2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Wisconsin

[Torie]

[Torie]

Here is a variation of a map I put up above that messes with the Milwaukee metro area via a tri-chop of Milwaukee County, in exchange for nesting the Milwaukee north and west suburban district, and causes some reshuffling of the other CD's exclusive of the two northern based ones. It doesn't really move as compared to  my other map any CD from a tossup, tilt, lean of safe partisan category, at least for the moment. It might move the dial later on for the north and west suburban Milwaukee CD if the Pubs keep on the hard Trump path, while in tandem the Dems do not go to aggressively after the money of the prosperous Milwaukee suburbanites.



And here is another option that does have the effect of Pubbing up WI-02 on the map, which will make it unpopular in some quaters for that reason alone, and the chop of Rock County is a bit awkward, although it is possible the final population numbers might make it a bit less awkward, or worse, if it forces a chop of Janesville of Beloit.

[Torie]

It depends on your priorities. I find that beautiful east to west straight line between the two CD's, leaving near perfect populations on either side,  necessitating only the most micro of micro county chops, even more transfixing that the Mason Dixon line myself.

[Torie]

The Fox River Valley as mentioned earlier is much harder to work with. However Chippewa and Eau Claire County should be together. Just switch Chippewa and St.Croix.

Bigger by a bit county chop, but here you go.

[Torie]

What are people’s thoughts on whether WI-01 will remain in roughly its current form. It’s an odd district, largely because it includes generally Democratic Janesville; if the GOP had tried to draw an optimal map, they would have packed Janesville in with Madison, but Paul Ryan lived there, as does the current Rep, Bryan Steil. The main source of GOP strength in the district is from the southern half of Waukesha County, but as this trends D, the district might get less comfortable for the GOP (probably fine for the rest of the 2020s, though), although this is counterbalanced to an extent by the R trend in Kenosha. Anyway, if, as expected, Wisconsin gets a court-drawn map, the biggest threat to the district would be the fact that it doesn’t make a lot of sense from a CoI perspective, although the court could of course settle for a least change map.
 

I agree both Janesville and Waukesha in the district doesn't really make sense (maybe a *small* part of Waukesha if really needed).   What's most practical is adding more of the southern part of Milwaukee to the district and leaving the three southeast counties whole.  

That said, unlike the WoW counties, both Racine and Kenosha are trending at a snail's pace, if at all, so the district probably won't be truly competitive for quite some time.

I always thought Rock county should go with Jefferson and Dane, the highways are kinda setup in that manor -

You should love one of my maps then no?

[Torie]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/b82336a7-c4b9-479a-b84d-ddea75d559ab

thoughts on this map?

I was going to try some iteration like that on the next round. It is a worthy option.

[Torie]

I drew what I think is the default option if the parties cannot agree in Wisconsin, a least change map cleaning up a bit and reducing county and municipal chops while, where possible, smoothing out the lines by a Pub leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court. The Dems are pretty much screwed on this one. A 6R-2D map is pretty much baked into the cake, and thus, as has been noted, the retirement of Kind. WI-03 gets 60 basis points more Pub, using Trump 2020 numbers. WI-01 gets 2 points more Dem (9.2% down to 7.2% Trump 2020), not enough to discommode the Pubs much. So WI is +1 Pub for 2022. Yes, I know, this should surprise no one.

The Dems' self packing in this state is a Pub wet dream.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/bf8a872f-24f9-4929-80f7-3ac33691cc53

[Torie]

The Dems' self packing in this state is a Pub wet dream.

I’m not going to pick on you for this, but I bristle at the notion of “self-packing” in states with cities which practiced and continue to practice de facto racial segregation, like Milwaukee. (Dane County is a “self-pack” as much as Cambridge or Berkeley, though.) The Milwaukee ghetto was official policy and having them locked out of governance was a goal.

