2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Alabama

[Stuart98]

[Stuart98]

AL-07 still isn't safe. With DC statehood, #435 gets cut

It's not a given congress will keep the number of representatives at 435 when adding states. Might be political incentives to increase it.

[Stuart98]

You can actually get two majority black districts with 6 districts, though it requires splitting Huntsville.

[Stuart98]

You can actually get two majority black districts with 6 districts, though it requires splitting Huntsville.

That purple thing of yours is almost certainly not compact enough to effect the trigger.

I mean, if a Mobile to Montgomery district is sufficiently compact, then who's to say a Birmingham to Huntsville district isn't? It's a stretch to be sure, but not a massive one.

[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."

[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.

[Stuart98]

Oh the judges are pissed.

[Stuart98]

In a non-VRA district in Alabama, the only number that matters for how much influence a locale has on its representative is how many Republican voters it has (meanwhile for a VRA district it's the same except with Democratic voters). The current district 1 has 208,118 Trump 2020 voters, with 184,787 (88.8%) coming from Mobile and Baldwin counties. My map moves 229,612 residents out of those counties and into a VRA district, but only 38,363 Trump 2020 voters. On my map, district 1 has 249,359 Trump 2020 voters, and the remaining portions of Mobile and Baldwin compose 146,424 of them (58.7%). This is still a controlling majority and far more than any other metro area has. The 59,868 Democratic votes the portions of these two counties have in my second VRA district is a fairly comparable proportion (31.9%) of the overall Democratic vote in the district to Montgomery County's proportion in that same district (34.4%). AL-02 in my map stretches all the way to Phenix City and the black portions of Houston County, so it takes a bit less of Mobile in than on other maps I've seen, but regardless the argument that this is substantially reducing Mobile and Baldwin's representation in Washington doesn't seem to hold water.

[Stuart98]

Lol, there never was any grand plan the ALGOP had to save themselves,  they were just flailing about trying to find anything they could do to deny black voters congressional representation.

Get bitchslapped, Alabama Republicans.

[Stuart98]

If they go with map #1, it’s possible for both representatives for Mobile to be from Dothan.

I don't think it's realistic, Dothan's going to be like 3.5% of the black belt seat (compared to Mobile being about a third of it) and about 15% of the gulf coast seat (compared to Mobile and Baldwin combining to about 58% of it).

Maps 1 and 3 are both fine, map 2 is dumb, the only reason to put 70% white Henry county in the black belt district is if you're also putting 60% black parts of Houston county in it.

[Stuart98]

New Mexico already upheld the maps

That's being appealed to the state Supreme Court so it's not over yet, though I don't see the democratic appointed Supreme Court overturning it when the republican lower court already upheld it.