Ohio redistricting thread

[GALeftist]

Hopefully the OHSC will swiftly strike this down. This is pretty egregious, and I don't see how any court which isn't completely full of hacks could possibly say that this complies with the Ohio constitution.

[Torie]

Anyone got a shapefile for the new map?

Voila:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fa470e25-db1b-45ac-ba7f-ea27792e3528

As to the complaint about the chopping of Summit, and the design of the chop does look suspicious,  in point of fact the populations dictate that Summit needs to be chopped, because even if OH-07 were removed from Summit, in exchange for Medina, OH-07 then has too many people, but if then removed from Cuyahoga to remedy that, has too few people, so no dice. What looks less like a gerrymander and a cleaner chop is OH-13 taking Stark and Summit ex of the northern suburbs, but it has the same partisan complexion as OH-13 in the enacted map, so no net Pub partisan advantage. Just one swing CD design is exchanged for another.



I then took on the more daunting task of how the Pubs could put lipstick of its OH-01 pig. The line of argument would be that hey it’s but a swing CD headed Dem, no big deal, and while it could be made lean Dem now, that would be at the cost of making otherwise merely lean Pub OH-10 more Pub sliding it into the pretty safe category (and in fact in a neutral map (click below) it does make OH-10 more Pub about 1.5 PVI points, so so far so good. That is the good Pub news. The bad Pub news is that it also makes OH-15 more Dem by about 2 PVI points, so the OH-01 Pubmander there still gives the Pubs a net “undue” advantage. It makes OH-01 swing instead of lean Dem, and switches OH-10 for OH-15 as the more marginal Pub CD.  And thus the Pub OH-01 defense is a fail because it has no defense, even with creative and imaginative lawyering. So sad for the Pubs as to OH-01.

I do think they are in good shape in NE Ohio however. They give the Dems a swing seat, which is all they should get per neutral redistricting principles, in addition to the Cleveland seat. It is just that the design of the OH-13 swing seat is different. It's generates more erosity than the other option, but is not more Pub.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/09d91f86-fb7f-4884-b467-6b5d3714a20e

[politicallefty]

Disappointing, but not surprising that DeWine approved the map. He has been one of the better governors during the pandemic, but he's still a partisan Republican at heart (albeit more traditional as opposed to Trumpist).

Unless there are any surprise votes at the OH Supreme Court, this is almost certainly in the hands of Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor. I'm not going to pretend to predict what the court will do.

[Roll Roons]

So if this map does get struck down by the State Supreme Court, who redraws it? Do they do it themselves or does it go back to the legislature?

[lfromnj]

Anyone got a shapefile for the new map?

Voila:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fa470e25-db1b-45ac-ba7f-ea27792e3528

As to the complaint about the chopping of Summit, and the design of the chop does look suspicious,  in point of fact the populations dictate that Summit needs to be chopped, because even if OH-07 were removed from Summit, in exchange for Medina, OH-07 then has too many people, but if then removed from Cuyahoga to remedy that, has too few people, so no dice. What looks less like a gerrymander and a cleaner chop is OH-13 taking Stark and Summit ex of the northern suburbs, but it has the same partisan complexion as OH-13 in the enacted map, so no net Pub partisan advantage. Just one swing CD design is exchanged for another.



I then took on the more daunting task of how the Pubs could put lipstick of its OH-01 pig. The line of argument would be that hey it’s but a swing CD headed Dem, no big deal, and while it could be made lean Dem now, that would be at the cost of making otherwise merely lean Pub OH-10 more Pub sliding it into the pretty safe category (and in fact in a neutral map (click below) it does make OH-10 more Pub about 1.5 PVI points, so so far so good. That is the good Pub news. The bad Pub news is that it also makes OH-15 more Dem by about 2 PVI points, so the OH-01 Pubmander there still gives the Pubs a net “undue” advantage. It makes OH-01 swing instead of lean Dem, and switches OH-10 for OH-15 as the more marginal Pub CD.  And thus the Pub OH-01 defense is a fail because it has no defense, even with creative and imaginative lawyering. So sad for the Pubs as to OH-01.

