2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Alabama

[Torie]

If SCOTUS upholds the decision that most likely intimidates Louisiana Republicans into allowing a second black district too, which would be amazing.

Unlike AL, you can't draw two "compact" 50% BVAP CD's in LA, so no. Gingles does not trigger the drawing of a second black performing CD in LA.

Wrong. You can.

So it would appear as to the 50% element of the test, and we do have racially polarized voting, so that just leaves the compact element to litigate. 

https://davesredistricting.org/join/8bfa1863-ed2e-466e-9d9f-90b35e656962

[If my soul was made of stone]

If SCOTUS upholds the decision that most likely intimidates Louisiana Republicans into allowing a second black district too, which would be amazing.

Unlike AL, you can't draw two "compact" 50% BVAP CD's in LA, so no. Gingles does not trigger the drawing of a second black performing CD in LA.

Wrong. You can.

So it would appear as to the 50% element of the test, and we do have racially polarized voting, so that just leaves the compact element to litigate. 

https://davesredistricting.org/join/8bfa1863-ed2e-466e-9d9f-90b35e656962

You can still make it to 50% without going all the way to Shreveport, by making use of Winnfield, Ruston, and Monroe. That might be a bit more agreeable by compactness standards by virtue of not stretching across so much of the width of the state.

It's also advisable to ditch the easternmost parts of New Orleans, which are far less Black than the city as a whole and would also make the 1st road-contiguous if included in that seat.

[Oryxslayer]

If SCOTUS upholds the decision that most likely intimidates Louisiana Republicans into allowing a second black district too, which would be amazing.

Unlike AL, you can't draw two "compact" 50% BVAP CD's in LA, so no. Gingles does not trigger the drawing of a second black performing CD in LA.

Wrong. You can.

So it would appear as to the 50% element of the test, and we do have racially polarized voting, so that just leaves the compact element to litigate.  

https://davesredistricting.org/join/8bfa1863-ed2e-466e-9d9f-90b35e656962

You can still make it to 50% without going all the way to Shreveport, by making use of Winnfield, Ruston, and Monroe. That might be a bit more agreeable by compactness standards by virtue of not stretching across so much of the width of the state.

It's also advisable to ditch the easternmost parts of New Orleans, which are far less Black than the city as a whole and would also make the 1st road-contiguous if included in that seat.

Yeah, he's trying to gaslight yah. Those two seats need not be tentacles: they can be sensible seats that follow the Red and Mississippi rivers and the pattern of settlement therein. And I just threw this together quickly, it can be made better. Some don't consider the Red River seat compact, even though it makes sense given human geography.

Now is this needed? Nope. The New Orleans seat can be performing with a much lower BVAP, probably closer to the low 40s as long as it still has the plurality. And if compacted, the second AA seat has infinitely more options for potential configurations, some that don't go into north Lousiana.

[If my soul was made of stone]

If SCOTUS upholds the decision that most likely intimidates Louisiana Republicans into allowing a second black district too, which would be amazing.

Unlike AL, you can't draw two "compact" 50% BVAP CD's in LA, so no. Gingles does not trigger the drawing of a second black performing CD in LA.

Wrong. You can.

So it would appear as to the 50% element of the test, and we do have racially polarized voting, so that just leaves the compact element to litigate.  

https://davesredistricting.org/join/8bfa1863-ed2e-466e-9d9f-90b35e656962

You can still make it to 50% without going all the way to Shreveport, by making use of Winnfield, Ruston, and Monroe. That might be a bit more agreeable by compactness standards by virtue of not stretching across so much of the width of the state.

It's also advisable to ditch the easternmost parts of New Orleans, which are far less Black than the city as a whole and would also make the 1st road-contiguous if included in that seat.

Yeah, he's trying to gaslight yah. Those two seats need not be tentacles: they can be sensible seats that follow the Red and Mississippi rivers and the pattern of settlement therein. And I just threw this together quickly, it can be made better. Some don't consider the Red River seat compact, even though it makes sense given human geography.

Now is this needed? Nope. The New Orleans seat can be performing with a much lower BVAP, probably closer to the low 40s as long as it still has the plurality. And if compacted, the second AA seat has infinitely more options for potential configurations, some that don't go into north Lousiana.

