Georgia 2020 Redistricting Discussion

[Sol]

also besides the obvious implications for Congressional redistricting, note that each State House district would have a population of ~58,442 using this estimate

among many other observations to be made, note that the metro counties that voted for Hillary are collectively gaining like eight house seats here

Used your map to try and break the state into various clusters of growth (or loss):



Among the red cluster of counties above that have lost population, Clinton counties were responsible for 15,183 out of the 21,348 lost. However and overall, since 2010:

Clinton Counties: +488830
Trump Counties: +342992

Yep. Still no change to overall conclusion.

Do you have a map for this with 2016 data? Apologies if I missed this!

[Sol]

Do you have a map for this with 2016 data? Apologies if I missed this!

Actually you may have meant his purported 10-4 map

That I did.

[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 It isn’t about Bishop, it’s about the voters he represents, and if you “move the district to Atlanta”, it no longer represents those voters in rural Georgia.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.

[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 It isn’t about Bishop, it’s about the voters he represents, and if you “move the district to Atlanta”, it no longer represents those voters in rural Georgia.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.

[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.

[Sol]

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".  

IIRC, the strict present interpretation of the VRA emerged under the first Bush administration's preclearance policies as a maneuver to advance Republican positions in the South--at the time there were many John Barrow types who won 30% black districts. Although the GOP has obviously grown in power down here since, there are many cases where "race-blind mapping" would be unfavorable. A fair map of SC drawn under present rules would still give you just Jim Clyburn (with maybe a Joe Cunnigham in a good D year) but under your proposal you'd probably have 2 or 3 Democratic districts.

The VRA may seem like a burdensome restriction to you when trying to gerrymander Georgia, but recognize that it can also dramatically help Republicans.

Personally I think that a notion of race-blind redistricting is both illogical (basically ever single metric used to draw districts by, whether fair or unfair, is impacted by race) and unethical. Recognizing that minority groups should be fairly represented in the political process shouldn't be partisan.

[Sol]

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".  

IIRC, the strict present interpretation of the VRA emerged under the first Bush administration's preclearance policies as a maneuver to advance Republican positions in the South--at the time there were many John Barrow types who won 30% black districts. Although the GOP has obviously grown in power down here since, there are many cases where "race-blind mapping" would be unfavorable. A fair map of SC drawn under present rules would still give you just Jim Clyburn (with maybe a Joe Cunnigham in a good D year) but under your proposal you'd probably have 2 or 3 Democratic districts.

The VRA may seem like a burdensome restriction to you when trying to gerrymander Georgia, but recognize that it can also dramatically help Republicans.

Personally I think that a notion of race-blind redistricting is both illogical (basically ever single metric used to draw districts by, whether fair or unfair, is impacted by race) and unethical. Recognizing that minority groups should be fairly represented in the political process shouldn't be partisan.

I didn't say partisan blind, just race blind.  There would likely be de facto majority minority seats in some southern states, because an interest in packing Dems would still exist.  SC isn't going to give Dems more districts if they lack VRA requirements.  The only way this would backfire on republicans is a place like IL, where the south side of Chicago could be cracked way more. 

Partisan redistricting cannot be race blind so long as there are observable tendencies in voting by race.

[Sol]

Given how no one has drawn a white Dem district (is one even possible?); the number of Dem seats equals the number of black seats

So now the question is:

1: Can GA-02 be dismantled? Can it be brought to Atlanta or other black areas of the state?
2: How many black majority districts are needed in the Atlanta area?

Once you answer those 2 questions you can start drawing. The VRA essentially means Georgia will have a court designed map in practice as 11-3 is impossible.

You can very easily draw 2 white dem seats in Atlanta, it's just that there's literally no reason the GOP would possibly draw them.

Wouldn't such districts be illegal as they would require packing the black voters?

Like if you have a white Dem district in Atlanta that means the remaining black seats will have to be 60%+ black; which would be struck down by courts?

So I guess while easily possible, not only has the GOP no reason to draw them but also they would be struck down anyways

Atlanta is an extremely black city; South Fulton has almost 100,000 people and is around 90% black, for example. Heavily black districts are the natural outcome if you draw compact black-majority districts in this part of Georgia. 

[Sol]

A fair Georgia map would probably also not split Atlanta, which would be necessary to have White-majority D district.

[Sol]

Anyway, now that 2018 population figures are in DRA, this is what I would consider a "fair" 6-8 GA map. Dens have the 3 black ATL seats, the Gwinnett seat, the VRA SW GA seat, and the white liberal north Fulton seat.

Nice map! A few nitpicks:

-Why not put all of Cherokee County in the Cyan district? Better to keep the Atlanta area together.
-Is it possible to avoid the tri-chop of Atlanta?
-If you give the eastern half of Spaulding to the teal district, and then send the grey district deeper into Columbia County, it better follows metro areas and communities.

[Sol]

Anyway, now that 2018 population figures are in DRA, this is what I would consider a "fair" 6-8 GA map. Dens have the 3 black ATL seats, the Gwinnett seat, the VRA SW GA seat, and the white liberal north Fulton seat.

