2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Alabama

[Nyvin]

The map labeled "COI" is revealed to be the map from chair Representative Pringle. It is also a punt to a special master.

That's a joke, that AL-2 wouldn't even be close to a performing VRA district.

[Minnesota Mike]

https://twitter.com/RepEngland70/status/1680965408797368320

[Oryxslayer]

Second map up is labeled AKC, from the public submissions. Seemingly Would pass court scruitny.



Third map up is "Whole Jefferson," this is a longshot attempt at 7-0 and would be a punt as well. This one came from the web.



4th Map is Singleton Congressional, this map was seen at previous hearings because Singleton is the plaintiff in the secondary suit on racial gerrymandering which remains in lower court. This group of plaintiffs loves near-enoug to whole counties, so this was probably the best they could do for 2 access seats under those rules.

[Oryxslayer]

5th map is labeled "Russel Split" and is similar to Pringle's.



6th map is the much previously discussed Milligan plaintiffs map. They have done the RPV for their map. Would likely sail through the court if somehow approved. Plaintiff statement attached that reminds the committee that the court will do their own thing if the state fails two create two districts that allow for minority candidates to win representation.

[Oryxslayer]

7th Map is 'CLC' Plan (it was revealed at last meeting the CLC dislike association with this map). This is also from the Singleton Racial Gerrymandering plaintiffs who want whole counties when possible.



8th map is "Hatcher" proposed by AA a member during the regular session and supposedly modified after critique in the previous meeting. This is the type of map which would fail a racial gerrymandering suit. There are maps like this presently in varies states at lower levels of government, legacies of when desperate African Americans and Republicans teamed up against white southern Dems, but they attract much less attention then congressional maps.



9th Is a map that is more comparable to the Copium twitter "access districts" that would actually elect Republicans than the Chair's somewhat similar punt to a special master,

[Oryxslayer]

The map labeled "COI" is revealed to be the map from chair Representative Pringle. It is also a punt to a special master.

Reapportionment Committee gives favorable recommendation to Chairs map on party line. So, who do we think will be the Master appointed in a month: Persily perhaps based on his work in Georgia?

[Nyvin]

A Trump+4,  42% black seat that isn't even black plurality is supposed to be an "opportunity" seat, yeah right.

[Jay 🏳️‍⚧️]

The map is a joke and quite clearly doesn't satisfy the court's demand

https://twitter.com/DavidNir/status/1680973825058455555

[Oryxslayer]

The map is a joke and quite clearly doesn't satisfy the court's demand

https://twitter.com/DavidNir/status/1680973825058455555

Sadly almost everywhere this happens and states surrender their first attempt back to the courts. A real weakness of the American system comparatively is parties inability in many different capacities to sit down with a member and say "You are the weakest link" and sacrifice or chastise them to better the whole. In this situation that would be ensuring their membership get their ideal seats while observing the order, rather than letting the dice roll on potential incumbent pairings or loss of desirable features like airports or wealthy donor neighborhoods.

But that's why special masters exist.

[Skill and Chance]

The map is a joke and quite clearly doesn't satisfy the court's demand

https://twitter.com/DavidNir/status/1680973825058455555

Sadly almost everywhere this happens and states surrender their first attempt back to the courts. A real weakness of the American system comparatively is parties inability in many different capacities to sit down with a member and say "You are the weakest link" and sacrifice or chastise them to better the whole. In this situation that would be ensuring their membership get their ideal seats while observing the order, rather than letting the dice roll on potential incumbent pairings or loss of desirable features like airports or wealthy donor neighborhoods.

But that's why special masters exist.

Oddly,  this is so hard because our system is more democratic.  Because we have primaries, the candidates are less like an employee of the party and more like a spouse.  They have legitimacy in their own right.

[Jay 🏳️‍⚧️]

The map is a joke and quite clearly doesn't satisfy the court's demand

https://twitter.com/DavidNir/status/1680973825058455555

Sadly almost everywhere this happens and states surrender their first attempt back to the courts. A real weakness of the American system comparatively is parties inability in many different capacities to sit down with a member and say "You are the weakest link" and sacrifice or chastise them to better the whole. In this situation that would be ensuring their membership get their ideal seats while observing the order, rather than letting the dice roll on potential incumbent pairings or loss of desirable features like airports or wealthy donor neighborhoods.

But that's why special masters exist.

Oddly,  this is so hard because our system is more democratic.  Because we have primaries, the candidates are less like an employee of the party and more like a spouse.  They have legitimacy in their own right.

This is why I have to imagine why a map like this was intentional. Best case scenario is that this map gets tied up in the courts until after 2024 and an incumbent survives for an extra cycle, and then a special master draws the map, worst case scenario a special master is assigned immediately but at that point the AL GOP won't have to deal with angry phone calls from one guy they screwed over or whatever

[Sol]

Sadly almost everywhere this happens and states surrender their first attempt back to the courts. A real weakness of the American system comparatively is parties inability in many different capacities to sit down with a member and say "You are the weakest link" and sacrifice or chastise them to better the whole. In this situation that would be ensuring their membership get their ideal seats while observing the order, rather than letting the dice roll on potential incumbent pairings or loss of desirable features like airports or wealthy donor neighborhoods.

