2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Michigan

[jimrtex]

I think double-splitting Wayne and Oakland between MI-9 and MI-12 as on this map is illegal under the Michigan rules. You can't have two districts that both split the same two counties.

Should be solvable by putting Pontiac in MI-09 and pushing MI-12 down through Mexicantown, allowing MI-13 to take up the rest of Wayne from MI-09.

The constitution prioritizes the criteria:

(1) Equal Population.
(2) Contiguity
(3) COI " Districts shall reflect the state's diverse population and communities of interest. Communities of interest may include, but shall not be limited to, populations that share cultural or historical characteristics or economic interests."
(4) Political fairness.
(5) Not favoring/disfavoring incumbent or candidate.
(6) Reflect consideration of county, city, and township boundaries.
(7) Reasonably compact.

I would read that as requiring political boundaries to be ignored if necessary to reflect communities of interest.

COI and fairness are contradictory. If it is a community of interest, it will have political coherence.

[jimrtex]

not really.  You just want them together so the seat doesn't vote Trump.  Saginaw and Flint are different cities, not a single COI.  Now if I'm a Republican on the commission, I might still agree to a Flint-Saginaw district, it's a small concession.  But the other side would need to cooperate in other areas.  It's inevitable some districts will be drawn in a way that disproportionately favor one party, but the whole map can't be drawn with subtle decisions that all happen to favor 1 party.

The commission isn't made up of political apparatchiks or rabid party hacks. All the members are selected at random from a pool of independent applicants. And to serve on the commission you can't actually have any political ties whatsoever (no position within a party, staffer, lobbyist, consultant etc), merely that you registered as a member of a party on voter rolls. Just look at the Arizona commission for what the membership will be like. All lawyers, most with doctorates and additional degrees, and with no actual political links.
The aim of the commission is not to draw a bipartisan gerrymander. It's to draw a fair map that prioritises COIs while making sure it doesn't advantage either party (and yes that means adjusting for the geographic disadvantage).

Michigan does not have party registration.

Why are suggesting looking at Arizona?

I don't understand the part about lawyers and additional degrees.

Explain?

[jimrtex]

"Flint gets its own district" is a particularly euphemistic way of describing a fairly obvious attempt at cracking.

To get to 6 districts in SE Michigan you have a choice between adding Genesee or Washtenaw.

Ypsilanti is tied to Detroit as much as it is Ann Arbor. Going north you are in clearly exurban low populated areas before you get to Flint.

[jimrtex]

The recognized tri-cities community is Saginaw-Midland-Bay City, but most groupers also throw in Flint because of the regions economic ties. They are all oriented along route 85, and all are at least somewhat postindustrial. They all are distinct from the rural thumb, whose most similar cousins are across the bay in upper Michigan (all residents I have chat with want something like this), all distinct from the universities to their west, and distinct from the Detroit suburbs to their south.

The point of keeping counties whole is that counties are the default COI. If there is no better or clearer COI, the the county level is best observed. If there is a better COI, than it comes before the county. If there are lots of counties like in Michigan, you get cross-county COIs that deserve the same respect as inter-county ones. We have cases here where those outside of Wayne have clear cross-county COIs: rural Thumb+Upland, the route 85 tri-cities corridor, the central universities, and the Wayne exurbs.

Well the tri cities and Flint can't be together.  You can do Tri Cities or Flint-Saginaw.  If Flint isn't paired with Saginaw it can go with Lansing or the Thumb.

And Lansing and the thumb have better partners than Flint. Remember how I said that the rural, Lakeshore oriented, thumb is best paired with the upstate. How it is something every Michigan resident I have consulted with agrees to? Hell, Even
 Dave Wasserman in a hypothetical map linked the two. Well, we cannot link the two via water across the bay. Therefore, going through Bay City is the easiest solution. Guess what? Flint + Saginaw + Midland is a viable cd, with a bit more tacked on of course.

Why can't you go across Saginaw Bay?

"Districts shall be geographically contiguous. Island areas are considered to be contiguous by land to the county of which they are a part."

Doesn't this say that counties encompass all offshore waters, including any islands.

[jimrtex]

Why can't you go across Saginaw Bay?

"Districts shall be geographically contiguous. Island areas are considered to be contiguous by land to the county of which they are a part."

Doesn't this say that counties encompass all offshore waters, including any islands.

Districts should be contiguous unless they physically can't be (like the UP).  I think the vast majority of people would agree.

