Ohio redistricting thread

[Brittain33]

What was the last court appearance for, then, if not arguments?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Any chance the map is struck down as unconstitutional?

[GALeftist]

Any chance the map is struck down as unconstitutional?

I'd guess there's probably like a 65% chance it gets struck down? Judging by what O'Connor has been saying

[BoiseBoy]

Any chance the map is struck down as unconstitutional?

I'd guess there's probably like a 65% chance it gets struck down? Judging by what O'Connor has been saying

What can they do with a replacement map?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Any chance the map is struck down as unconstitutional?

I'd guess there's probably like a 65% chance it gets struck down? Judging by what O'Connor has been saying

What can they do with a replacement map?

If they appoint a special master, who might it be?

[Oryxslayer]

Any chance the map is struck down as unconstitutional?

I'd guess there's probably like a 65% chance it gets struck down? Judging by what O'Connor has been saying

What can they do with a replacement map?

I seem to recall the textualists saying stuff about how the amendment requires handing power back to the Legislature with supervision if the court orders a redraw on the legislature maps. But they can do what they want for the Congressional maps.  

If they appoint a special master, who might it be?

Persily and Grofman are the guys who usually put their names forward for such work.

[Gass3268]

What was the last court appearance for, then, if not arguments?

If I remember correctly, that was for the legislative maps.

[Gass3268]

Chief Justice O’Connor not happy they used the 2011 as the starting point.

https://twitter.com/karenkasler/status/1475844287975735305?s=21

[Devils30]

Chief Justice O’Connor not happy they used the 2011 as the starting point.

https://twitter.com/karenkasler/status/1475844287975735305?s=21

I expect 1 to become safe Dem and Dems to get either 4 or 12 around Columbus when this is all done.

[Nyvin]

Kinda seems like Summit and Hamilton counties are the focus for the congressional map.   The Columbus area isn't getting much conversation. 

[lfromnj]

Kinda seems like Summit and Hamilton counties are the focus for the congressional map.   The Columbus area isn't getting much conversation. 

Summit is risky. A possible solution is the Torie solution from a few pages ago

[Torie]

The Pub lawyer was pathetic. The best defense would have been that by respecting jurisdictional lines and compactness, while geography may favor the Pubs, it does not unduly favor the Pubs. If you don't tri-chop Cuyahoga, the districts will be less compact. That defense works reasonable well in fact, except for OH-01 where there is no defense. There you are left with arguing that a competitive district cannot be considered as unduly favoring one party as a per se matter, which is not persuasive. So the Pubs there are the hogs to get slaughtered.

The Pub lawyer should have put that CD into a different basket in the defense. Well even if you find OH-01 unduly favors one party, because it cannot be explained away by jurisdictional lines, or compactness or anything else, that does not apply to any of the other competitive CD's that the Pubs drew, that can be explained by jurisdictional lines and compactness. There is no requirement that the Pubs gerrymander to favor the Dems under some proportionality rule that does not exist. If that had been the intent, then the law would have been written to ban redistricting favoring one party, as opposed to unduly favoring one party. The Pubs were badly out-lawyered here. They had some hick local yokel, while the Dems had Covington and Burling, the most high powered law firm in DC.

The Pubs of course when they drew the lines should have had talking points for each CD, using metrics that were not partisan. DeWine's late term fix of competitive CD's as a magic bullet defense was not enough.

[GALeftist]

Seems to be looking better and better. I think chances are very good that we get a compact Hamilton County seat and a better configuration in NEOH, perhaps with three winnable seats or at least one that's better than the status quo. They didn't talk about Toledo or Columbus as much as much as I would have liked, but we'll see.

[Oryxslayer]

I guess the question will be now if there is a limited remap focusing on several specific areas, or they find enough evidence everywhere to chuck it all out.

[kwabbit]

The GOP is really fighting a losing battle in the Cincinnati area. They should’ve just drawn a compact Hamilton seat and not have jeopardized their entire map in the process.

[lfromnj]

The GOP is really fighting a losing battle in the Cincinnati area. They should’ve just drawn a compact Hamilton seat and not have jeopardized their entire map in the process.

It was the desire to over satisfy incumbents. A clermont + Hamilton minus the black suburbs would be pretty similar to the Pittsburgh seat and a bit more defendable.



The suburban seat here is problematic for the future as its only Trump +12 and trending left quickly but it should be fine to 2024 obviously. Still a gerrymander although one could stretch  it to reasonably compact

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The GOP is really fighting a losing battle in the Cincinnati area. They should’ve just drawn a compact Hamilton seat and not have jeopardized their entire map in the process.

It was the desire to over satisfy incumbents. A clermont + Hamilton minus the black suburbs would be pretty similar to the Pittsburgh seat and a bit more defendable.



The suburban seat here is problematic for the future as its only Trump +12 and trending left quickly but it should be fine to 2024 obviously. Still a gerrymander although one could stretch  it to reasonably compact

If there's one thing that has been repeatedly underestimated on this board, tbh, it's been the willingness of legislators to accept the desires of incumbents.

[lfromnj]

The GOP is really fighting a losing battle in the Cincinnati area. They should’ve just drawn a compact Hamilton seat and not have jeopardized their entire map in the process.

It was the desire to over satisfy incumbents. A clermont + Hamilton minus the black suburbs would be pretty similar to the Pittsburgh seat and a bit more defendable.