I drew a Louisiana map with three majority-minority seats (one being Black-majority) a while back that's in the Louisiana thread, and it has far less border gore than either the two Black-majority seat map I just drew or Torie's balderdash.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=346330.msg8362907#msg8362907

[If my soul was made of stone]

Let’s say by some miracle this decision stood. Would such a rational be applied to other southern high African American states with GOP gerrymanders? How many seats could that net Dems?

At most, 2. LA and NC (and the NC map is already in front of courts).

I’m still gonna insist it’ll have some affect on SC. At the very least a new minority influence seat could very easily be argued for, if not two majority minority seats outright

Idk about that--spent some of last night playing around with 2 minority influence districts in SC and it's frankly pretty challenging to do. Would be interesting in seeing your map, but my suspicion is that only 1 district meets the Gingles test.

If we take that one seat must be Black-majority as a given, it's patently impossible. Two minority-influence seats also seems like a pointless task, given how small and diffuse the population of other minorities is.

[Torie]

Can someone post an actual map that has two 50% BVAP CD's with what they think minimizes erosity?

I revised mine a bit to get rid of the neighborhood in the NW corner of NO that is almost all white with about 20K people or so.

The "contest" here is to draw a map that is easiest* on the judicial eyes that has two 50% VAP black CD's. The idea is to maximize the odds thata court that matters would find that both CD's were "compact."

I think the odds are low that it is possible to  draw such a map that gets the odds into more than between one and two standard deviations from the mean on the losing side, with me the handicapper, but absent actual maps, it is all ultimately meaningless foreplay for me to handicap at all. At least in my opinion!  

https://davesredistricting.org/join/8bfa1863-ed2e-466e-9d9f-90b35e656962



*Job one of course to get even half way to first base with the wooing of your affection being to lose Shreveport as being part of the same zone of compactness as Baton Rouge.

[ProgressiveModerate]

It's funny reading through this thread and seeing everyone being deadset on either a 5-2 happening or not happening.

The reality is it's prolly a tossup right now, and depends upon what SCOTUS wants to do with it, though it def isn't a shoe-in case either way.

[Sol]

Can someone post an actual map that has two 50% BVAP CD's with what they think minimizes erosity?

Oryxslayer's map is just upthread! Yellow is genuinely quite compact, and Green is crummy but not any worse than the current 2nd, and as he says it's probably legal to do a district based in New Orleans which is only plurality on VAP.

[ProgressiveModerate]

[Torie]

Can someone post an actual map that has two 50% BVAP CD's with what they think minimizes erosity?

Oryxslayer's map is just upthread! Yellow is genuinely quite compact, and Green is crummy but not any worse than the current 2nd, and as he says it's probably legal to do a district based in New Orleans which is only plurality on VAP.

This one: https://davesredistricting.org/join/354c6bee-a5b8-4157-ace1-218130b9a4ce ?

It is prettier than mine, and given the zero deviations seems like a pro job. I note that it does have to combine the inner cities of Shreveport and Baton Rogue. What are the odds that a high court will find that yellow CD "compact" for purposes of Section 2 of the VRA?  Close to de minimus. JMO.

[Brittain33]

If SCOTUS upholds the decision that most likely intimidates Louisiana Republicans into allowing a second black district too, which would be amazing.

Unlike AL, you can't draw two "compact" 50% BVAP CD's in LA, so no. Gingles does not trigger the drawing of a second black performing CD in LA.

Can you help me understand how the situation in Louisiana is different from what happened in Virginia, where a packed African-American majority district was found to be unconstitutional and replaced with two districts, neither of which is 50% BVAP?

Most of Louisiana has racially polarized voting, but you could draw a <50% BVAP based on New Orleans which would perform for the candidate of the Black community's choice.

[Torie]

If SCOTUS upholds the decision that most likely intimidates Louisiana Republicans into allowing a second black district too, which would be amazing.

Unlike AL, you can't draw two "compact" 50% BVAP CD's in LA, so no. Gingles does not trigger the drawing of a second black performing CD in LA.

Can you help me understand how the situation in Louisiana is different from what happened in Virginia, where a packed African-American majority district was found to be unconstitutional and replaced with two districts, neither of which is 50% BVAP?

Most of Louisiana has racially polarized voting, but you could draw a <50% BVAP based on New Orleans which would perform for the candidate of the Black community's choice.