No problem. Self packing may be a consequence of past and evil history, and I hate that kind of segregation. It just makes it easier to demonize the other, and I deplore that. I know that from my own experience, up close and personal. I also deplore people being cruel to each other, now more than ever.

[Torie]

Unsurprising. The most boring news of this redistricting cycle.

Evers will veto, the Leg won't be able to override, and we will then get into the juicy stuff.

What happens then? Is it court-drawn or something?

As to the CD map, the Pubs very self-consciously drew a least change map smoothing out the lines where changes were needed to equalize population, which smooth outs, most conveniently for the Pubs, undid  Pubmander erosities of a decade ago that are no longer needed,  due to the strong Pub trend in the north country, making it all even more beautiful,while moving a slug of Pubs into WI-03 that needed some more population (see second map below).  Evers' public commission performance was the Dems’ attempted riposte to the Pub plot here, but its effectiveness  will very likely be similar to that of Pickett’s charge up Cemetery Hill. I suspect the WI Supreme Court that just snatched the case away from the Federal Court, will adopt the map as is. Federal Courts also usually hew to the least change metric, but having a Pub friendly court doing the hewing is a nice lagniappe for the Pubs – trust but verify.

[Torie]

Kind of silly to have Dodge and Jefferson with Madison as they're culturally a lot more connected to WOW, but it's what necessary to maintain some level of partisan fairness.

Maps shouldn't aim for partisan fairness, IMO, especially if it results a worse map. It makes more sense to put Dane with Rock, Columbia, or Iowa, for example, than with Jefferson and Dodge--particularly since we have no idea of what political coalitions will be like in 10 years. If say, Western Wisconsin trends hard R and Eastern Wisconsin trends hard D, it could end up having the opposite effect (Obviously that's not likely but similar things are possible in other parts of the country).

Drawing reasonable maps is the best safeguard for partisan fairness in the aggregate and over time even if it has some disproportionate results on the micro level resulting from geographic biases.

Except it seems like nobody agrees as to what is reasonable, much less "fair." We certainly almost never do. 

But then I think the whole concept of COI's outside of hewing to metro areas and political subdivisions is largely partisan spin city and crap, and now there is this concept of gerrymandering to make a map "fair," which is going on in Michigan with the state House maps. That's crap too along with efficiency gaps and all kinds of other shiny new gleaming toys that are in vogue, which are not merely  attractive nuisances, but toxic waste dumps. Humans frankly are not up to this task, and it all needs to be turned over to bots.

[Torie]

"Least change" is a thing, and it is going to be applied not only in Wisconsin but elsewhere, subject to whatever other statutory strictures may obtain, not in play here. Most seem to focus on what they view as "fair" through their own lense, rather than the law. Understandable, but in general, neither illuminating or predictive. Get used to it.

[Torie]

So with regards to the legislature, the Rs get a fairly brutal gerrymander of the FRV, get to keep chopping at the bits in Eastern Dane, and keep Kenosha/Racine together instead of giving each a seat. Eau Claire seems gerrymandered and it definetely is awful on COI grounds but it actually doesn't help the GOP much. Population changes will make an exurban Dane/Driftless seat more competitve.

However the test for "least change" will be most seen if the GOP court decides to fix the dummymander in Milwaukee for the GOP or keeps it least change. 8 and 5 both voted for Biden. However 4 and 6 have a lot of population loss and they could theoretically eat at the most dem parts of 5 and 8 and let them both become more GOP.

To grow 4 and 6, I would think they would go where the could at least try gain the most African American voters possible, which would probably mean grabbing the rest of Glendale and taking Brown Deer, maybe also a piece of 7 or a bit of northwest 3. Only piece of 5 I could see 4/6 taking is that sliver north of Wauwatosa that's in Milwaukee. The rest of the district is pretty white.

The other question is population equality as well. Is the goal to get it back to sub 500 deviation or will anything within 5% work?  If its back to sub 500 then that could help the GOP there.(One district has 600 deviation but the rest are very close) Going for strict population deviation will help Democrats in Dane with senate district 13 but hurt in Milwaukee. Vice versa for 5% rule.

