2020 New York Redistricting

[Schiff for Senate]

FWIW:
https://twitter.com/JosephSzymanski/status/1480675503451389953

This is pathetic. Most if not all of them are in ultra-blue seats. Unless they are entering an incumbent v incumbent primary - they might, I don't know about that for sure - they should shut up or be ignored. I can't think of any good reason other than that any of them would have to complain. Imagine being an incumbent representative whose biggest reelection-related fear is being put in a seat that (gasp!) only went for their party by some 30 points instead of 40-70. Those who complained should have their names publicly released so Democrats nationally can humiliate them and hopefully primary them. You have to have extremely low self-confidence to think you could somehow lose in an NYC district as a Democrat. You have to be absolutely pathetic, spineless, and weak.
So, does anyone know who all complained and what 'reason(s)' they had? Because Malliotakis benefits from the cowardice her spineless colleagues in the NYC delegation.

[Schiff for Senate]

FWIW:
https://twitter.com/JosephSzymanski/status/1480675503451389953

This is pathetic. Most if not all of them are in ultra-blue seats. Unless they are entering an incumbent v incumbent primary in the current map - they might, I don't know about that for sure - they should shut up or be ignored. I can't think of any good reason other than that any of them would have to complain. Imagine being an incumbent representative whose biggest reelection-related fear is being put in a seat that (gasp!) only went for their party by some 30 points instead of 40-70. Those who complained should have their names publicly released so Democrats nationally can humiliate them and hopefully primary them. You have to have extremely low self-confidence to think you could somehow lose in an NYC district as a Democrat.

Most likely it is not due to concern over losing the GE - it's unfamiliar groups being involved in the primary. Groups they don't currently represent.
Problem is, change and churn mean incumbents have that already. And as I previously noted, southern Brooklyn, though overwhelmingly registered Dem, is probably more deferential to incumbents than gentrifying territory in northern Brooklyn would be.

No offense, but I didn't really get a lot of what you just said over there. Could you possibly reword it a bit?

[Schiff for Senate]

FWIW:
https://twitter.com/JosephSzymanski/status/1480675503451389953

This is pathetic. Most if not all of them are in ultra-blue seats. Unless they are entering an incumbent v incumbent primary in the current map - they might, I don't know about that for sure - they should shut up or be ignored. I can't think of any good reason other than that any of them would have to complain. Imagine being an incumbent representative whose biggest reelection-related fear is being put in a seat that (gasp!) only went for their party by some 30 points instead of 40-70. Those who complained should have their names publicly released so Democrats nationally can humiliate them and hopefully primary them. You have to have extremely low self-confidence to think you could somehow lose in an NYC district as a Democrat.

Most likely it is not due to concern over losing the GE - it's unfamiliar groups being involved in the primary. Groups they don't currently represent.
Problem is, change and churn mean incumbents have that already. And as I previously noted, southern Brooklyn, though overwhelmingly registered Dem, is probably more deferential to incumbents than gentrifying territory in northern Brooklyn would be.

No offense, but I didn't really get a lot of what you just said over there. Could you possibly reword it a bit?

The rules of the road are that New York City is overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, registered Democrats. Even a huge chunk of hardline GOP voters are registered Dem because that way they have somewhat of a voice in how the city is run indirectly. And there are also more culturally conservative or moderate people in Southern Brooklyn who are generally establishment-friendly and not hostile to the idea of machine politics at all - they are more pliable, essentially.
Meanwhile Northern Brooklyn is very much increasingly gentrifiers - think places like Bedford-Stuyvesant. These are generally liberals - especially white liberals - more inclined to vote for primary challengers. And they are more likely to vote too.

Problem is, the liberal gentrifier territory is presently within the borders of seats represented by these congressmen, and the more "machine-friendly” Southern Brooklyn areas aren't (mostly). And incumbents are generally inclined to want to have as least change in their districts as possible, something we've seen time and time again this redistricting cycle. This tendency is strong enough to make cracking NY-11 not a certain proposition, despite the math being incredibly easy to bring it about on paper.

So basically (correct me if I'm wrong) you're saying people like Carolyn Maloney represent swaths of establishment-friendly, overwhelmingly Democratic area, but there are pockets of more progressive areas inclined to favour challengers. The incumbents want to avoid those areas and therefore blindly support any least-change map, even if it hurts Democratic prospects. Is that right? If so, it kind of falls under my category of 'NYC Democrats are selfish and spineless'. In fairness, though, I don't blame them all that much after what happened to Crowley back in 2018...still, couldn't all the reactionary, progressive areas be packed into districts already represented by progressives, like AOC's, Torres', and Jones'?