I do think they are in good shape in NE Ohio however. They give the Dems a swing seat, which is all they should get per neutral redistricting principles, in addition to the Cleveland seat. It is just that the design of the OH-13 swing seat is different. It's generates more erosity than the other option, but is not more Pub.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/09d91f86-fb7f-4884-b467-6b5d3714a20e

The proposed swing Akron seat voted for Biden but your proposed one voted for Trump by 4.

[Torie]

Anyone got a shapefile for the new map?

Voila:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fa470e25-db1b-45ac-ba7f-ea27792e3528

As to the complaint about the chopping of Summit, and the design of the chop does look suspicious,  in point of fact the populations dictate that Summit needs to be chopped, because even if OH-07 were removed from Summit, in exchange for Medina, OH-07 then has too many people, but if then removed from Cuyahoga to remedy that, has too few people, so no dice. What looks less like a gerrymander and a cleaner chop is OH-13 taking Stark and Summit ex of the northern suburbs, but it has the same partisan complexion as OH-13 in the enacted map, so no net Pub partisan advantage. Just one swing CD design is exchanged for another.



I then took on the more daunting task of how the Pubs could put lipstick of its OH-01 pig. The line of argument would be that hey it’s but a swing CD headed Dem, no big deal, and while it could be made lean Dem now, that would be at the cost of making otherwise merely lean Pub OH-10 more Pub sliding it into the pretty safe category (and in fact in a neutral map (click below) it does make OH-10 more Pub about 1.5 PVI points, so so far so good. That is the good Pub news. The bad Pub news is that it also makes OH-15 more Dem by about 2 PVI points, so the OH-01 Pubmander there still gives the Pubs a net “undue” advantage. It makes OH-01 swing instead of lean Dem, and switches OH-10 for OH-15 as the more marginal Pub CD.  And thus the Pub OH-01 defense is a fail because it has no defense, even with creative and imaginative lawyering. So sad for the Pubs as to OH-01.

I do think they are in good shape in NE Ohio however. They give the Dems a swing seat, which is all they should get per neutral redistricting principles, in addition to the Cleveland seat. It is just that the design of the OH-13 swing seat is different. It's generates more erosity than the other option, but is not more Pub.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/09d91f86-fb7f-4884-b467-6b5d3714a20e

The proposed swing Akron seat voted for Biden but your proposed one voted for Trump by 4.

Ah so it did (both maps were set on the composite score, not the POTUS 2020 score), thus making the Pub plan in NE Ohio even more compelling fair.  

So the Pub defense is the Mathismander defense. Gerrymandering is not gerrymandering if it creates competitive districts - the rest is noise. The only flaw in the ointment is that OH-15 is less competitive under the Pubmander than it would be otherwise, but per Trump 2020 numbers, the  difference is small. See below. So the governor has tipped us off as to the Pub defense. It's the Mathismander defense. Perhaps they should call Mathis in as an expert defense witness.  

Do you all now understand why being a lawyer is the best thing ever? Yes!

[GALeftist]

Why would only one swing district be expected in NE Ohio? I feel like it makes the most sense from a nonpartisan perspective to put Summit with Portage and the remnants of Cuyahoga with Lorain, thus creating two swing districts in NE Ohio.

[Nyvin]

Why would only one swing district be expected in NE Ohio? I feel like it makes the most sense from a nonpartisan perspective to put Summit with Portage and the remnants of Cuyahoga with Lorain, thus creating two swing districts in NE Ohio.

Especially considering the little "arms" they had to make in 7 and 14 going into Summit and Cuyahoga and the Lorrain district going to the other side of the state.  I'd love to read the Republican's written statements they have to provide for why those arms are needed in the map and aren't for partisan purposes.

Two safe D and five tossups isn't really adequate if it's considering the statewide vote of 45% Biden.   If the tossups are considered 0.5 seats and the safe districts are 1 seat each, that's still only 4.5 out of 15 seats, which is less than a third of the districts that are "winnable" by Democrats (going by the general assumption Democrats will win roughly half of the tossup seats each cycle).