The issue is whether Gingles requires LA to draw two performing black CD's? You are asking that if it does, are you allowed to draw the CD's that constituted the trigger? That question remains unsettled, as well as just what more precisely "compact" means. But the current SCOTUS, the majority thereof, would rather DIAF than find there is enough compactness to trigger Gingles in this context, IMO.  

[Brittain33]

I suppose I’m asking why, all else being equal (not factoring in SCOTUS taking things in a different direction), the precedent in Virginia which led to creating a second district doesn’t apply to what looks like a similar situation in Louisiana. Virginia didn’t require two 50% BVAP districts as a prerequisite to unpack the district and draw two performing districts.

Or put another way, are you arguing that hypothetically the current Supreme Court would have overturned the lower court decision in Virginia from some years ago because their views are different from the old court’s.

[Greedo punched first]

[Torie]

I suppose I’m asking why, all else being equal (not factoring in SCOTUS taking things in a different direction), the precedent in Virginia which led to creating a second district doesn’t apply to what looks like a similar situation in Louisiana. Virginia didn’t require two 50% BVAP districts as a prerequisite to unpack the district and draw two performing districts.

Or put another way, are you arguing that hypothetically the current Supreme Court would have overturned the lower court decision in Virginia from some years ago because their views are different from the old court’s.

The VA Pubs believed that under the VRA, you needed to have a 50% BVAP CD. The same was true of the OH Pubs when they had the Cleveland CD go down to take in black Akron. That misconception of the law caused the court in VA to nix the CD the Pubs drew as race driven, and a black pack CD. Now the Pubs know better than to try to get up to 50% through gerrymandering. Instead you go after Dems, and pack them, and if Gingles has been triggered, you also make sure the CD is black performing. If Dems and blacks are co-extensive, you have a tricky situation about intent, and effect and so forth, but that is a rare situation on the ground. In all  events, you would not want to exclude all those white Dems in the Garden District and the French Quarter from a black CD in LA.

Another way to put it, is that the legal dance is very different now. I also think the current SCOTUS will  be parsimonious when it comes to deeming these wild looking CD's that take in very disparate black nodes far away from each other as being found "compact" for purposes of triggering Gingles.

Another complication is that many states have their own set of laws, and in places like NC, activist Dem courts have used generalized language in the state constitution that was copied and pasted from the federal one, to reach a very different legal result from SCOTUS. Since I as knee high to a grasshopper, I have been very hostile to the copy and paste practice. That just gives activist judges more power to effect their favored policy goals, unnecessarily.

[Nyvin]

I suppose I’m asking why, all else being equal (not factoring in SCOTUS taking things in a different direction), the precedent in Virginia which led to creating a second district doesn’t apply to what looks like a similar situation in Louisiana. Virginia didn’t require two 50% BVAP districts as a prerequisite to unpack the district and draw two performing districts.

Or put another way, are you arguing that hypothetically the current Supreme Court would have overturned the lower court decision in Virginia from some years ago because their views are different from the old court’s.

The VA Pubs believed that under the VRA, you needed to have a 50% BVAP CD. The same was true of the OH Pubs when they had the Cleveland CD go down to take in black Akron. That misconception of the law caused the court in VA to nix the CD the Pubs drew as race driven, and a black pack CD. Now the Pubs know better than to try to get up to 50% through gerrymandering. Instead you go after Dems, and pack them, and if Gingles has been triggered, you also make sure the CD is black performing. If Dems and blacks are co-extensive, you have a tricky situation about intent, and effect and so forth, but that is a rare situation on the ground. In all  events, you would not want to exclude all those white Dems in the Garden District and the French Quarter from a black CD in LA.

Another way to put it, is that the legal dance is very different now. I also think the current SCOTUS will  be parsimonious when it comes to deeming these wild looking CD's that take in very disparate black nodes far away from each other as being found "compact" for purposes of triggering Gingles.

Another complication is that many states have their own set of laws, and in places like NC, activist Dem courts have used generalized language in the state constitution that was copied and pasted from the federal one, to reach a very different legal result from SCOTUS. Since I as knee high to a grasshopper, I have been very hostile to the copy and paste practice. That just gives activist judges more power to effect their favored policy goals, unnecessarily.

Going from 10-3 in NC to 8-5 isn't unnecessarily,  it's a good precedent to establish.   It should be a Federal one IMO.   Unless you can come to a conclusion that getting ~48% of the vote while garnishing 23% of seats is a valid outcome that wasn't produced directly from map drawing.