In the 19th Century, the two northern Michigan districts were Huron+Superior shoreline and Michigan shoreline, both UP and LP.

[jimrtex]

Why can't you go across Saginaw Bay?

"Districts shall be geographically contiguous. Island areas are considered to be contiguous by land to the county of which they are a part."

Doesn't this say that counties encompass all offshore waters, including any islands.

I agree in theory, and I don't think this is a completely crazy idea as it does keep genuinely rural areas together and separate from cities, but I think it would meet with a fair amount of resistance.

It will be interesting to see what the dynamic of the commission will be.

Justin Leavitt made a presentation to the the selection panel in California, in which he said one of the main skills that commissioners should have is the ability to question their lawyers and demographers and other experts.

In Michigan, the commissioners are going to be drawn by lottery, with almost zero screening. Michigan does not have partisan registration, and party selection in primary elections is secret. Yet the commissioners are expected to declare a party affiliation and be selected on that basis.

The SOS who is in charge of the lottery added a couple of optional questions, letting an applicant explain why they considered themselves affiliated with a party, and why they wanted to serve on the commission. Each of the four legislative leaders may make 5 strikes  from a randomly selected pool of 200 (60D, 60R, and 80I).

Remember they won't be choosing commissioners, they will be knocking potential commissioners. If you are a Republican leader who do you go after? Some independents who you think might be biased? Some Democrats who you think might be forceful leaders. No doubt they will try to do some background checks, but even if you work with the other leader of your party, you can only take out 10 of 200.

The commission of 13 total strangers of varying competence will be expected to choose a lawyer and mapping specialists, and arrange hearings, etc. The SOS is designated as the secretary of the commission. Will they be susceptible to being led?

[jimrtex]

It will be interesting to see what the dynamic of the commission will be.

Justin Leavitt made a presentation to the the selection panel in California, in which he said one of the main skills that commissioners should have is the ability to question their lawyers and demographers and other experts.

In Michigan, the commissioners are going to be drawn by lottery, with almost zero screening. Michigan does not have partisan registration, and party selection in primary elections is secret. Yet the commissioners are expected to declare a party affiliation and be selected on that basis.

The SOS who is in charge of the lottery added a couple of optional questions, letting an applicant explain why they considered themselves affiliated with a party, and why they wanted to serve on the commission. Each of the four legislative leaders may make 5 strikes  from a randomly selected pool of 200 (60D, 60R, and 80I).

Remember they won't be choosing commissioners, they will be knocking potential commissioners. If you are a Republican leader who do you go after? Some independents who you think might be biased? Some Democrats who you think might be forceful leaders. No doubt they will try to do some background checks, but even if you work with the other leader of your party, you can only take out 10 of 200.

The commission of 13 total strangers of varying competence will be expected to choose a lawyer and mapping specialists, and arrange hearings, etc. The SOS is designated as the secretary of the commission. Will they be susceptible to being led?

I mentioned this in my original writeup. White there is some degree of self-selection, you need to respond to the SoS's mailed invitation, and said self-selection will trend towards 'professionals' with the time and knowledge to commit to their potential undertaking, it will lead to a more random and fragmented selection than in CA. This could very well lead to cliques of councilors forming, a handful of individuals dominating the commission, or potential 'guidance' from the SoS. However, it's most likely to result in individuals committed to their preconceived COIs from their region of the state, and therefore will only approve maps that conform to those guidelines, along with the most vocal of public input.

Your original statement says that the SOS will "select" the 200 persons in the final pool.

This is not true. The 200 finalists will be chosen to match state demographics (e.g. 36 from Wayne, 24 from Oakland, 17 from Macomb, 12 from Kent, etc. Perhaps below this level, the selection will be by region. It will likely be sex- and race-, and ethnicity-stratified. It may be age-stratified. While applications are available in Arabic, there is no way to indicate this on the application (if someone applies in Arabic can they really participate on the commission - will there have to be translation?).

It is unknown how political balancing will be done. Logically, a larger share of the Democratic pool will be Blacks from Detroit.

Half of the 200 will be chosen from those who applied on their own. This may lead to more professional applicants. The other 100 will be chosen from those who responded to the mailout to 250,000 random Michigan voters. That should be 45,500 in Wayne. If 1% respond, that is 2500 persons. There is going to be a lot of non-professionals.

In California, there were 21,004 original applicants. This was reduced to 17,090 after an initial cursory screening. 2,206 completed a supplemental application that included essay questions, 2,003 also provided letters of recommendation. 90% of initial applicants went away after it started looking like a job application.