But that's why special masters exist.

I mean, we'll probably get a better map out of it.

[Del Tachi]

Glad to see the AL-LEG sticking up for clear communities of interest!  Fight this one all the way back to the Supreme Court, boys! 

I'm being serious.  Kavanaugh's concurrence is quite clear that non-proportionality is ok if traditional redistricting criteria are followed (i.e., compactness, COIs, etc.)  The problem is that Alabama never advanced this argument in Milligan, instead arguing that Section 2 was unconstitutional in its entirety.  Kavanaugh didn't follow. 

Take another swing at it, argue the Legislature's map on its merits, and watch Kavanaugh reverse.  5-4 in favor of Alabama. 

[Storr]

Glad to see the AL-LEG sticking up for clear communities of interest!  Fight this one all the way back to the Supreme Court, boys! 

I'm being serious.  Kavanaugh's concurrence is quite clear that non-proportionality is ok if traditional redistricting criteria are followed (i.e., compactness, COIs, etc.)  The problem is that Alabama never advanced this argument in Milligan, instead arguing that Section 2 was unconstitutional in its entirety.  Kavanaugh didn't follow. 

Take another swing at it, argue the Legislature's map on its merits, and watch Kavanaugh reverse.  5-4 in favor of Alabama. 

I'm not sure how the snake like 4th and 6th districts are compact or keep communities of interest together.

[Skill and Chance]

Glad to see the AL-LEG sticking up for clear communities of interest!  Fight this one all the way back to the Supreme Court, boys! 

I'm being serious.  Kavanaugh's concurrence is quite clear that non-proportionality is ok if traditional redistricting criteria are followed (i.e., compactness, COIs, etc.)  The problem is that Alabama never advanced this argument in Milligan, instead arguing that Section 2 was unconstitutional in its entirety.  Kavanaugh didn't follow. 

Take another swing at it, argue the Legislature's map on its merits, and watch Kavanaugh reverse.  5-4 in favor of Alabama. 

While there has been a ton of progress in most of the country, do you seriously think black people don't still face discrimination from white elected officials in rural Alabama?!

[GALeftist]

Glad to see the AL-LEG sticking up for clear communities of interest!  Fight this one all the way back to the Supreme Court, boys! 

I'm being serious.  Kavanaugh's concurrence is quite clear that non-proportionality is ok if traditional redistricting criteria are followed (i.e., compactness, COIs, etc.)  The problem is that Alabama never advanced this argument in Milligan, instead arguing that Section 2 was unconstitutional in its entirety.  Kavanaugh didn't follow. 

Take another swing at it, argue the Legislature's map on its merits, and watch Kavanaugh reverse.  5-4 in favor of Alabama. 

This post is so wrong I frankly question how anyone who is conversational in the English language could come to this conclusion from reading the concurrence. I was honestly caught off guard. Crazy the extent to which partisanship can inspire motivated reasoning.

From the concurrence:

"Second, Alabama contends that Gingles inevitably requires a proportional number of majority-minority districts, which in turn contravenes the proportionality disclaimer in §2(b) of the Voting Rights Act... But Alabama’s premise is wrong. As the Court’s precedents make clear, Gingles does not mandate a proportional number of majority-minority districts. Gingles requires the creation of a majority-minority district only when, among other things, (i) a State’s redistricting map cracks or packs a large and “geographically compact” minority population and (ii) a plaintiff ’s proposed alternative map and proposed majority-minority district are “reasonably configured”—namely, by respecting compactness principles and other traditional districting criteria such as county, city, and town lines."

The salient part is that Kavanaugh thinks that §2 mandates VRA districts only if they are "reasonably configured." Proportionality doesn't enter into it – in fact, as Kavanaugh rightly notes, §2 is explicit that it does not require proportionality ever, per se. For Kavanaugh, all that matters for our purposes is "can you draw a reasonable majority-minority district; if so, then the minority community is entitled to elect their candidate of choice in said district." Since he thinks §2 applies in this case, we can safely infer that his answer, in this case, is yes.

DT here misidentifies the part of the concurrence which has cons all over the internet huffing hopium. The part I suspect he is looking for is "JUSTICE THOMAS notes, however, that even if Congress in 1982 could constitutionally authorize race-based redistricting under §2 for some period of time, the authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future... But Alabama did not raise that temporal argument in this Court, and I therefore would not consider it at this time." But the temporal limitation thingy is a completely different argument than the one outlined here; besides, I'm not sure Kavanaugh would say the authority has already expired, just that it will someday; and, most importantly, this isn't getting up to SCOTUS within a year of Milligan, come on now.

[Stuart98]

It won't happen obviously, but it would be awesome if the court responded with something like this to send a clear message: "We gave you a clear order to draw two districts that elect the black candidate of choice. You don't f**k around with us."

