2020 New York Redistricting

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/1331244756031180814

Looks like a Dem supermajority is imminent. Does this mean that a gerrymander is likely?

[GALeftist]

My money is on NY Dems going the TX Republican route, i.e. drawing something which is both unnecessarily ugly and less effective as a gerrymander than maps people have already drawn on Twitter.

Remember TX does not have an unduly favor one party proscription while NYS and Ohio do. And the Supremes of both states are not unduly hackish. So I tend to doubt the accuracy of your crystal ball, and whether it be Mr. Felder or the Supremes drawing the CD map, my ball sees a conservative Jewish CD in south Brooklyn. They deserve one. They are multiplying at exponential speed.

Btw I just discovered that my great grandparents, grandparents, and my grand uncle are all etched on a tombstone in Greenwood cemetery and there is room in the family plot for three more caskets, and 4 more cremated remains. Yes, color me shocked. I had no idea. I insisted that my Dad be "buried" in the Pacific Ocean, so he ain't there. My Dad lived the first 12 years of his life in Midwood, and then after a two year stint in Florida, and another 10 years in the slums of BedStuy, before he started making some serious money, and fled to Westchester County. I am a New Yawker baby, and not as a newbie. And a WASP. Shocking no? Ha!

To your point about the NYS constitution and court of appeals, I believe that Oregon has a similar constitutional requirement which is not going to matter due to a combination of a 7-0 D court and the ineptitude of the state Republican Party. I believe the court of appeals is 6-1 D, so it wouldn't shock me if they, too, turn a blind eye or convince themselves it's kosher, although all the justices were appointed by Cuomo (who confusingly appointed a Republican for some reason?) so honestly who knows.

[GALeftist]

My money is on NY Dems going the TX Republican route, i.e. drawing something which is both unnecessarily ugly and less effective as a gerrymander than maps people have already drawn on Twitter.

Remember TX does not have an unduly favor one party proscription while NYS and Ohio do. And the Supremes of both states are not unduly hackish. So I tend to doubt the accuracy of your crystal ball, and whether it be Mr. Felder or the Supremes drawing the CD map, my ball sees a conservative Jewish CD in south Brooklyn. They deserve one. They are multiplying at exponential speed.

Btw I just discovered that my great grandparents, grandparents, and my grand uncle are all etched on a tombstone in Greenwood cemetery and there is room in the family plot for three more caskets, and 4 more cremated remains. Yes, color me shocked. I had no idea. I insisted that my Dad be "buried" in the Pacific Ocean, so he ain't there. My Dad lived the first 12 years of his life in Midwood, and then after a two year stint in Florida, and another 10 years in the slums of BedStuy, before he started making some serious money, and fled to Westchester County. I am a New Yawker baby, and not as a newbie. And a WASP. Shocking no? Ha!

To your point about the NYS constitution and court of appeals, I believe that Oregon has a similar constitutional requirement which is not going to matter due to a combination of a 7-0 D court and the ineptitude of the state Republican Party. I believe the court of appeals is 6-1 D, so it wouldn't shock me if they, too, turn a blind eye or convince themselves it's kosher, although all the justices were appointed by Cuomo (who confusingly appointed a Republican for some reason?) so honestly who knows.

Thank you. For those justices who are competent and ethical, I just can't see it, and Oregon was far more subtle than the gymnastics than what the NYS Supremes (the appellate division of the appellate court) would need to go through to get to a 21-5 map, and, oh yes, if Oregon has that law, surely someone has sued, so we don't know the outcome of that yet. If nobody sued yet, I have to question your interpretation of the law.