In Michigan there is nothing like the supplemental application. The hardest part is that the application must be notarized, but 100s of notaries have volunteered to do this for free. The only barrier is that some people have never been before a notary. The pool in Michigan is going to be a lot more like that initial 21,000 who applied, rather than the 2000 that bothered to fill out a full application with essay questions and recommendations.

The applicant pool in California was reduced from 2003 to 685 in November based on reading the applications by the 3 auditors and their staffs of the Auditor Review Panel, who on average recommended 367 applicants by each panelist. A second screening reduced the 685 to 342, with each panelist recommending an average of 230 individuals.

The current process is to reduce the pools to 40 Democrats, 40 Republicans, and 40 other, who will be called in for interviews. The ARP is meeting this week to do that. This latest screening includes background checks and requires a statement of financial interests.

These 120 will be reduced to 60 after the interviews. The four legislative leaders may each strike 2 applicants from each subpool of 20, potentially reducing them to 12 each. 8 members (3R, 3D, and 2O) will be drawn randomly from the three pools. The other 6 members will be chosen by this initial 8. Austin used a similar process. Their random drawing produced an almost entirely Hispanic panel, which had to pick Anglos to balance the commission.

In Michigan, the SOS will randomly draw, though stratified, pools of 60R, 60D, and 80O. These will in turn be split in two subpools of 30 from voluntary applicants and 30 from the 250,000 solicited voters.

The legislative leaders will be able to strike 5 each from the total pool of 200. They will be doing this largely blind other than what they can garner from investigation by the political parties.

The final drawing of 13. While a naive assumption would be that there would be one commissioner from the region of each potential congressional district, this is quite unlikely.

In Michigan you have the additional difficulty that there is no partisan registration, and party selection in primaries is anonymous. Are Sanders supporters necessarily Democrats? Are Trump supporters necessarily Republican?

It is entirely wishful thinking that the Michigan commissioners will be particularly competent or representative of the state as a whole.

[jimrtex]

As it happens, I just finished drawing a similar map based off a district jumping over the Saginaw River:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/38383e2f-7132-4b5e-89b0-7b8c8bdcd477

The major differences to Oryxslayer's map are that Shiawassee goes in the Lansing district and Jackson mostly in the Kalamazoo district and that Grand Rapids district goes west instead of east.

Clinton wins six districts in this map, but two of them only narrowly. Obama carried ten of them in 2008 (though not the Grand Rapids district, which these days is probably the seventh best Democratic prospect.)

I think this map has some positives to it, but overall I think it shows the problem of a Thumb/Huron Shore district, which is that the two areas aren't really big enough for a congressional district. To get the necessary population, you either need to reach into exurban Macomb, or the Tri-Cities area, or well into the interior of northern Michigan, or some combination thereof. And if you're going to do that, why not just go the whole hog and tack the two areas on to separate districts?

How much population is north of Muskegon-Kent-Clinton-Midland-Bay? Can you get two districts, even coming further south without touching those urban counties.

[jimrtex]

As it happens, I just finished drawing a similar map based off a district jumping over the Saginaw River:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/38383e2f-7132-4b5e-89b0-7b8c8bdcd477

The major differences to Oryxslayer's map are that Shiawassee goes in the Lansing district and Jackson mostly in the Kalamazoo district and that Grand Rapids district goes west instead of east.

Clinton wins six districts in this map, but two of them only narrowly. Obama carried ten of them in 2008 (though not the Grand Rapids district, which these days is probably the seventh best Democratic prospect.)

I think this map has some positives to it, but overall I think it shows the problem of a Thumb/Huron Shore district, which is that the two areas aren't really big enough for a congressional district. To get the necessary population, you either need to reach into exurban Macomb, or the Tri-Cities area, or well into the interior of northern Michigan, or some combination thereof. And if you're going to do that, why not just go the whole hog and tack the two areas on to separate districts?

How much population is north of Muskegon-Kent-Clinton-Midland-Bay? Can you get two districts, even coming further south without touching those urban counties.

Assuming that you treat Gratiot and Ionia as the rest of the boundary, just under 1.2m people according to the 2016 estimates. So not that much more than a district and a half.

I was wondering whether it is even possible to draw two districts, where the largest L.P. city is Traverse City (but I see even that would exclude Mt.Pleasant). But if we wanted to make those two the largest cities are we still short?