The suburban seat here is problematic for the future as its only Trump +12 and trending left quickly but it should be fine to 2024 obviously. Still a gerrymander although one could stretch  it to reasonably compact

If there's one thing that has been repeatedly underestimated on this board, tbh, it's been the willingness of legislators to accept the desires of incumbents.

Yeah now these incumbents can cry when they don't have any seats to run in instead of just taking the above.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The GOP is really fighting a losing battle in the Cincinnati area. They should’ve just drawn a compact Hamilton seat and not have jeopardized their entire map in the process.

It was the desire to over satisfy incumbents. A clermont + Hamilton minus the black suburbs would be pretty similar to the Pittsburgh seat and a bit more defendable.



The suburban seat here is problematic for the future as its only Trump +12 and trending left quickly but it should be fine to 2024 obviously. Still a gerrymander although one could stretch  it to reasonably compact

If there's one thing that has been repeatedly underestimated on this board, tbh, it's been the willingness of legislators to accept the desires of incumbents.

Yeah now these incumbents can cry when they don't have any seats to run in instead of just taking the above.

Steve Chabot in particular will probably be kicking himself for his not expressing more concern here.

[kwabbit]

The GOP is really fighting a losing battle in the Cincinnati area. They should’ve just drawn a compact Hamilton seat and not have jeopardized their entire map in the process.

It was the desire to over satisfy incumbents. A clermont + Hamilton minus the black suburbs would be pretty similar to the Pittsburgh seat and a bit more defendable.



The suburban seat here is problematic for the future as its only Trump +12 and trending left quickly but it should be fine to 2024 obviously. Still a gerrymander although one could stretch  it to reasonably compact

What were the 2020 results of this two seats? IMO any configuration that didn’t have any Biden seats seemed likely to be struck down. I believe Chabot’s current seat was won by Biden, and it’s already gerrymandered and everyone knows it’s gerrymandered. Trying to push the envelope further on an already gerrymandered map was too risky for the OH GOP.

[lfromnj]

The GOP is really fighting a losing battle in the Cincinnati area. They should’ve just drawn a compact Hamilton seat and not have jeopardized their entire map in the process.

It was the desire to over satisfy incumbents. A clermont + Hamilton minus the black suburbs would be pretty similar to the Pittsburgh seat and a bit more defendable.



The suburban seat here is problematic for the future as its only Trump +12 and trending left quickly but it should be fine to 2024 obviously. Still a gerrymander although one could stretch  it to reasonably compact

What were the 2020 results of this two seats? IMO any configuration that didn’t have any Biden seats seemed likely to be struck down. I believe Chabot’s current seat was won by Biden, and it’s already gerrymandered and everyone knows it’s gerrymandered. Trying to push the envelope further on an already gerrymandered map was too risky for the OH GOP.

The Cincinatti seat is the same as the one in the proposed map. Biden +2. The Torie solution above for a Stark-Akron seat would be a Trump seat compared to the Akron West Cleveland seat but it would be D leaning instead of R leaning on the composite. A Canton Akron seat also seems like a pretty good district anyway.

[Antonio the Sixth]

There must be one district fully contained within Hamilton county. Anything else is unacceptable.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

There must be one district fully contained within Hamilton county. Anything else is unacceptable.

Rs would have been better off if they just conceded this months ago. As it is, a court map for CDs is still a very real possibility.

[GALeftist]

So it's pretty clear that Chabot's number is finally up unless the oral arguments are being seriously misinterpreted. That means that the remaining areas of interest are basically Columbus, Toledo, and NEOH. Regarding Columbus, it's common knowledge at this point that Franklin, Delaware, and Morrow are basically perfect for two districts, one of which would be Likely D and one of which would be Safe D, but since the court didn't talk about that very much I don't know if that will come to pass. However, they did discuss NEOH quite a bit. Could something like this work? Erie, Cuyahoga, Lorain, Summit, and Portage combined are pretty good for three districts between them.



Here are the numbers:

OH-11 (Cuyahoga, dark red): Biden+49, Clinton+53, 43.7% Black by CVAP (should easily be enough, hard to get it substantially higher without going out of Cuyahoga)
OH-13 (Summit, Portage, Cuyahoga): Biden+8, Clinton+7
OH-04 (Erie, Lorain, Cuyahoga): Biden+3, Clinton+2

This would keep a safe D OH-11 and create a Lean D OH-13 and tossup OH-04, all of which are trending R. It's important to note that this configuration probably dooms Democrats long-term in Toledo's OH-09; without Erie Trump's going to be winning that seat by at least a few points. No cities are split, and only Cuyahoga County is split. All the districts are under target population by 1000-2000 due to Ohio's dumb rules about what counties can be split, but honestly it should be fine. EDIT: Actually you can split Medina once so you can get the deviation much lower.

[Oryxslayer]

snip

This type of alignment I, and a lot of others given what is on the public summitted maps on DRA and what others have posted in this thread, have generally liked with individual edits of course. It also tends to be decent for Dems prospects based on recent data, since even the losing candidates did well in both seats and, depending on the lines of course, Biden improves on Clinton's margins. I personally don't like including Erie in the group and instead look into arms to Canton or single towns like Brunswick and Wadsworth cause that allows the Toledo seat to remain 50-50 based on 2020 numbers, but obviously that is a difference of preferences.

The obvious hindrance to making the region truly better for Dems is the rule preventing cutting Cleveland since it's over 100K. The western seat would love to grab 70-100K of plurality White areas in the west of the city, but that's impossible under the rules accepted.