[Schiff for Senate]

FWIW:
https://twitter.com/JosephSzymanski/status/1480675503451389953

This is pathetic. Most if not all of them are in ultra-blue seats. Unless they are entering an incumbent v incumbent primary - they might, I don't know about that for sure - they should shut up or be ignored. I can't think of any good reason other than that any of them would have to complain. Imagine being an incumbent representative whose biggest reelection-related fear is being put in a seat that (gasp!) only went for their party by some 30 points instead of 40-70. Those who complained should have their names publicly released so Democrats nationally can humiliate them and hopefully primary them. You have to have extremely low self-confidence to think you could somehow lose in an NYC district as a Democrat. You have to be absolutely pathetic, spineless, and weak.
So, does anyone know who all complained and what 'reason(s)' they had?

Not a credible source

Even if the source itself isn't reputable, their claim is very possible, and I fear it might be. After reading TimTurner's explanation, it would make some sense if this is the case.

[Schiff for Senate]

The NY gerrymander is perfection and is exactly what I would've done if I was the NY Democratic Party - I've even iterated this strategy in prior posts: to be safe, make Katko's seat (NY24) even bluer; shore up Delgado and S.P. Maloney (NY19 and NY18, respectively); eliminate a GOP-held seat; make the seat Zeldin is vacating (NY01) blue by adding blue areas and subtracting red ones, and make Garbarino's 2nd district a red sink of sorts; and lastly, make Malliotakis' 11th district a blue seat. This map is absolutely perfect and, along with IL (and MD, but MD is annoying because it already was a gerrymander, and the Democrats could've gone even further in making MD01 a blueish seat instead of just competitive), demonstrates that Democrats are finally playing hardball. Only thing to fear now is the map somehow not passing (pretty unlikely, I think), or it getting struck down like OH's and AL's maps were (pretty possible).

[Schiff for Senate]

So all the Senate Democrats voted for it?

Looks like it. They have a 43-20 majority in the Senate, and the map passed 43-20 as well. Since I'm guessing no Republican would support a Democratic gerrymander, I suppose this was a perfect party-line vote.

The NY gerrymander is perfection and is exactly what I would've done if I was the NY Democratic Party - I've even iterated this strategy in prior posts: to be safe, make Katko's seat (NY24) even bluer; shore up Delgado and S.P. Maloney (NY19 and NY18, respectively); eliminate a GOP-held seat; make the seat Zeldin is vacating (NY01) blue by adding blue areas and subtracting red ones, and make Garbarino's 2nd district a red sink of sorts; and lastly, make Malliotakis' 11th district a blue seat. This map is absolutely perfect and, along with IL (and MD, but MD is annoying because it already was a gerrymander, and the Democrats could've gone even further in making MD01 a blueish seat instead of just competitive), demonstrates that Democrats are finally playing hardball. Only thing to fear now is the map somehow not passing (pretty unlikely, I think), or it getting struck down like OH's and AL's maps were (pretty possible).

Democrats have passed a gerrymander in every state where they controlled the redistricting process: Republicans have drawn fair maps in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and have gone for only slight gerrymanders in Indiana, South Carolina, and Alabama. It's not Democrats who aren't playing hardball.

You have very selectively chosen your states.

You ommit to mention TX (not that bad in technical terms because it was mainly incumbent protection, but down the road it insures a lot of GOP incumbents that were in competitive, and left-trending, turf), OH (so bad it's being redrawn!), your home state of NC (speaks for itself), GA (making GA06 solid red) and just recently, TN (completely cracking Nashville).

They also did pass light-ish gerrymanders in OK and UT, too.

They intend to gerrymander NH and change its boundaries - the boundaries have been mostly the same and respected since the late 1800s and there's not been any large population shift in NH to warrant the massive changes the NHGOP wants...the Democratic map, in contrast, is a fair, least-change map that shifts just one town over.

 AL's map is much worse than you describe it - a 5-2 map is easily possible, with one black seat and one Birmingham seat, and hopefully that's what's going to happen...what the GOP did was fragment Birmingham and put the black/liberal parts in AL07. They basically made AL07 a Democratic pack when a fair map would result in 5 solid GOP seats and 2 light blue seats. Nearby LA is also pretty egregious - it's very possible for 2 Democratic seats, one with New Orleans and one with Baton Rouge, but instead they created a Democratic sink that puts the blue parts of both cities in one district.

And I shouldn't need to remind you that last decade the GOP was even more potent, doing the rounds in PA, VA, NC, and FL (all four actually got overturned mid-decade, PA, VA and FL before the 2018 midterms and NC both befor the 2018 midterms and again before the 2020 elections) and to a lesser extent AL, TX and LA.

[Schiff for Senate]

The NY gerrymander is perfection and is exactly what I would've done if I was the NY Democratic Party - I've even iterated this strategy in prior posts: to be safe, make Katko's seat (NY24) even bluer; shore up Delgado and S.P. Maloney (NY19 and NY18, respectively); eliminate a GOP-held seat; make the seat Zeldin is vacating (NY01) blue by adding blue areas and subtracting red ones, and make Garbarino's 2nd district a red sink of sorts; and lastly, make Malliotakis' 11th district a blue seat. This map is absolutely perfect and, along with IL (and MD, but MD is annoying because it already was a gerrymander, and the Democrats could've gone even further in making MD01 a blueish seat instead of just competitive), demonstrates that Democrats are finally playing hardball. Only thing to fear now is the map somehow not passing (pretty unlikely, I think), or it getting struck down like OH's and AL's maps were (pretty possible).