If so, then there may be three acceptable options:

(1) Take Muskegon (the UP district then goes down the Huron shore)
(2) Take Midland and ... (accept that are combining COI)
(3) Sneak across to take the thumb (but I'm not too keen on going down to St.Clair) which will be a significant chunk of the population).

Not-acceptable.
(4) Into Kent
(5) Into Clinton

[jimrtex]

Monroe + Southern Wayne is a pairing that seems very natural to me and I was wondering why it was so rare in the maps that were posted so far.

The challenge I can see is to draw a Monroe + Southern Wayne district without splitting the Middle Eastern communities in e.g. Dearborn, Livonia and other areas.

Historically, Monroe has stronger ties to Toledo than it does Detroit. Toledo is on the Ohio line, while Detroit is on the northern Wayne line or has grown out to it. You can't go directly south from the center of Detroit without going into Canada. Detroit has generally grown more to the north than to the west, or southwest.

Practically, if you are trying to keep whole counties, it may be easier to exclude Monroe, St.Clair and Livingston if you want equal population districts (that is, you start with Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb) and determine the whole number of districts, and add in others to complete the last district.

Monroe is either flexible, or not significant a COI to be treated as other than X people.

[jimrtex]

Since we are on the topic of Arab communities, I decided to go download the latest ACS data and see for myself what the present lay of the ground is. Here is a map of all people claiming Mid-Eastern descent in the metro - not just Arabs but Turks, Iranians, and others that would prefer being in the arab seat to anywhere else. Compared to the more limited view shown above, the Larger Arab pockets in Dearborn, Dearborn heights and Hamtramk have expanded. This is mainly because of the turnover since then, Arabs moving in and the older residents moving out. The map though also captures the Arab Christians that I mentioned earlier to the west of Dearborn - Assyrians, Lebanese, and others who may be missed by a more limited scope. If we are solely confining the Arab or Arab+AA seat to Wayne, and preventing it from tendrilling into the suburbs, then those western towns are the next best additions. There is this idea of doing parallel cuts into Oakland, so that the Arab seat can grab more Arabs and the AA seat grabs Pontiac, however such things appear to be banned by the commission.

West Macomb is a surprise, must be Christians.  Arabs are very divided by religion.  Arab Christians and Muslims wouldn't make a COI, about as much if a COI as jews and muslms lol.

Sterling Heights apparently has a large Chaldean population (Iraqi Christians).

[jimrtex]

Map: The Geography of Arab Detroit

Map in above article shows concentrations of population.

Hamtramck is interesting since at one time it was about 90% Polish, while Highland Park was almost 100% Black.

[jimrtex]

These are my population projections for 2020. Two annual change estimates were made. One was based on the 2010 Census (adj base) to the 2018 estimate (8.25 years), and the other from the 2016 estimate to the 2018 estimate (2 years). Linear growth was assumed in both cases. The two estimates were averaged, and projected forward from the 2018 estimate for 1.75 additional years. Given the slow growth of the state, they can be considered to be largely the 2018 estimate with an additional tweak.





Michigan has 14 Regional Council of Governments, covering the entire state except for Barry. Some have an obvious focus (Detroit, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo), others tend to be simple groupings of nearby counties.

Region II (Lenawee, Hillsdale, and Jackson) apparently never came up with a name for their region. GLS is based on the initial letter of Genesee, Lapeer, and Shiawassee, with the latter two in the group because they are adjacent to Genesee and don't fit with any other group. Barry may have been in the West Michigan RCOG, but finds itself between Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Kalamazoo.

The numbering of the West Michigan Shore RCOG suggests that it broke off from the West Michigan RCOG, perhaps concerned about Grand Rapids dominance.

The RCOG's have a scale somewhat similar to congressional districts, and reflect a COI which is recognized at least at the local government level (both the federal and state governments provide incentives for regional planning.

It happens that they can be grouped in super regions with populations equivalent to a congressional districts.

North: 3 RCOG in the UP (WUP, CUP, EUP), and two in LP (NW and NE) 0.959 districts.

West: West Michigan and West Michigan shore: 2.030 districts. One Grand Rapids based, and the other the remainder.

Southwest: SW, SC, and Barry: 1.101 (Barry placed in this group because it had the lowest excess over a whole district).

Central: Tri-County (Lansing) and Region II (Jackson, etc.): 1.022.

East: East (Tri-Cities, Thumb, etc.) 0.973.

Southeast: SE (Detroit) and GLS (Flint) 6.913 7 districts.