Also about "pure least change" the "best" way to do that is to probably push into the 5th senate so it can push West and push 33 West so 13 gets pushed further into Dane as the Dane senate districts shrink.

Other than that the legislative districts shouldn't change too much. The Appleton district is currently Trump +1.9 but has to lose around 6k people moving it to Trump +0.5  if it takes the R parts of the district.  25 might eat into 10 along with 12 eating a Dem leaning reservation from 25 which hurts a bit but the district was flipping anyway.

Did the existing map have population inequalities when drawn? If not, I don't think the court is going there. If it did, then assuming Wisconsin law is silent on the subject, the Wisconsin court might only change the lines when the existing deviation exceeds the 10% deviation that is the max SCOTUS allows, thus making the existing map illegal.

[Torie]

So with regards to the legislature, the Rs get a fairly brutal gerrymander of the FRV, get to keep chopping at the bits in Eastern Dane, and keep Kenosha/Racine together instead of giving each a seat. Eau Claire seems gerrymandered and it definetely is awful on COI grounds but it actually doesn't help the GOP much. Population changes will make an exurban Dane/Driftless seat more competitve.

However the test for "least change" will be most seen if the GOP court decides to fix the dummymander in Milwaukee for the GOP or keeps it least change. 8 and 5 both voted for Biden. However 4 and 6 have a lot of population loss and they could theoretically eat at the most dem parts of 5 and 8 and let them both become more GOP.

To grow 4 and 6, I would think they would go where the could at least try gain the most African American voters possible, which would probably mean grabbing the rest of Glendale and taking Brown Deer, maybe also a piece of 7 or a bit of northwest 3. Only piece of 5 I could see 4/6 taking is that sliver north of Wauwatosa that's in Milwaukee. The rest of the district is pretty white.

The other question is population equality as well. Is the goal to get it back to sub 500 deviation or will anything within 5% work?  If its back to sub 500 then that could help the GOP there.(One district has 600 deviation but the rest are very close) Going for strict population deviation will help Democrats in Dane with senate district 13 but hurt in Milwaukee. Vice versa for 5% rule.

Also about "pure least change" the "best" way to do that is to probably push into the 5th senate so it can push West and push 33 West so 13 gets pushed further into Dane as the Dane senate districts shrink.

Other than that the legislative districts shouldn't change too much. The Appleton district is currently Trump +1.9 but has to lose around 6k people moving it to Trump +0.5  if it takes the R parts of the district.  25 might eat into 10 along with 12 eating a Dem leaning reservation from 25 which hurts a bit but the district was flipping anyway.

Did the existing map have population inequalities when drawn? If not, I don't think the court is going there. If it did, then assuming Wisconsin law is silent on the subject, the Wisconsin court might only change the lines when the existing deviation exceeds the 10% deviation that is the max SCOTUS allows, thus making the existing map illegal.

There is no population inequalities beyond what a precinct would fill. The most deviation from 0 is 600 people. I assume the goal will once again be to target this number or lower.

Yes, and Wisconsin might have some law on the subject.

And voila! What would you people do without me?  

https://law.justia.com/constitution/wisconsin/article-iv/section-3/

Wait a minute! Actually the existing map when passed pushed up close to the 10% deviation limit. So the court is not going to move the lines except where necessary to stay within the 10% parameter, and where the lines move, it will be done in a way to minimize the size of the county or municipal chop. Probably it should be turned over to a black box to do the job. Humans will just F it up.

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::f02103cd-91fa-43f8-91cc-186e4c0cccb7


I lost my frigging mind. Wrong state. What the guy said from the state where the garbage meets the sea, which at this very moment is graced by my presence, was precisely true. I need a conservator ASAP.