Nice map! A few nitpicks:

-Why not put all of Cherokee County in the Cyan district? Better to keep the Atlanta area together.
-Is it possible to avoid the tri-chop of Atlanta?
-If you give the eastern half of Spaulding to the teal district, and then send the grey district deeper into Columbia County, it better follows metro areas and communities.

Thanks.
1. Easy enough to do.
2. Yes, but I'm not sure it actually produces a better map. I'm undecided if the city limits are a good COI or wedges radiating out from central Atlanta are better.
3. I can fix Columbia County easily enough, but changing Spaulding forces a bunch of new county splits in the NW part of the state.

New map with Atlanta adjustment:


Without Atlanta adjustment:

What about if you put South Atlanta into the district with Cobb and Douglas?

These maps are splendid by the way; my nitpicking is a sign of affection for this lovely map .

[Sol]

I made a fair Georgia map a while ago. Though it was drawn on pretty fair principles, it did favor Democrats so I thought it would be good to make a version of the same map which more closely paralleled the state's partisan lean:



Here's the the link.

Here's the original version:



link

[Sol]

Could you solve that problem just by packing the Atlanta VRA districts? There's no VRA issue in doing this with Gwinnett Latinos and with the current Supreme Court they'd have a decent chance at getting away with moving the VRA districts from the 50s% black to the mid 60s% and getting away with it.

I don't think so. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Gingles test stipulates that if a protected minority group constitutes a majority of the electorate in a hypothetical compactly-drawn district. African Americans are the only group to which this status applies in Georgia (Gwinnett Latinos couldn't be the majority in any district so can crack them either way). Given it is now possible to draw five compact, majority African American districts in Georgia (Macon-Columbus, South Atlanta Burbs, South Fulton/Douglass/Cobb, Core Atlanta, and East DeKalb/South Gwinnett), it can easily be argued that collapsing the latter four districts into three is an illegal racial gerrymander because it dilutes the natural voting power of Atlanta-area African Americans.

That, however, is the best Dems are getting in GA. The GOP shouldn't run into legal trouble stripping North Fulton/North Cobb/North Gwinnett deep into Appalachia.

Yeah, I didn't mean denying a fourth AA district in metro Atlanta - the only way you're avoiding that is if the Supreme Court is willing to radically reinterpret or strike down the VRA. I meant using those four districts to ensure that you can't draw a fifth Democratic district in the city.

I don't think that's relevant so long as AA voting power isn't diluted. SCOTUS reaffirmed partisan redistricting as constitutional and GA doesn't have any state level rules of the sort. I really don't see why the GAGOP wouldn't try and crack that natural Sandy Springs/Alpharetta/Dunwoody/Duluth/East Cobb seat. It's gonna be 5-8.

Ehh, probably 4-9 at least until Democrats are able to assert control over either the 11th circuit or SCOTUS.

[Sol]

Is it really a safe bet that 4 black districts will be required in the Atlanta area? In my opinion it is fairly easy to justify that only 3 are needed. The COIs write themselves if you only do 3:

1 DeKalb county district
1 southern Fulton county district
1 "southern suburbs" district.

All of these are "natural" COIs, create very nice districts and lead to 3 VRA districts that are 55%, 58% and 57% black respectively.

If doing a fair map, there is also a 4th "natural" majority minority COI that would be basically most of Gwinett county, but that one would not be a VRA protected district (38% white, 31% black, 23% Hispanic, 12% Asian) and would get cracked in an R gerrymander anyways.



Meanwhile, if you go for 4 VRA districts, you need to deliberately gerrymander to get the desired result. I am open to see better maps, but my try had districts that, while somewhat clean, still broke more counties and COIs:

1 most of DeKalb + a bit of southern Gwinnett
1 southeastern suburbs and rurals
1 southern Fulton + a part of Clayton + southwestern rurals
1 Atlanta + southern Cobb

The former arrangement is certainly a much nicer one.

You could do something like this:

Though it does mess with counties, it captures CoIs pretty neatly--western suburbs, southern suburbs, Atlanta, and eastern suburbs. Everything is majority Black.

[Sol]

Here's my newest take on a Fair GA; aside from Coweta and splitting Middle Georgia I think everything is pretty decent and has good CoI/VRA. It's also pretty proportional, not that that should matter (GA-11 might have been won by Biden this time).

Sorry for not including a screenshot.

[Sol]

Here's my newest take on a Fair GA; aside from Coweta and splitting Middle Georgia I think everything is pretty decent and has good CoI/VRA. It's also pretty proportional, not that that should matter (GA-11 might have been won by Biden this time).

Sorry for not including a screenshot.

I don't mind the Athens to Augusta district in a vacuum as Athens isn't really a COI with anything but Oconee which is also in the district. The problem with doing that is I feel South Georgia is neatly put in with 4 districts and by taking Athens you effectively make the 3rd district take parts of South Georgia.