[Torie]

Sigh. If a state wants to go the proportionality route like Ohio apparently for the state legislature, then like Ohio the state should pass a statute. I was sharing my opinion about abuse of process as it were by activist judges. Given how hideous the Illinois CD map is, if Illinois has an initiative process, the citizens should rise up and try to copycat the Ohio law, and spend 50 million promoting it. That should keep the Dems busy for awhile. But also I don't think Illinois has the citizen initiative process.

[Skill and Chance]

It's funny reading through this thread and seeing everyone being deadset on either a 5-2 happening or not happening.

The reality is it's prolly a tossup right now, and depends upon what SCOTUS wants to do with it, though it def isn't a shoe-in case either way.

There's been a lot of focus on other Southern states with GOP maps, but I wonder what this precedent would do to existing Dem maps?  It would seem to force a Hispanic CVAP performing district in Las Vegas assuming one can be drawn? 

[Oryxslayer]

It's funny reading through this thread and seeing everyone being deadset on either a 5-2 happening or not happening.

The reality is it's prolly a tossup right now, and depends upon what SCOTUS wants to do with it, though it def isn't a shoe-in case either way.

There's been a lot of focus on other Southern states with GOP maps, but I wonder what this precedent would do to existing Dem maps?  It would seem to force a Hispanic CVAP performing district in Las Vegas assuming one can be drawn?  

First, there is a GOP suit to this nature right now in NV. Second, while a Hispanic CVAP congressional seat is impossible - a lot of the population is intermingled with north Las Vegas AAs or South suburban Whites - you can almost certainly draw a coalition seat and make it so the Whites in said coalition seat are rural GOP republicans excluded from the D primary process. The Dems in fact will argue that this is what they did with CD4, even though it is just above 50% White by CVAP.

[Torie]

It's funny reading through this thread and seeing everyone being deadset on either a 5-2 happening or not happening.

The reality is it's prolly a tossup right now, and depends upon what SCOTUS wants to do with it, though it def isn't a shoe-in case either way.

There's been a lot of focus on other Southern states with GOP maps, but I wonder what this precedent would do to existing Dem maps?  It would seem to force a Hispanic CVAP performing district in Las Vegas assuming one can be drawn?  

First, there is a GOP suit to this nature right now in NV. Second, while a Hispanic CVAP congressional seat is impossible - a lot of the population is intermingled with north Las Vegas AAs or South suburban Whites - you can almost certainly draw a coalition seat and make it so the Whites in said coalition seat are rural GOP republicans excluded from the D primary process. The Dems in fact will argue that this is what they did with CD4, even though it is just above 50% White by CVAP.

IMO, the Pub lawsuit is frivolous. Coalition CD's are not a legal thing, and Gingles is not triggered, both because of the 50% threshold, and also most probably, because there is not racially polarized voting when it comes to Hispanics.

[Greedo punched first]

[ProgressiveModerate]

I suppose I’m asking why, all else being equal (not factoring in SCOTUS taking things in a different direction), the precedent in Virginia which led to creating a second district doesn’t apply to what looks like a similar situation in Louisiana. Virginia didn’t require two 50% BVAP districts as a prerequisite to unpack the district and draw two performing districts.

Or put another way, are you arguing that hypothetically the current Supreme Court would have overturned the lower court decision in Virginia from some years ago because their views are different from the old court’s.

The VA Pubs believed that under the VRA, you needed to have a 50% BVAP CD. The same was true of the OH Pubs when they had the Cleveland CD go down to take in black Akron. That misconception of the law caused the court in VA to nix the CD the Pubs drew as race driven, and a black pack CD. Now the Pubs know better than to try to get up to 50% through gerrymandering. Instead you go after Dems, and pack them, and if Gingles has been triggered, you also make sure the CD is black performing. If Dems and blacks are co-extensive, you have a tricky situation about intent, and effect and so forth, but that is a rare situation on the ground. In all  events, you would not want to exclude all those white Dems in the Garden District and the French Quarter from a black CD in LA.

Another way to put it, is that the legal dance is very different now. I also think the current SCOTUS will  be parsimonious when it comes to deeming these wild looking CD's that take in very disparate black nodes far away from each other as being found "compact" for purposes of triggering Gingles.

