awkward to use it to crack Gwinnett

You could probably swap territory between 9 and 10. Also, 7 could be made black plurality to allow it take in more territory towards its southern end.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1681033115937001472

Federal racial gerrymandering trial for Georgia will be held on September 5.

Its hard to keep track of all the cases, but these are the two legislative-only suits which were consolidated to the Pendergrass Congressional suit. These were the cases that solely concerned Section 2 and no 14th Amendment racial gerrymandering claims (6th radical change), asked for a PI, failed, and then got stalled waiting for Milligan. There was notice of a accelerated schedule since Milligan, this is that.

The one with Racial Gerrymandering 14th Amendment claims is Georgia State Conference of the NAACP v. Georgia which is consolidated with Common Cause v. Raffensperger. They remain on prior schedule for the late fall, but may similarly be accelerated since additional briefing was requested in light of Milligan.

[patzer]

Its hard to keep track of all the cases, but these are the two legislative-only suits which were consolidated to the Pendergrass Congressional suit. These were the cases that solely concerned Section 2 and no 14th Amendment racial gerrymandering claims (6th radical change), asked for a PI, failed, and then got stalled waiting for Milligan. There was notice of a accelerated schedule since Milligan, this is that.

The one with Racial Gerrymandering 14th Amendment claims is Georgia State Conference of the NAACP v. Georgia which is consolidated with Common Cause v. Raffensperger. They remain on prior schedule for the late fall, but may similarly be accelerated since additional briefing was requested in light of Milligan.

Interesting, there's a chance of the maps of Georgia's state house/senate being struck down? That would be very good news for the Democrats if so.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Its hard to keep track of all the cases, but these are the two legislative-only suits which were consolidated to the Pendergrass Congressional suit. These were the cases that solely concerned Section 2 and no 14th Amendment racial gerrymandering claims (6th radical change), asked for a PI, failed, and then got stalled waiting for Milligan. There was notice of a accelerated schedule since Milligan, this is that.

The one with Racial Gerrymandering 14th Amendment claims is Georgia State Conference of the NAACP v. Georgia which is consolidated with Common Cause v. Raffensperger. They remain on prior schedule for the late fall, but may similarly be accelerated since additional briefing was requested in light of Milligan.

Interesting, there's a chance of the maps of Georgia's state house/senate being struck down? That would be very good news for the Democrats if so.

Would be ironic if the maps were redrawn and Ds took over in 2024. In 2004, exactly ten election cycles earlier, the same thing occurred and Rs flipped the legislature from Democrats, overturning a rather effective gerrymander that held back the R tide in 2002.

[Oryxslayer]

Its hard to keep track of all the cases, but these are the two legislative-only suits which were consolidated to the Pendergrass Congressional suit. These were the cases that solely concerned Section 2 and no 14th Amendment racial gerrymandering claims (6th radical change), asked for a PI, failed, and then got stalled waiting for Milligan. There was notice of a accelerated schedule since Milligan, this is that.

The one with Racial Gerrymandering 14th Amendment claims is Georgia State Conference of the NAACP v. Georgia which is consolidated with Common Cause v. Raffensperger. They remain on prior schedule for the late fall, but may similarly be accelerated since additional briefing was requested in light of Milligan.

Interesting, there's a chance of the maps of Georgia's state house/senate being struck down? That would be very good news for the Democrats if so.

NAACP challenges both legislative maps in addition to the congressional plans. The difference between the two consolidated cases is NAACP has 14th Amendment racial gerrymandering claims, is a multiracial coalition of plaintiffs - so has a handful of legislative seats they claim for Black-Hispanic coalitions and challenge SD-48 for Racial Gerrymandering against the State's first Asian American Senator, and has a much more ambitious scope in terms of the targeted districts. The cases consolidated to Pendergrass lack these things.

I have already posted their example maps for a 5th majority AA seat from the PI hearing on a previous page. In that same PI the illustrative maps demonstrated that there were three potential additional majority-African American State Senate seats under section 2: SD-17, 23, and 28 (really just the South Fulton/Fayette/Clayton region). There were Six demonstrations of additional majority-African American state house Districts under Section 2: 61/64/65/66 Douglas region, 73/74/75/78 Clayton area, 115-118 & 134 Henry region, 127-133 Eastern Black Belt Milledgeville region but with ripple effects, 142-147 Macon-Bibb & Warner Robins Region, and 151/153/154/171 Daugherty Region.

With the exception of HD117 which is seeming lurching left through new suburbs, all the targeted areas are far from the swing seats that would decide the chamber, so these would be safe seats flipping parties if created. However they won't be enough to make the chambers truly 50-50 on their own, which is perhaps why NAACP adds a bit more via Racial Gerrymandering and multiracial specific coalition seats in places like the Gainesville State House.

Also remember the GA State House kinda has 1 surplus Republican in popular 75-year-old former Democrat Gerald Greene. For over a decade he has been elected to majority-African American districts in Southwest Georgia - districts which have no issue giving majorities to national Democrats - of the strength of his noticeable cross-community support. He on his own makes things tougher for GA Democrats.

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1681033115937001472

Federal racial gerrymandering trial for Georgia will be held on September 5.

Its hard to keep track of all the cases, but these are the two legislative-only suits which were consolidated to the Pendergrass Congressional suit. These were the cases that solely concerned Section 2 and no 14th Amendment racial gerrymandering claims (6th radical change), asked for a PI, failed, and then got stalled waiting for Milligan. There was notice of a accelerated schedule since Milligan, this is that.