A bunch of Oregon Republicans did sue, but the special master basically said that the map was probably good. Anyone with a brain can see that the map is gerrymandered, and therefore probably violates an Oregon law that says that “[n]o district shall be drawn for the purpose of favoring any political party, incumbent legislator or other person” as well as various parts of the state constitution, but the Republicans seem to not have a brain, because the expert they got explained it very poorly and the Democrats got a couple experts to say that you should use their highly esoteric measurement which coincidentally finds no issue to determine partisan bias instead of efficiency gap, as well as a bunch of Bend residents waxing rhapsodic about how much they have in common with Portland and a bunch of rural Oregonians saying how much they want to be in as rural (and therefore as R packed) a district as possible. It's certainly possible that the map gets struck down but I'd be very surprised.

Link to the special master's tentative findings of fact: https://www.opb.org/pdf/BREITHAUPT%20tentative%20fof_1635865838561.pdf

[GALeftist]

Personally I don't expect a 23-3 map; it requires a lot of messing around with NY-25 and NY-26 and a lot of ugly lines which I can't see the entire caucus agreeing to. A 22-4 map, on the other hand, is very feasible and is probably what I'd bet on, since weird lines need to be drawn in the east for good incumbent protection anyway and two flips downstate don't really disadvantage any incumbents. Here's what I hope the map might look like:






(I know more about NY than PA, but still not that much, so it's possible I've done something very wrong here. Also don't pay too much attention to the NYC lines, I attempted to keep the districts basically similar but it's very possible that I double bunked incumbents or something. All the upstate Democrats definitely live in their districts though.)

Anyways, this map was drawn to mostly minimize county and town chops, except in Long Island, where the lack of political geography makes that basically impossible. Rochester and Buffalo get their own Safe D seats in exchange for an additional R pack upstate. All blue districts are Biden+10 or more: the least blue district is Delgado's new (and substantially changed, it now goes from his home in Rhinebeck out to Binghamton) 19th at Biden+10.2. Malliotakis is probably doomed in her new Biden+13 seat that goes up to Cobble Hill, and the new Biden+11 NY-01 should be an layup in most years for the Democrats. Katko's NY-24 gets fed all of Tompkins to make the district Biden+15; if he still wins, especially with Trump doing his utmost to keep him from doing so, he's honestly earned the seat. Other districts of note are Sean Patrick Maloney's NY-18, which goes from his home in Cold Spring up to take in the city of Albany and Paul Tonko's NY-20, which takes in much of the rest of Albany County and goes up to his home in Amsterdam and all the way up to Plattsburgh. This map also holds up for 2016, although a few districts are within 3 points.

Thoughts?

[GALeftist]

That 3rd is a district I don't think I've ever seen drawn before.
What would be the dominant demographics in it? (especially within the White population)

The fruits of my attempt to have a district solely within Nassau and a reasonably black 5th A definite majority of it is in Nassau, over 500,000 of its people. It's 48.3% white, 20% Hispanic, 13% Black, 17% Asian. There are a number of liberal whites in North Hempstead and Glen Cove, as well as some more conservative whites in Hempstead, Rockaway, and Howard Beach. It also takes in some very diverse Queens precincts which weren't really needed for any of the minority influence districts. I doubt a district like this would actually be drawn, although it would certainly be an interesting place.

[GALeftist]

What's NY-17?

Mondaire Jones lives in the dark blue one, with all of Rockland and some of Westchester and Orange. Jamaal Bowman lives in the lime green, with most of Westchester and little bits of Putnam and the Bronx.

[GALeftist]

Wouldn't Cuomo 2018 numbers be effective enough to use to predict the likely Dem Floor for 2022 outside of Katko?

You can make Delgado's Orange/Dutchess to Binghamton district (which seems to be the preferred strategy of shoring him up) narrowly Cuomo in 2018, but I doubt it's possible to give Tonko and Maloney both a Cuomo 2018 seat, I gave them basically every upstate blue precinct east of Utica which wasn't in Delgado's district and it still wasn't enough.

[GALeftist]

Do you have the DRA link for this?

Yep! Here it is. I cleaned it up a bit.

[GALeftist]

I think there's a pretty good reason for giving Katko Ithaca, as both Syracuse and Ithaca are college towns. It sure makes more sense imo to put Tompkins with Onondaga than to group it with a bunch of random rurals it shares very little in common with.