The three eastern areas: North 0.959, East 0.973, and Southeast 6.913, are underpopulated, while the three western areas: West 2.030, Southwest 1.101, and Central are overpopulated. Counties will need to be shifted. It may be possible to get the districts within acceptable limits by shifting counties.

The Michigan Constitution requires that congressional "[d]istricts shall be of equal population as mandated by the United States constitution." The mandate is as interpreted by the SCOTUS, most recently in Tennant v Jefferson County.

[jimrtex]

This shows grouping of RCOG's into areas equivalent to a whole number of CD's.

[jimrtex]

To get the regions closer to an whole number of representatives we need to shift some counties. The greater southeastern region (Detroit, Flint, and Ann Arbor) is short about 0.087 of the population needed for 7 districts.

There are three plausible options.
(1) Move Lenawee into the region.
(2) Move Sanilac and Huron into the region.
(3) Move Sanilac, Huron, and Tuscola into the region, and Shiawassee out.

This map explores the first option



Lenawee in the past has been included in the Ann Arbor metropolitan area, so it has some community of interest.

Elsewhere Barry is added to the Lansing-based central district. Barry is a free-agent not belonging to any RCOG. The district is not ideally compact, but forms an area between Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Kalamazoo.

The southwest area consisting of two RCOG's is unchanged and quite compact. It places Kalamazoo and Battle Creek in the same district.

Mason and Alcona were shifted for population balance. Otherwise the northern district consists of five RCOG's and the eastern district of one RCOG.

The western two RCOG's were divided into two CD's. Kent was placed with Allegan to avoid dividing counties. Any Grand Rapids district is going to be an imperfect representation of the city and its surroundings. You could go east from Kent adding in more rural areas, but Grand Rapids is distinctly in the western part of the county and somewhat southerly. Or you could go into suburban areas in Ottawa, but that divides the county and requires a slender connection.

In the greater southeastern area, St.Clair is added to a Flint-based district. St.Clair, particularly Port Huron is distinct from the Detroit core, and is needed for population balance.

On the west, Livingston, Lenawee, and Monroe are added to Washtenaw. Livingston and Lenawee have in the past been part of the Ann Arbor metropolitan area.

This leaves the inner three MOW counties with about 5 districts. Counties were always going to be split in this area.

Overall population equality is good (-1.6%, -1.4%, -2.2%, +1.5% +2.1%, (+4.0%/7 = 0.6%). If further refinement is needed by dividing counties, only round 75,000 persons need to be victimized.

[jimrtex]

This alternative shifts Sanilac and Huron to the southeastern region rather than Lenawee



The central district (Lansing-Jackson) no longer needs adjustment so Barry is added to the western Michigan area.

Taking of Sanilac and Huron forces the eastern district (Tri-Cities) westward. This results in Barry and Ionia being added to the Grand Rapids (Kent) district, since they would be cut off otherwise.

In the southeast, the Ann Arbor district will need to pull in some population from far western or southern Wayne.

[jimrtex]

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/ICRC_Whos_applying_682238_7.pdf

just interesting stats
So the commission applicants are a decent bit whiter, they are also 60% male, and also much older than the average Michigan voter, but however 35% are Democrat to 15% Republican, doesn't really matter , just really hilarious its the most Republican Demographic but most partisan applicants are Democrats.

Michigan does not have partisan registration. Primary ballots have all parties on them. The voter selects a party anonymously and votes for candidates of that party.

An applicant can say whatever they want. The restrictions are so tight, on political involvement anyone with any sort of overt political activity might be excluded.

Anyhow when the random pools are selected, they will be weighted.

IIUC, a "Republican" will be weighted by 30/15, a Democrat by 30/35, and an unaffiliated by 40/50.

Weighting will also be done for sex, race, age, and geographical area.

The age weightings are not based on the age categories shown, but are off by 10 years. So the 55+ group will tend to be heavy in the 65+1, the 35-55 group by those in the 45-55 group, and the 35-and-under by those in their late 20s and 30s.

The geographic areas are Wayne; Southeast (which excludes Wayne, but includes Lansing and Jackson; Western; East Central: Flint, Thumb, and Tri-Cities; Northern L.P.; and U.P.
There are more applicants for Oakland alone than Wayne, and partisan hacks from Lansing might be drawn to represent the Detroit suburbs.

The commission has all the makings of a train wreck.

[jimrtex]

Has anyone been following the Michigan redistricting commission?

I watched the lottery to choose the commissioners, but haven't watched any of the actual meetings.