Another complication is that many states have their own set of laws, and in places like NC, activist Dem courts have used generalized language in the state constitution that was copied and pasted from the federal one, to reach a very different legal result from SCOTUS. Since I as knee high to a grasshopper, I have been very hostile to the copy and paste practice. That just gives activist judges more power to effect their favored policy goals, unnecessarily.

I respectfully disagree strongly.

Firstly, the concept of "unpacking" hyper-minority districts isn't just something "activist" Dem courts came up with to make more Dem seats. It has been a slowly evolved precedent as creating reliable minority districts with a VAP close to but slightly under 50% has become more viable. It's a precedent which courts all across the ideological spectrum have contributed to, including this ruling from 2 Trump appointed justices in Alabama. The VA SC was controlled by Rs iirc at the time of the ruling (albiet pretty moderate).

Basically, the courts decided to place a higher emphasis on creating minority seats rather than meeting this magical 50% threshold as frankly it's often arbitrary.

In the case of NC, yes a 50% district could be drawn, but it was terribly uncompact and a just as functional seat with slightly under that could be drawn that better represented COIs.

Furthermore, I think Atlas forgets that by and large justices aren't redistricting or geography experts, they are people who study the law. For example, in this most recent Alabama ruling, the plaintiffs successfully proved that a reasonable looking 2nd black seat could be drawn; I really doubt most justices are sitting their thinking to themselves whether a split of Mobile is a problem because it isn't illegal and the case at hand has to do with whether a 2nd black district can be drawn, not if Mobile is split, especially since that then gets into highly subjective territory there is no right answer to. In Lousiana, the Baton Rouge based black seat can be drawn relatively compactly without crazy tendrils, and it isn't the Louisiana's Supreme Court's job to try and figure out how culturally connected Baton-Rouge and Alexandria are.

Pretty much, as like most people, these justices largely evaluate districts by visual compactness, VRA, and partisan leans of seats as it compares to statewide vote share (median seat test and such).

For instance, it's pretty hard to grasp the concept that direct proportionality of seats vs vote share isn't necessarily fair to anyone who isn't an expert on redistricting. Even some of the most liberal atlas users here prolly wouldn't have insisted on partisan proportional Ohio state legistlative maps if they were Marcy Kaptur, even though from the OHSC majority's perspective, proportional probably seems like it makes sense. Kaptur def isn't some far left liberal activists trying to help the Ohio Democratic Party.

So the problem isn't "activist" courts, but rather that these justices are understandably not inherently experts on this very complex subject.

I do think it's fair to say both parties have over the years attempted to use the VRA to their advantage, mainly with Rs using it to justify certain D packs such as OH-11 and Dems using it to insist they win a disproportionate number of seats, in particular in Southern States.

[Torie]

Your post leaves me confused, but then maybe my post was confusing. There are substance issues and process issues, and legal issues from the past, and in the present. My discussion of the past was when the Pubs misunderstood the law, as it turned out - VRA law as interprested by SCOTUS. And there are state laws and federal laws.

My activist judge comment was about a state court taking a state constitution provision about equal protection of the laws or something like that, and then holding it outlaws gerrymandering or requires proportionality. And yes, gerrymandering is bad (although what is gerrymandering is often in the eyes of the beholder, and proportionality pursuant to an appropriate formula not linear should be in the mix along with respecting jurisdictional lines, compactness, COI's and all the rest, I agree. But not by a state court using broad feel good language never intended for that purpose. Do it by statute, or express constitutional amendment.

[Del Tachi]

This is my preferred solution given the federal court's ruling:

AL-02 and AL-07 are 48.5% and 41.3% Black VAP, respectively.  Biden won the closer of the two districts (AL-07) by 9 points.  

All incumbents should be pretty happy with the exception of freshman Barry Moore whose home-turf in the Wiregrass has to be cracked between AL-02 and AL-03 to avoid splitting Mobile.  All other GOP incumbents get drawn into districts resembling their current ones.  The only counties split are Tuscaloosa and Jackson.  

41% Black VAP is a bit low for the second district, but the exact wording in the ruling seems to open the door for two adequately Black-performing districts both under 50%.  The Birmingham-based seat should have enough White Democrats to ensure the Black community there gets to elect a representative of choice.

[Greedo punched first]

I also made a more compact version.