Democrats have passed a gerrymander in every state where they controlled the redistricting process: Republicans have drawn fair maps in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and have gone for only slight gerrymanders in Indiana, South Carolina, and Alabama. It's not Democrats who aren't playing hardball.

The bold are pretty clearly gerrymanders. Could they have been more aggressive? In the case of Kentucky, absolutely (not in the case of Arkansas, though, really). But that doesn't make the Kentucky map not a gerrymander, just less of one than they could have drawn.

Also the idea that South Carolina and Alabama are only "slight" gerrymanders is ridiculous. 6-1 maps in states that are split 55-44 and even 63-37 are not anything close to "slight" gerrymanders.

Kind of gree with AR since the Little Rock seat was reddened (not that I consider it too much of a gerrymander since it's a reddish seat anyway), but KY was actually a very light gerrymander (or maybe we jut had exceptionally low expectations of it and it just cleared that bar). Sure, they moved Frankfort from KY06, but that's not a big deal, honestly. The biggest concern in KY should be the district boundaries - they were made for incumbent protection, not to flip seats - because KY01 has pretty funky district likes to ensure that James Comer lives in it, and KY02 is similarly the way it is to keep Brett Guthrie in it.

EDIT: To be clear, though, I don't think a 3-1 map is fair for AR. Democrats have poor geography there but I think the current map is about fair once the northwestern district is made a bit more compact and population changes are accounted for. I don't like how they reddened the one competitive-ish seat - they should've left that about the same politically and changed it as little as possible - but honestly, connecting Little Rock to eastern AR is a Democratic gerrymander of sorts, since any truly fair and totally nonpartisan map would give Little Rock one compact seat.

[Schiff for Senate]

Personally I'd be pretty okay if we're in the "all the gerrymanders are killed" timeline.

Funny though how the GOP gerrymanders are getting away with it and the Dem ones are getting killed.

That's not really true; North Carolina's was killed, Ohio's is probably still going to be killed, Oregon lived, New Mexico is probably going to live.

Texas has entered the chat

Illinois and California have entered the chat

Can we get over this notion that California is somehow a partisan gerrymander? Yes it's not the prettiest of maps, but on net it's a very fair map when you consider California is Biden + 30 state. Most of the "funny" lines were to maximize minority influence and represent COIs that may deal with things such as mountains. Yes the Central Valley config is favorable to Dems but largely because of the way Hispanics are distributed. I would argue the OC config is pretty favorable to Rs as it packs Anaheim and Santa Anna and makes the Asian seat pretty competative. CA-41 is also terribly ugly but still leans R.

Also, if they were truly hackish, why would they have given rural inland Cali like 5 R seats? I agree the commission isn;t perfect and there were some hacks on it, but overall Cali is not a Dem gerry.

THANK you. The commission gets hate from both Democrats because the Democrats know without it they could gerrymander away and the GOP over an imagined Democratic bias, but our state's commission really did do a decent job with the maps. And to any Republican who thinks CA pAsSeD a DeMoCrAtIc GeRrYmAnDeR, be happy either way. If you think the commission is bad, I want you to just imagine the 52-0 Democrats would easily be able to draw otherwise. You decide: Would you rather have a fair map that might have some moderate bias for both parties in certain areas, and funky boundaries, or a brutal Democratic gerrymander that gives them all 52 seats? Yeah, that's what I thought. The commission is your biggest friend out here, even if it did hypothetically pass a slightly Democratic-biased map, because the alternative is so much worse for you. The blue posters here are pretty arrogant, ungrateful and entitled - this is the largest state and has the most districts by far, and it's solidly Democratic controlled. You ought to be satisfied with any commission that doesn't pass a 52-0.

[Schiff for Senate]

NY Dems act like “defenders of democracy” yet make this sh***y map. This map NEEDS to be taken down, and it should be unconstitutional

Same goes for the garbage in GA, TN, OH, TX and KS. Once all those maps are struck down, I'd support striking down IL and NY.

[Schiff for Senate]

New York Dems should really just pull an Ohio GOP and ignore the courts. Its what all the cool kids are doing now.

Well they could do that but it could be risky. It could end up like OH, where the courts just give up and the gerrymandering party get away, or like NC, where the courts double down and decide to take matters entirely into their own hands, thereby giving the gerrymandering party no opportunity to have a say in the matter any longer.

If NY Democrats are being given another chance, if I was them what I'd do is correct most of the gerrymandering but leave a little bit so the map is still beneficial to Democrats. Specifically, to play it safe, maybe they can just give up on Staten Island and Long Island and focus on more modest goals - shoring up Delgado's seat (it just barely voted for Biden under the 2010s iteration) as well as S.P. Maloney's, and bluening up Katko's seat (though only a little bit because he's retired anyway and by 2025 this seat should be in Democratic hands).