2020 New York Redistricting

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/qlzsu/status/1679582626791735296

This is the obvious D gerrymander move in the area, but you have to finish it up by giving Goldman Chinatown so you can justify it as keeping the Chinese community together.

How do you think those Chinese areas would vote in a D primary?

[Sol]

https://twitter.com/qlzsu/status/1679582626791735296

This is the obvious D gerrymander move in the area, but you have to finish it up by giving Goldman Chinatown so you can justify it as keeping the Chinese community together.

How do you think those Chinese areas would vote in a D primary?

Niou probably would have won a primary in such a district, but I suspect that as an incumbent Goldman would be fine.

[ProgressiveModerate]

My hope is that if Dems are able to successfully redraw, it’s still a map that may be partisan Ky biased but has reasonable COIs (unlike the original map). Ig FL is also an example - by and large the districts are geographically compact and make COI sense, and there are a few theoretically competitive districts. Even if the final outcome is warped in favor of Rs, each community gets reasonable representation, unlike TX or IL where certain communities are cracked to oblivion.

[patzer]

In the event of a redrawing in NYC, if they're willing to have more erosity in return for grouping communities of interest together I'd suggest this.

Six districts modified (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). 11th is anchored in Goldman's strongest areas in Manhattan and is Biden+17, so I'm sure Goldman would be happy with it; 7th regains Park Slope; the new 10th is plurality Asian.

[Mr.Phips]

https://twitter.com/qlzsu/status/1679582626791735296

This is the obvious D gerrymander move in the area, but you have to finish it up by giving Goldman Chinatown so you can justify it as keeping the Chinese community together.

Connecting Staten Island with Park Slope isn’t any more egregious than what Republicans did in Florida by cutting St Pete out of the Pinellas district.  It still looks clean.  Where Dems need to be careful is Long Island and in the Hudson Valley.  They probably need to cede two Republican seats on Long Island and make some clean changes to NY-03 to make that seat more Dem.  NY-04 is Dem enough that it can stay pretty much intact.  

The only real change that the Hudson Valley needs is for NY-16 to give up more of Westchester to NY-17 while taking in the areas of Rockland that gave Lawler his victory in 2022.  Then make some clean Dem favoring changes to NY-19.

[Mr.Phips]

In the event of a redrawing in NYC, if they're willing to have more erosity in return for grouping communities of interest together I'd suggest this.

Six districts modified (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). 11th is anchored in Goldman's strongest areas in Manhattan and is Biden+17, so I'm sure Goldman would be happy with it; 7th regains Park Slope; the new 10th is plurality Asian.

Grouping SI with parts of Manhattan works too.  It can be done without looking erose.

[patzer]

In the event of a redrawing in NYC, if they're willing to have more erosity in return for grouping communities of interest together I'd suggest this.

Six districts modified (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). 11th is anchored in Goldman's strongest areas in Manhattan and is Biden+17, so I'm sure Goldman would be happy with it; 7th regains Park Slope; the new 10th is plurality Asian.

Grouping SI with parts of Manhattan works too.  It can be done without looking erose.

The erosity is primarily to ensure the new Asian district in my proposal.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/qlzsu/status/1679582626791735296

This is the obvious D gerrymander move in the area, but you have to finish it up by giving Goldman Chinatown so you can justify it as keeping the Chinese community together.

In the event of a redrawing in NYC, if they're willing to have more erosity in return for grouping communities of interest together I'd suggest this.

Six districts modified (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). 11th is anchored in Goldman's strongest areas in Manhattan and is Biden+17, so I'm sure Goldman would be happy with it; 7th regains Park Slope; the new 10th is plurality Asian.

Grouping SI with parts of Manhattan works too.  It can be done without looking erose.

I will laugh if we ever see something like the above. In a twisted way it makes a lot of sense, and couldn't have been passed with the 2020 incumbents, but is also very clearly a pretty partisan move.

NY-10 after 2020 took in the Hasidim of Brooklyn, that is now very unlikely. Back then there were two White incumbents in Upper Manhattan rather than one, and now Jeffries's CBC allies are bolder and empowered to desire the whole of Republican Brooklyn. NY-10 after the special remapping takes in Park Slope and other downtown Brooklyn Working Families strongholds. These areas did not vote for the primary winner Goldman, and represent a fertile base where future progressive challengers will emerge from.

Goldman wants to be protected from Progressives despite there being no more upscale Liberal areas easily available for him: White Staten is weirdly the best option. Nadler previously had to negotiate with Maloney for every neighborhood in Manhattan - now there is only one and the master gave Nadler incumbency over the Upper East Side. NY-11 currently takes in south Chinese Brooklyn - that is maintained for continuity. But the growing NYC Chinese community was uniquely mistreated during the congressional special master's remap, splitting it between four districts. Lets remedy that with an access district which will probably elect a Chinese-American, perhaps the same one who if not sidetracked in this manner will challenge Jeffries's African American ally in the mayors office.