[Torie]

Man, Wisconsin is a stable state. I did a least change map for the State House, and almost nothing changed anywhere at all. The Pubs lost a seat or two, in the relatively fast growing Madison zone, and the Dems returned the favor by appearing to have lost a seat in the slower growing Milwaukee zone. The cores of almost all the seats are preserved, as well as their partisan complexion. All Hispanic and black districts were also preserved. Plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose.



PS: This is my first State House map ever. Drawing the damn things is the ultimate act of self abuse.Never again!

[Torie]

-SNIP-

Wisconsin is interesting because the rural areas also somewhat grew, as opposed to what happened in Texas or Kansas.

This prevents very many Democratic gains from urbanization.

Yeah, the only real population dynamism relatively speaking was that Madison metro area sucked about 80% of a district into its jaws, converting the 42nd district from a safe Pub place to heavily Dem. Other than that, in general the lines just needed to be tweaked, although there was a bit more action in Milwaukee County, where the VRA was in play, and about half a district needed to poke its nose into Waukesha County. But that noise quickly faded away.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/b6707b73-4920-4c29-97bb-a0a256056d95

[Torie]

Least change in Wisconsin for CD's, means almost no change at all. And the amazing thing is that by WI-03 losing a county split by filling the county in by about a couple of thousand people, it becomes 5 votes more Dem as to Biden voters. So the Court can duck WI-03 entirely, and then move a few people around elsewhere that don't matter at all from a partisan perspective.

Another beautiful thing is that WI-03 as drawn by the Pubs was a Dem sink to move WI-07 into their column at the margins. Now that former Dem sink again at the margins, has hoisted the Pubs on their own petard. The Court was wise to duck the whole affair. Wisconsin is not that gerrymandered a state in any event, as others have noted.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/4e917a69-be74-4fd3-83aa-a1b7e18c533f

[Torie]

Link to Evers proposed congressional map

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?usp=sharing&mid=10H4O7oyvGSgks0eS2-nppEzh-L4d1Vmk

At a glance, it makes WI-1 more competitive by moving Beloit and more of Milwaukee in and moving it out of Waukesha.

Gov Evers seems to have trouble understanding what “least change” means, bless him. No, Mr. Evers, it does not mean that WI-01 snatches deom WI-04 three suburbs along the lake in Milwaukee County, so that WI-05 can squeeze WI-01 entirely out of Waukesha County and then some. No, you only have WI-05 take as much as it needs in Waukesha from WI-01, to reach population parity, after WI-04 takes the territory it needs from WI-05, and no more. See below. You don’t grab more than you need from WI-01 in order for WI-01 to shed the excess population that it should not have acquired from WI-04 (the CD that needed to add population, not lose it, remember?). That is called territory exchange, not least change.   Your little illicit exchange is worth 2 Dem PVI points for WI-01. Naughty, not nice!  Is your map going to fool anybody? I think not. I know Sen Johnson is as dumb as a box of rocks, but he is not the Pub point person here. You get a Trump doll in your Xmas stocking this year.

[Torie]

Least change was a made up rule by the State Supreme Court that counters actual rules put forward by the state constitution.

https://twitter.com/ProfNickStephan/status/1466052226472820737?s=20
https://twitter.com/ProfNickStephan/status/1466052229278748672?s=20

What exactly are those requirements again? Subdivision preservation was adhered to in the existing map actually.

[Torie]

Link to Evers proposed congressional map

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?usp=sharing&mid=10H4O7oyvGSgks0eS2-nppEzh-L4d1Vmk

At a glance, it makes WI-1 more competitive by moving Beloit and more of Milwaukee in and moving it out of Waukesha.