[GALeftist]

Poor Katko is a party line vote on almost everything in a Biden+9 district and is still hated so much by his own party that they literally drew an Onondaga-Tompkins-Utica district to get rid of him lol. Packwatch

[GALeftist]

TBH I think I'm on team 22-4 now. Katko overperforms by enough that in a 23-3 map he probably wins a district for the first half of the decade, at least, diminishing its utility. As long as the end result will be 22-4 either way, might as well make it not ugly as sin.

[GALeftist]

The obvious answer in my view is to put red areas in south Brooklyn into the two black seats and Nadler's seat. Nadler already has a bunch of the territory and I highly doubt a Manhattan based district would be in any danger. Obviously the black districts would be incredibly safe. They still might not want those voters but it'd basically be personal preference and not an existential threat

[GALeftist]

I'm still skeptical of 23-3 coming to pass, but I think the signaling thus far has been unmistakable. The people who matter want an aggressive map.

[GALeftist]

By the way anyone have the numbers for ny06?
Safe D for 2022 but worth just keeping a watch on for the future .

Biden +23.7
Clinton +32.3

64.4/32.1 to 61.3/37.5. More relevant is the 44.4% Asian VAP.

Meng is only in her late 40s so hopefully she can keep it locked down for the foreseeable future

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/mahoneyw/status/1488986515476779009

So much for the two thirds threshold lol. New York really pulled through

[GALeftist]

So all the Senate Democrats voted for it?

Yeah, even Simcha Felder and Savino lmao. Felder got a good Senate district, which I suspect is all he cared about.

[GALeftist]

Cali is pretty similar to Texas overall imo

So true!

[GALeftist]

Although it'll be appealed either way, keep an eye on the decision from the New York supreme Court. Of the nine active justices on the Fourth Division, five were appointed by Cuomo (D), one was appointed by Paterson (D), and three were appointed by Pataki (R). Unless all three Pataki appointees are on the panel, Democrats should really hope to win this case; otherwise, they could be in trouble in the NYCoA, where Cuomo has 6/7 appointees.

[GALeftist]

Although it'll be appealed either way, keep an eye on the decision from the New York supreme Court. Of the nine active justices on the Fourth Division, five were appointed by Cuomo (D), one was appointed by Paterson (D), and three were appointed by Pataki (R). Unless all three Pataki appointees are on the panel, Democrats should really hope to win this case; otherwise, they could be in trouble in the NYCoA, where Cuomo has 6/7 appointees.

Why on Earth would the Democrats be in trouble with the NYCoA and it's all D makeup?

I don't think they are, to be clear, but there has been some speculation (probably wishful thinking) from Republicans regarding the CoA since 4/7 judges required confirmation from an R Senate and 6/7 were Cuomo appointed. We should see whether there's any truth to that with this appeal.

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/NYElectionNews/status/1511815852013797383

[GALeftist]

Weren't oral arguments today? Did anyone watch, and if so what were the takeaways?

[GALeftist]

3-2 decision; Centra (Pataki – R), Curran (Cuomo – D), Lindley (Paterson – D) in the majority, Whalen (Cuomo – D) and Winslow (Cuomo – D) in the minority. (Curran also would have chucked the legislative maps, saying that the process itself was invalid.) I think there's a real chance that the CoA agrees with this ruling, although it obviously doesn't have any Pataki (or Paterson) appointees. Probably not above 50%, though. IDK really.

[GALeftist]

Andrew Cuomo and his consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

[GALeftist]

@ all cons ITT: the issue is not that this gerrymander was overturned per se but that the effect of court intervention has been wildly asymmetric. New York is 26 seats, Maryland is 8. North Carolina and Kansas hardly make up for that.

[GALeftist]

Truly bizarre map. Don't like it from an objective standpoint but pretty damn D favorable all things considered.