[Torie]

The Pub friendly court is not going to gerrymander for the Dems under the guise that fairness equals proportionality. Just like the Dem friendly court in NYS operating under the same law is not going to gerrymander for the Pubs using such an algorithm. How many Dems have been arguing that NYS needs to be gerrymandered for the Pubs? You see, this stuff is too subjective, and the stakes too high, and the complexity so great that spin artists have holes to drive through that make the Grand Canyon seem like a grove in a floorboard, for a species as defective as humans to do it. It's time to give it all up and give it to the black box.

Oh, and how about CA? 40% of the seats is like 20 seats for the Pubs. Where are they? How "fair" is that?  The commission is supposed to be fair right? What happened?

[Nyvin]

The Pub friendly court is not going to gerrymander for the Dems under the guise that fairness equals proportionality. Just like the Dem friendly court in NYS operating under the same law is not going to gerrymander for the Pubs using such an algorithm. How many Dems have been arguing that NYS needs to be gerrymandered for the Pubs? You see, this stuff is too subjective, and the stakes too high, and the complexity so great that spin artists have holes to drive through that make the Grand Canyon seem like a grove in a floorboard, for a species as defective as humans to do it. It's time to give it all up and give it to the black box.

Oh, and how about CA? 40% of the seats is like 20 seats for the Pubs. Where are they? How "fair" is that?  The commission is supposed to be fair right? What happened?

Funny how it's a "Pub Friendly Court" when O’Connor already ruled against GOP gerrymandering in 2012, and that was before the much more strict standards were passed with the reform.

No you can't always match the statewide vote but it certainly is a good barometer of where things are too distorted to be acceptable.   Giving the Republicans the potential to win 87% of the seats when they win 53% of the vote should be a huge red alarm and give reason to scrutinize the map. 

If the geography of the state dictates that that's unavoidable, fine, but if the map was designed to give that outcome then start looking at the written statements from Republicans on why they made the districts the way they did, and why they didn't get any bipartisan support for any of them.   Just looking at the map I can see a big handful of decisions that are extremely questionable.

[Torie]

The Pub friendly court is not going to gerrymander for the Dems under the guise that fairness equals proportionality. Just like the Dem friendly court in NYS operating under the same law is not going to gerrymander for the Pubs using such an algorithm. How many Dems have been arguing that NYS needs to be gerrymandered for the Pubs? You see, this stuff is too subjective, and the stakes too high, and the complexity so great that spin artists have holes to drive through that make the Grand Canyon seem like a grove in a floorboard, for a species as defective as humans to do it. It's time to give it all up and give it to the black box.

Oh, and how about CA? 40% of the seats is like 20 seats for the Pubs. Where are they? How "fair" is that?  The commission is supposed to be fair right? What happened?

Funny how it's a "Pub Friendly Court" when O’Connor already ruled against GOP gerrymandering in 2012, and that was before the much more strict standards were passed with the reform.

No you can't always match the statewide vote but it certainly is a good barometer of where things are too distorted to be acceptable.   Giving the Republicans the potential to win 87% of the seats when they win 53% of the vote should be a huge red alarm and give reason to scrutinize the map.  

If the geography of the state dictates that that's unavoidable, fine, but if the map was designed to give that outcome then start looking at the written statements from Republicans on why they made the districts the way they did, and why they didn't get any bipartisan support for any of them.   Just looking at the map I can see a big handful of decisions that are extremely questionable.

I look forward to your comments when the NYS CD map comes out that has the same must not unduly favor stricture. I will leave it at that.  I understand your metric: within reason, gerrymander to move closer to proportionality, or at least with two reasonable choices, or a close case, always pick the one that moves towards proportionality. As long as you are being consistent, fair enough, although your metric is not quite the same as what the law says, but then "unduly" is itself a word that without further definition, is very subjective. It kind of leaves one in at least a neighborhood adjacent to the "I know it when I see it" definition of pornography.

[Nyvin]

The Pub friendly court is not going to gerrymander for the Dems under the guise that fairness equals proportionality. Just like the Dem friendly court in NYS operating under the same law is not going to gerrymander for the Pubs using such an algorithm. How many Dems have been arguing that NYS needs to be gerrymandered for the Pubs? You see, this stuff is too subjective, and the stakes too high, and the complexity so great that spin artists have holes to drive through that make the Grand Canyon seem like a grove in a floorboard, for a species as defective as humans to do it. It's time to give it all up and give it to the black box.