I'm not sure if I totally understand. How are you defining South Georgia? I think my map pretty much has just all of the area below the Fall Line in four districts (1, 2, 3, and , barring Burke, Jefferson, and Johnson, and the former two are in the Augusta area.

I don't like my 3rd district much--it's definitely the leftovers district--but sending Augusta to non-Macon Middle Georgia is kind of awkward too. There are an awful lot of people in Houston County and adjacent areas, so the adjusted 12th district would just be Middle Georgia, Augusta, and the minimum of counties in between. That also forces either a belt-like wraparound district from Athens to Carrolton. Or, if you prefer, a rotation which creates a Rome to Columbus district which doesn't seem optimal either.

[Sol]

4 South Georgia districts.

I think Warner Robbins should and can go with Macon.

Could probably even increase compactness if one wanted to split Columbus along the clear racial lines there but I disagree.(only a few rural precincts are not there in Houston county)

Coastal Savanah
Augusta

What are the racial #s on the 1st?

Personally not crazy about splitting Lee from Dougherty; plus the Macon metro is still disunited.

[Sol]

Eliminating the 2nd seems like a good way to get sued.

[Sol]

How on earth is the 2nd not VRA required?

[Sol]

Here's another pass at a fair Georgia map. Fairly similar to the one I made earlier, but taking into account lfromnj's concerns about crossing the Fall Line too often.

link





On reflection, I'm not sure that this 3rd district, which dips east to gobble up Walton County, is much better than my original 3rd, which dipped south to gobble up Warner Robbins instead. Both have ugly pincer shapes which only sort of make sense.

I suppose you could also send the 3rd north to Rome, but that seems even less desirable.

[Sol]

If you want a Savannah to Augusta district because you care about proportionality, why not draw an Athens to Augusta instead? More defensible on CoI.

[Sol]

The trouble with an Augusta-Savannah district is that it's a bad CoI. Savannah is a pretty obvious fit with the other Sea Islands counties and other parts of Lower Coastal Plain. Meanwhile, Augusta is a much further inland fall line city in the vein of Macon. You can see this in the map of Georgia Regional Commissions:



That's ignoring the fact that such a district has to exclude Columbia County (or something in the Savannah suburbs) which seems like a bad CoI. Columbia is deeply part of Metro Augusta and belongs in a seat with it. You're not really fitting all of Augusta in a district when a big chunk of its metro area can't fit in.

[Sol]

Working from your map's goal of 4 black districts. Why not just do this rotation?

Not a huge fan of putting Walton into the Black majority district. I was trying to go for a fairly CoI-based scheme for the Atlanta Black seats (4=DeKalb/Eastern suburbs, 5=Atlanta, 10=Southeastern suburbs 13=Western Suburbs) and Walton seems more of a piece with places like Barrow or Jackson County--i.e. full on exurbia rather than suburbia. That said, that isn't a bad map. I think we can both agree that the 3rd is going to a be a little off no matter what.

You could also justify a North Cobb+ Milton seat if you wish as the rest of Cobb's population is equal to Cherokee + Forsyth.



It is Kemp +4 but it certainly voted for Biden.

Either way is equally good IMO--I considered that but decided to go against it to avoid chopping Cobb twice. Paulding is kind of a weird area--it's most closely tied to Cobb, but that's mainly via 278--i.e. it's linked most closely to the parts of Cobb in the 13th.

IIRC the Black population is increasing in SW Paulding--maybe one of these days it'll become the next Henry or Douglas (in about 30 years lol).

[Sol]

Working from your map's goal of 4 black districts. Why not just do this rotation?

Not a huge fan of putting Walton into the Black majority district. I was trying to go for a fairly CoI-based scheme for the Atlanta Black seats (4=DeKalb/Eastern suburbs, 5=Atlanta, 10=Southeastern suburbs 13=Western Suburbs) and Walton seems more of a piece with places like Barrow or Jackson County--i.e. full on exurbia rather than suburbia. That said, that isn't a bad map. I think we can both agree that the 3rd is going to a be a little off no matter what.

You could also justify a North Cobb+ Milton seat if you wish as the rest of Cobb's population is equal to Cherokee + Forsyth.



It is Kemp +4 but it certainly voted for Biden.

Either way is equally good IMO--I considered that but decided to go against it to avoid chopping Cobb twice. Paulding is kind of a weird area--it's most closely tied to Cobb, but that's mainly via 278--i.e. it's linked most closely to the parts of Cobb in the 13th.

IIRC the Black population is increasing in SW Paulding--maybe one of these days it'll become the next Henry or Douglas (in about 30 years lol).

Yeah either pairing is fine and the 2nd chop of Cobb is only like 10k people. Just wanted to point that out.  Did you change your 3rd district?

I haven't changed it in the map I posted, since I don't want to confuse people.

[Sol]

Not a huge fan of putting Walton into the Black majority district.

I am. The white residents of Walton County refer to their county seat (Monroe) as "Monkeyrow". Seems like a fitting "punishment" (from their perspective).

Hahaha, well in that case Walton County and Rockdale/Newton are very obvious and unseverable CoI.