The one with Racial Gerrymandering 14th Amendment claims is Georgia State Conference of the NAACP v. Georgia which is consolidated with Common Cause v. Raffensperger. They remain on prior schedule for the late fall, but may similarly be accelerated since additional briefing was requested in light of Milligan.

Quite right, should've been more accurate with my language; thank you!

[GALeftist]

What is the margin in GA-10?

Like Trump+23. Didn't change that one; one reason is that Athens being towards the north of that district makes it kind of awkward to use it to crack Gwinnett

You could probably swap territory between 9 and 10. Also, 7 could be made black plurality to allow it take in more territory towards its southern end.

You could do something like this:



But A. it looks atrocious (in my opinion) and B. you have essentially the same problem. Now you've got:

GA-11: Trump2016+25 –> Trump2020+15
GA-06: Trump2016+27 –> Trump2020+15
GA-09: Trump2016+25 –> Trump2020+15
GA-10: Trump2016+22 –> Trump2020+16

It was already generally acknowledged that GA-11 and GA-06 had flip potential to begin with and now you essentially have two more identical districts. Maybe this gerrymander holds for the decade, but I wouldn't bet on it, and I further wouldn't bet on all these incumbents rolling the dice on potential flips down the line. Not sure what you mean about GA-07, but there's not much blue territory to its south to expand into, and anyway I'm not sure the courts would look kindly on trying to skirt the rules with black plurality districts. I guess my point is I think this could easily get dicey for Georgia Republicans.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What is the margin in GA-10?

Like Trump+23. Didn't change that one; one reason is that Athens being towards the north of that district makes it kind of awkward to use it to crack Gwinnett

You could probably swap territory between 9 and 10. Also, 7 could be made black plurality to allow it take in more territory towards its southern end.

You could do something like this:



But A. it looks atrocious (in my opinion) and B. you have essentially the same problem. Now you've got:

GA-11: Trump2016+25 –> Trump2020+15
GA-06: Trump2016+27 –> Trump2020+15
GA-09: Trump2016+25 –> Trump2020+15
GA-10: Trump2016+22 –> Trump2020+16

It was already generally acknowledged that GA-11 and GA-06 had flip potential to begin with and now you essentially have two more identical districts. Maybe this gerrymander holds for the decade, but I wouldn't bet on it, and I further wouldn't bet on all these incumbents rolling the dice on potential flips down the line. Not sure what you mean about GA-07, but there's not much blue territory to its south to expand into, and anyway I'm not sure the courts would look kindly on trying to skirt the rules with black plurality districts. I guess my point is I think this could easily get dicey for Georgia Republicans.

I was thinking that pushing GA-07 into Henry County and taking more of Newton County might be a good idea, allowing for you to give GA-10 more of Gwinnett. I anticipated that such a district would probably not be majority black anymore.
That being said, I have to agree there's diceyness involved and it's likely rather bad for GA Rs if they lose this case. And past a certain point, having more of Gwinnett in GA-10 begins to backfire.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1681033115937001472

Federal racial gerrymandering trial for Georgia will be held on September 5.

Its hard to keep track of all the cases, but these are the two legislative-only suits which were consolidated to the Pendergrass Congressional suit. These were the cases that solely concerned Section 2 and no 14th Amendment racial gerrymandering claims (6th radical change), asked for a PI, failed, and then got stalled waiting for Milligan. There was notice of a accelerated schedule since Milligan, this is that.

The one with Racial Gerrymandering 14th Amendment claims is Georgia State Conference of the NAACP v. Georgia which is consolidated with Common Cause v. Raffensperger. They remain on prior schedule for the late fall, but may similarly be accelerated since additional briefing was requested in light of Milligan.

Quite right, should've been more accurate with my language; thank you!

Addendum, not directed at you but just in general:

In all my summarizing I totally forgot about Rose v. Raffensperger which is the sixth - or third if we want to treat the previously mentioned consolidated cases as two super-suits - case against Georgia's various districts. But it deals with the Public Service Commissioner  and how their elections technically have a district map but really are statewide and have yet to elect a African American.

[GALeftist]

One thing the Alabama situation is making me wonder: suppose, for the sake of argument, the courts rule that 4 Black districts are necessary in Atlanta. What happens then? Would Clyde and possibly Collins be cool with significantly weakening their districts to preserve the gerrymander? Would the GAGOP even consider punting to the courts like Alabama is right now? It's one thing in Alabama because the rest of the state is so red, but you've got to imagine that a special master remap of Atlanta could get dicey fast.

[patzer]

One thing the Alabama situation is making me wonder: suppose, for the sake of argument, the courts rule that 4 Black districts are necessary in Atlanta. What happens then? Would Clyde and possibly Collins be cool with significantly weakening their districts to preserve the gerrymander? Would the GAGOP even consider punting to the courts like Alabama is right now? It's one thing in Alabama because the rest of the state is so red, but you've got to imagine that a special master remap of Atlanta could get dicey fast.

The difference between Georgia and Alabama is that in Alabama there's no chance of courts drawing a map any worse for the GOP than 5-2.

In Georgia if you got a court to draw a compact map with four black Atlanta seats, they might do something like this. Which is very much not something worth risking for the Georgia GOP.



I feel like if the court insisted a redrawing, the Georgia GOP would probably just try to do a map that gets rid of MTG, considering she's not overly popular in the party as a whole.