Its also not a change so easily undone. Besides the fact that the Chinese population of Brooklyn is growing, all types of minority constituents raise loud voices and legal claims if their access seats are destroyed during remapping processes. Something like this would be effectively reducing NYC's White districts from 3 to 2, and Staten-Manhatten would remain the simplest option in future redistricting processes to pack Whites and not dilute a minority seat into a White one.

[Spectator]

https://twitter.com/qlzsu/status/1679582626791735296

This is the obvious D gerrymander move in the area, but you have to finish it up by giving Goldman Chinatown so you can justify it as keeping the Chinese community together.

Connecting Staten Island with Park Slope isn’t any more egregious than what Republicans did in Florida by cutting St Pete out of the Pinellas district.  It still looks clean.  Where Dems need to be careful is Long Island and in the Hudson Valley.  They probably need to cede two Republican seats on Long Island and make some clean changes to NY-03 to make that seat more Dem.  NY-04 is Dem enough that it can stay pretty much intact.  

The only real change that the Hudson Valley needs is for NY-16 to give up more of Westchester to NY-17 while taking in the areas of Rockland that gave Lawler his victory in 2022.  Then make some clean Dem favoring changes to NY-19.

They don’t need to cede two Republican seats on Long Island. You can easily get Biden +12 or more seats in the other three Long Island seats with just one Republican sink.

Needless to say, this ruling probably makes the House Lean D, especially if you start factoring in the LA and AL rulings.

[Sol]

I took a stab at a Hochulmander 2.0. A bit ugly and probably inefficient; would love to see if there's a neater way to upstate especially.

link




You could definitely also do the configuration Oryxslayer does; it just depends I guess if Goldman prefers Sunset Park and Bensonhurst or Staten Island.

[patzer]

You could definitely also do the configuration Oryxslayer does; it just depends I guess if Goldman prefers Sunset Park and Bensonhurst or Staten Island.

It's probably not just about Goldman (though I think he'd be fine with either)- I think in general the NYC Dem caucus would probably prefer to see an Asian-American seat for Yuh-Line Niou to take than another predominantly white seat

[Mr.Phips]

I took a stab at a Hochulmander 2.0. A bit ugly and probably inefficient; would love to see if there's a neater way to upstate especially.

link




You could definitely also do the configuration Oryxslayer does; it just depends I guess if Goldman prefers Sunset Park and Bensonhurst or Staten Island.

Upstate, this is even uglier than the original map that was thrown out.  Dems need to use the DeSantismander strategy and keep it neat looking. 

[Spectator]

Snip

Long Island could be optimized a lot more efficiently for Dems.

[Mr.Phips]

Snip

Long Island could be optimized a lot more efficiently for Dems.

Yes and they almost certainly have to cede three seats upstate.

[MaxQue]

I took a stab at a Hochulmander 2.0. A bit ugly and probably inefficient; would love to see if there's a neater way to upstate especially.

link




You could definitely also do the configuration Oryxslayer does; it just depends I guess if Goldman prefers Sunset Park and Bensonhurst or Staten Island.

Upstate, this is even uglier than the original map that was thrown out.  Dems need to use the DeSantismander strategy and keep it neat looking. 

Except it's unlikely the old map would be thrown away from being a gerrymanderer now (it was 5-2, but one of the judges retired and one of them said in her concurrence it wasn't a gerrymanderer, she voted to strike down for procedural reasons and would have approved the map if the procedure was respected).

[Spectator]

Snip

Long Island could be optimized a lot more efficiently for Dems.

Yes and they almost certainly have to cede three seats upstate.

Three Trump + 20ish seats in Upstate, with the next closest being a Biden +7 seat that stretches from Saratoga to Lake Placid. Basically Stefanik’s successor district.

-Pat Ryan's seat shifts from Biden +8 to Biden +12
-Lawler's seat shifts from Biden +10 to Biden +17
-Williams's seat shifts from Biden +7 to Biden +17
-Molinaro is combined with Tonko in a Biden +15 seat
-new seat in upstate that is Biden +7. Stefanik would likely run in the deep red neighboring district though.

[ctherainbow]

Upstate doesn't have to be made into spaghetti to confine the GOP to four Trump 2020 districts:



Even Trump 2016 only flips the Stefanik district, while the outer LI district is flippable for Dems in a 2018-style blue wave.

[Spectator]

Upstate doesn't have to be made into spaghetti to confine the GOP to four Trump 2020 districts:



Even Trump 2016 only flips the Stefanik district, while the outer LI district is flippable for Dems in a 2018-style blue wave.