Oh, and how about CA? 40% of the seats is like 20 seats for the Pubs. Where are they? How "fair" is that?  The commission is supposed to be fair right? What happened?

Funny how it's a "Pub Friendly Court" when O’Connor already ruled against GOP gerrymandering in 2012, and that was before the much more strict standards were passed with the reform.

No you can't always match the statewide vote but it certainly is a good barometer of where things are too distorted to be acceptable.   Giving the Republicans the potential to win 87% of the seats when they win 53% of the vote should be a huge red alarm and give reason to scrutinize the map.  

If the geography of the state dictates that that's unavoidable, fine, but if the map was designed to give that outcome then start looking at the written statements from Republicans on why they made the districts the way they did, and why they didn't get any bipartisan support for any of them.   Just looking at the map I can see a big handful of decisions that are extremely questionable.

I look forward to your comments when the NYS CD map comes out that has the same must not unduly favor stricture. I will leave it at that.  I understand your metric: within reason, gerrymander to move closer to proportionality, or at least with two reasonable choices, or a close case, always pick the one that moves towards proportionality. As long as you are being consistent, fair enough, although your metric is not quite the same as what the law says, but then "unduly" is itself a word that without further definition, is very subjective in and of itself. It kind of leaves one in at least a neighborhood adjacent to the "I know it when I see it" definition of pornography.

When Pennsylvania redrew it's map via courts, it ended closer to proportionality, when Florida redrew it's map it ended closer to proportionality, when North Carolina redrew it's map it ended closer to proportionality, when Virginia redrew it's map it ended closer to proportionality. 

The Colorado commission used statewide proportionality to make 4-3-1 the desired outcome  because it was closer to statewide proportionality (one of the commissioners openly stated this was a hardline she wouldn't drop).

The Michigan commission is using statewide proportionality to mandate a map that has partisan fairness in it.

It's not like I'm speaking some radical communist agenda here, it's pretty basic to use the statewide vote to see if something fishy is going on, see how the map drawing impacted the outcomes to sway the districts away from the statewide vote, and correct them.   If "Unduly Favor a political party" doesn't involve statewide proportionality, what the heck is it going to go by?  Are they just going to see if the district make nice looking geometric shapes or something?

[Torie]

The other option is "neutral" redistricting metrics that ignore proportionality, except perhaps when the choices are in equipoise. One can argue what neutral metrics are, but most agree that it involves erosity and jurisdictional chops at least. Some add urban versus rural, or census metro areas.  That is why good law drafting tries to be as meticulous as possible in defining words such as "unduly." I don't trust humans with this process because the biases are just too great, along with the stakes. I prefer the black box with the coding done far in advance, so one does not know what the outcome will be precisely from the code. I really do. The 100,000 posts on this board have totally convinced me of that, even without peaking out into the public square, which is arguably even worse.

[GALeftist]

The Pub friendly court is not going to gerrymander for the Dems under the guise that fairness equals proportionality. Just like the Dem friendly court in NYS operating under the same law is not going to gerrymander for the Pubs using such an algorithm. How many Dems have been arguing that NYS needs to be gerrymandered for the Pubs? You see, this stuff is too subjective, and the stakes too high, and the complexity so great that spin artists have holes to drive through that make the Grand Canyon seem like a grove in a floorboard, for a species as defective as humans to do it. It's time to give it all up and give it to the black box.

Oh, and how about CA? 40% of the seats is like 20 seats for the Pubs. Where are they? How "fair" is that?  The commission is supposed to be fair right? What happened?

It's not even really an issue of gerrymandering for the Democrats imo (if I were gerrymandering for the Democrats, for example, I'd get two safe D seats out of metro Cleveland rather than one safe and two tossups which are trending R). It's more an issue that the COIs just make more sense that way. For example, you need a Safe D eastern Cuyahoga seat which elects the candidate of choice of black voters. That still leaves you with like 475k voters in western Cuyahoga. Where does it make the most sense to put them? The Republican map has them sliced up between the 13th and the 14th, both of which stretch all the way to the Akron metro area, splitting that up as well (along with the 7th, which leaves the Cleveland CSA behind altogether, meaning that the two counties in the Akron metro area are split three ways). All of this when those 475k voters plus the 300-odd k voters in Lorain (which is directly west of Cuyahoga and is a pretty clear COI) is basically the perfect population for another district. It almost draws itself. This has the added benefit of allowing you to keep Summit and Portage together in a coherent district instead of chopping up the Akron metro area so much. Compared to this hypothetical map, what possible benefit is there from the Republican map? The only one I can see is that there is only one competitive district rather than two. This isn't partisan gerrymandering, this is just looking at the Republican map and seeing that it is worse at representing the will of the voters in this area than a hypothetical alternative for the seemingly sole purpose of partisan advantage – in other words, it "unduly advantages" the Republicans. (Similar argument applies to Franklin and Delaware.)