[Storr]

To be honest, I thought Alabama was more likely to propose a map where at least they could configure the other 5 districts how they wanted, but this is just laughable. Not even one of those Con Twitter maps which have a Trump+2 50.1% Black district. Gonna get laughed out of court

Unlike Louisiana, there aren't that many ways to draw two Black-influence seats, so maybe they feel like it's better to get slapped down by the courts than to irritate influential Republicans in Mobile and the Wiregrass.

Yeah, the two of the three (VRA Plaintiffs Remedial and Hatcher Remedial) maps the committee looked at with two majority Black seats are pretty ugly. The AKC plan [shown previously] is by far the best looking of the three maps.

https://twitter.com/RepEngland70/status/1679997860652150785?s=20

https://twitter.com/RepEngland70/status/1679997868629798923?s=20

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/AlaValues/status/1680918072230572033

So here's the likely road going forward:

Barring any major surprises, Pringle's map will likely be railroaded to the governor and the special session gaveled out well before the 21st.

Plaintiffs will make their complaints well known, likely with RPV and election results data, before August.

Lower Court reconvenes August 14th, and given their previous order to the state, probably will call for a Special Master rather than have a remedial map ready.

Given the desirability of avoiding Purcell - which'll become relevant in late December - new map will probably appear before the end of October. Since Special Master's charge pricey fees by the Hour, most states in recent years have given them short worktimes, though who knows.

Master Map likely will purposefully resolve the Singleton gerrymandering suit by not cutting sizable and contiguous localities and a maximum 6-7 county cuts. At which point it's implementation will resolve all remaining challenges to the Congressional Lines.

[Storr]

Second map up is labeled AKC, from the public submissions. Seemingly Would pass court scruitny.



Third map up is "Whole Jefferson," this is a longshot attempt at 7-0 and would be a punt as well. This one came from the web.



4th Map is Singleton Congressional, this map was seen at previous hearings because Singleton is the plaintiff in the secondary suit on racial gerrymandering which remains in lower court. This group of plaintiffs loves near-enoug to whole counties, so this was probably the best they could do for 2 access seats under those rules.

Racial statistics for the AKC Plan which, after a quick glance of the plans that were being considered, is my favorite one:

https://twitter.com/RepEngland70/status/1679997842922905601?s=20

[Nyvin]

Glad to see the AL-LEG sticking up for clear communities of interest!  Fight this one all the way back to the Supreme Court, boys! 

I'm being serious.  Kavanaugh's concurrence is quite clear that non-proportionality is ok if traditional redistricting criteria are followed (i.e., compactness, COIs, etc.)  The problem is that Alabama never advanced this argument in Milligan, instead arguing that Section 2 was unconstitutional in its entirety.  Kavanaugh didn't follow. 

Take another swing at it, argue the Legislature's map on its merits, and watch Kavanaugh reverse.  5-4 in favor of Alabama. 

This is really warping the court's wording.   There is no "non-proportionality is okay" doctrine, the 1982 law just states that a court can't rule on proportionality "exclusively".   There is a huge difference between the two.

If multiple maps can be drawn with traditional redistricting principals (court's words) that give the minority race the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice, then the official map has to provide the same level of opportunity as the example maps.   

What you're suggesting is that as long as there is minimum splits in counties/municipalities then the VRA Section 2 criteria is fulfilled, which is utter nonsense.

[Stuart98]

https://twitter.com/AlaValues/status/1680918072230572033

Master Map likely will purposefully resolve the Singleton gerrymandering suit by not cutting sizable and contiguous localities and a maximum 6-7 county cuts. At which point it's implementation will resolve all remaining challenges to the Congressional Lines.

Can you do this while keeping the Montgomery seat at least Biden +15 and the Birminghmam seat at least 45% black? Seems very tricky.

[Nyvin]

Racial statistics for the AKC Plan which, after a quick glance of the plans that were being considered, is my favorite one:

https://twitter.com/RepEngland70/status/1679997842922905601?s=20

That's actually the map I sent them, I posted here on page 20.   Does that mean I made it to the "finalist" list of theirs or something? lol

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/AlaValues/status/1680918072230572033

Master Map likely will purposefully resolve the Singleton gerrymandering suit by not cutting sizable and contiguous localities and a maximum 6-7 county cuts. At which point it's implementation will resolve all remaining challenges to the Congressional Lines.

Can you do this while keeping the Montgomery seat at least Biden +15 and the Birminghmam seat at least 45% black? Seems very tricky.

"Nyvins" map is actually a fairly good example of such a plan. Though since the a special master can throw everything up in the air, changes to the 5th that allow one to ripple-effect into keeping Tuscaloosa whole and keeping the 6th within the Birmingham market potential make such a plan neater.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

It seems like strategically, the AL GOP should've made a map a light D or even tossup mostly rural black belt seat they would hope shifts right long term. There's ways they could've gotten to at least 46% black while keeping the seat very winnable for them. Basically make a map as favorable as possible that might have a fighting chance at a legal challenge

Instead, any court map is likely to be a pretty solid 5-2 map with the 2 seats being majority black or close to it.