The issue is that NY Democrats have been proven incapable of holding down anything less than Biden +12 or so, especially given their history in the Syracuse seat. So you need to draw spaghetti to make it happen.

[ctherainbow]

The issue is that NY Democrats have been proven incapable of holding down anything less than Biden +12 or so, especially given their history in the Syracuse seat. So you need to draw spaghetti to make it happen.

How many county splits does that spaghetti map have?  I'm interested to see what I can do with that number of splits.   

[ctherainbow]

The issue is that NY Democrats have been proven incapable of holding down anything less than Biden +12 or so, especially given their history in the Syracuse seat. So you need to draw spaghetti to make it happen.

Well, regardless of the answer to the question in my post above, I went ahead and made one more county split, which brought the Midstate districts to Biden +10 and Biden +11, while the "Stefanik" seat is Biden +5.  The Binghamton/Ithaca/Syracuse seat is Biden +18.



There's no reason the NY Dems can't have a highly functional map that also is not horrifically erose, and I feel it would wise of them to insulate against court challenges, plus defang any organizational outrage attempts among the state GOP against maps that obviously look gerrymandered to the average citizen's eye.  

[Spectator]

The issue is that NY Democrats have been proven incapable of holding down anything less than Biden +12 or so, especially given their history in the Syracuse seat. So you need to draw spaghetti to make it happen.

How many county splits does that spaghetti map have?  I'm interested to see what I can do with that number of splits.   

Mine is really not as many as it looks. I can post the county overlay map later. It just looks even more ridiculous because I don’t have the overlays.

I’m probably going to work on North Carolina and Ohio next. Republican gerrymanders are a lot more boring to work on since they’re so quick and easy to do.

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/JeffWice/status/1683884918240161810

Republicans appeal the decision; first test of the new Wilson court. My hunch is that Troutman, not Halligan, is the true swing vote, but we shall see.

[Torie]

A couple of things I gleaned that I did not know before are: 1) Only upon rejection of that second plan may the Legislature, under the constitutional procedure, "amend[ ]" the maps drawn by the IRC (NY Const, art III, § 4). Any such legislative amendments are then statutorily limited to those that would affect no more than two percent of the population in any district (see L 2012, ch 17, § 3), and 2) if the commission fails to submit a map, or maps if there are equal votes for two maps, it goes to the Court to draw a map.

Thus assuming the Dems can get a two thirds vote for a map in the State Senate, in order to screw the Pubs, the Dem commission map will need to do the job since deviations from the Dem commission map will not be able to be more than 2% in population. The map will also need to hew to the law about compactness and not unduly favoring one party.

Assuming the Dems are allowed a second bite out of the apple by the Court of Appeals, it will be interesting to see how they choose to thread the needle, and just how hackish they think the new Chief Justice is. And they might not know for sure prior to the time the Commission Dems submit a map, assuming there is no bi-partisan agreement on the Commission.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/JeffWice/status/1683884918240161810

Republicans appeal the decision; first test of the new Wilson court. My hunch is that Troutman, not Halligan, is the true swing vote, but we shall see.

Court is in recess until mid-September, so any movement in this arena would be surprising until then.

[GALeftist]

A couple of things I gleaned that I did not know before are: 1) Only upon rejection of that second plan may the Legislature, under the constitutional procedure, "amend[ ]" the maps drawn by the IRC (NY Const, art III, § 4). Any such legislative amendments are then statutorily limited to those that would affect no more than two percent of the population in any district (see L 2012, ch 17, § 3), and 2) if the commission fails to submit a map, or maps if there are equal votes for two maps, it goes to the Court to draw a map.

Thus assuming the Dems can get a two thirds vote for a map in the State Senate, in order to screw the Pubs, the Dem commission map will need to do the job since deviations from the Dem commission map will not be able to be more than 2% in population. The map will also need to hew to the law about compactness and not unduly favoring one party.

Assuming the Dems are allowed a second bite out of the apple by the Court of Appeals, it will be interesting to see how they choose to thread the needle, and just how hackish they think the new Chief Justice is. And they might not know for sure prior to the time the Commission Dems submit a map, assuming there is no bi-partisan agreement on the Commission.

As the quoted portion admits, though, the two percent limitation is merely statutory, and the legislature therefore circumvented it last time by beginning their redistricting legislation with language like "notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary" and saying that the legislation "shall supersede any inconsistent provision of law including but not limited to” the aforementioned limitation. The majority in Harkenrider seems to concede that this was legal, although it calls it an "attempted end run." DiFiore writes that "although the legislature retains the ultimate authority to enact districting maps upon completion of the IRC process, the constitutional reforms were clearly intended to promote fairness, transparency, and bipartisanship..." She references the Redistricting Reform Act of 2012 only to establish the intent of the writers of the redistricting amendment.