[Torie]

Another fun issue is the concept of gerrymandering for the Dems to offset the partisan advantage the Pubs often get from the VRA, or at least the concept that persons of color should get elected even if Gingles is not formally triggered. Thus, there will "always" be a Cleveland seat that is a Dem pack. Someday, if not now, ditto for Columbus and Cincinnati.

The MI commission was busy doing that for the legislative seats due to the Detroit Dem pack and the need to elect blacks to the legislature.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a1814ade-915a-4a5c-bdff-e5ffa75e81aa
OH fair map I made.
I sought to draw what I thought were good CoI in NE OH. The funky lines in the Columbus were driven by the desire to have just three districts containing parts of the "doughnut" around Franklin County. Compactness was broadly favored.
The 8th is only -2 in deviation from quota, which I feel proud about.
DRA marks disproportionality as 5.95% in favor of the GOP.

[Torie]

Nice map overall, although I really dislike the placement of Union County with the rest of  OH-07. It spoliates the map for me. I presume you did it because you could not find a way to avoid another sizable county chop. I also think you violated Ohio law in two places. Can you guess as to what is in my mind here.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Nice map overall, although I really dislike the placement of Union County with the rest of  OH-07. It spoliates the map for me. I presume you did it because you could not find a way to avoid another sizable county chop. I also think you violated Ohio law in two places. Can you guess as to what is in my mind here.

Lorain and Butler?

[Torie]

Nice map overall, although I really dislike the placement of Union County with the rest of  OH-07. It spoliates the map for me. I presume you did it because you could not find a way to avoid another sizable county chop. I also think you violated Ohio law in two places. Can you guess as to what is in my mind here.

Lorain and Butler?

Well that is an interesting answer. One of the names you mentioned is correct, and one is not. 

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Nice map overall, although I really dislike the placement of Union County with the rest of  OH-07. It spoliates the map for me. I presume you did it because you could not find a way to avoid another sizable county chop. I also think you violated Ohio law in two places. Can you guess as to what is in my mind here.

Lorain and Butler?

Well that is an interesting answer. One of the names you mentioned is correct, and one is not. 

Is the other one Hancock or Columbiana?

[Torie]

Clark. Your chops are not contiguous. If that is not the law, then I withdraw my comment nunc pro tunc. But if anal retentive enough, you might check it out.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c591ee89-44f6-44d8-b150-e61fd3970249
Here is an alternative arrangement in SW OH. The rest of the map is unchanged.

[Torie]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c591ee89-44f6-44d8-b150-e61fd3970249
Here is an alternative arrangement in SW OH. The rest of the map is unchanged.

Now you have spread the illegality to Butler. I looked up the language:

"and the portion of any congressional district that splits a county must be contiguous within that county."

[Tekken_Guy]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a1814ade-915a-4a5c-bdff-e5ffa75e81aa
OH fair map I made.
I sought to draw what I thought were good CoI in NE OH. The funky lines in the Columbus were driven by the desire to have just three districts containing parts of the "doughnut" around Franklin County. Compactness was broadly favored.
The 8th is only -2 in deviation from quota, which I feel proud about.
DRA marks disproportionality as 5.95% in favor of the GOP.

A map that respects CoI probably keeps Butler and Warren together.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c591ee89-44f6-44d8-b150-e61fd3970249
Here is an alternative arrangement in SW OH. The rest of the map is unchanged.

Now you have spread the illegality to Butler. I looked up the language:

"and the portion of any congressional district that splits a county must be contiguous within that county."

Ah, I see.