Gov Evers seems to have trouble understanding what “least change” means, bless him. No, Mr. Evers, it does not mean that WI-01 snatches three suburbs along the lake in Milwaukee County, so that WI-05 can squeeze WI-01 out of Waukesha County and then some. No, you only have WI-05 take as much as it needs in Waukesha to reach population parity, after WI-04 takes the territory it needs from WI-05, and no more. See below. You don’t grab more than you need in order for WI-01 to shed the population that it should not have acquired from WI-04 (the CD that needed to add population, not lose it, remember?). That is called territory exchange, not least change.   Your little illicit exchange is worth 2 Dem PVI points for WI-01. Naughty, not nice!  Is your map going to fool anybody? I think not. I know Sen Johnson is as dumb as a box of rocks, but he is not the Pub point person here. You get a Trump doll in your Xmas stocking this year.

Pure least change would actually have WI04 take from WI01 which takes from WI02. The other option is WI04 takes from WI05 which would then either cut into WI01 or WI02. But if WI05 is taking the 50k from WI01 then it isn't a least change.

You mean like the below? Who knew? Yes doing that adds on one more Pub PVI point, now up to Trump 2020 plus 8%, but the point is that at least my alternative above had talking points. Snatching territory from an already under populated CD does not.

[Torie]

If I were the mythical Moses, knowing nothing about redistricting other than governmental jurisdictional lines that were sent to me by a carrier pigeon, along with MSA lines from the census bureau, with G*d having implanted in my brain an aesthetic bias towards clean rectangles, this is the type of map that would have driven my mouse/thunderbolts.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/ed5021f5-b3d3-4508-8c61-25be8b8310e8

Johnson deciding to run for reelection "proves" that beer damages the brain, but I digress.

[Torie]

This is about the best the Dems are going to be able to do I think. Going beyond that makes a mockery of least change, as adjusted to reduce the size and number of chops and erosity (my surmise of the Hagedorn algorithm). Basically WI-01 moves west to absorb WI-02’s excess population, and withdraws from Wauwatosa to the extent necessary, to shed its excess population, with WI-01’s salient into Milwaukee County left unchanged as a least change line that also hews to city boundaries. WI-05 is not going to take in all of Wauwatosa because that creates chop and change issues with WI-06. Trump carries WI-01 as drawn here by 6 points over Biden.

Hagedorn was inviting the Dems to submit a map that helps them by, and only by, reducing the size or number of chops without creating new ones elsewhere, or causing districts to add whole new counties, and less least change, is my guess. The only map that fits the bill that helps the Dems much (but still by not much) over the Pub map is this one. None of the map versions changes WI-03 much. The game is all about WI-01.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/d8ee1cc9-c753-4e12-b4a6-e0ee82eb9c02

[Torie]

The absolutely least, least change map has WI-01 with Trump over Biden by 8.3%, as compared to the "Hagedorn map" above of a 6.3% margin, and the Pub map of 9.1%. So, if the Hagedorn algorithm is as surmised by me, the Pub gambit of defining least change as being what moves the fewest people into WI-01, which is not actually least change for the state as a whole, might cost the Pubs a Pub PVI point for WI-01. One would assume that the Pubs now want to submit a real least change map, but Hagedorn can do that for himself. He understands the Pub gambit already. So, he is saving the Pubs the trouble of doing that. He has DRA on his computer just like the rest of us.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/26a2eb50-d261-4ff9-9b26-5de48eb23cad



Oh and the Pub map, as relevant, which goes for a least change metric for WI-01, as opposed to the state as a whole.



WI Pubmanderers are good at what they do. Yes they are. They hire the best legal minds.  

If the Dems don’t come up with the “Hagedorn map,” themselves still being too greedy, then when whatever the Dems put up comes down, the Pubs should consider filing something attacking that map, attaching perhaps the "Hagedorn map" as an example to their motion.

[Torie]

It's been 3 months, again if the judges want a least change what the heck is taking so long?

I have been under the assumption that it is to delay the lift on the parallel suit in federal court until it is too late, but perhaps they are drawing their own maps. Maybe there are just more important things for the moment. Maybe a bit of all 3.

What do you mean by delay the lift?

To delay the point where either the federal case is dismissed as moot, because the state court picked a map, while minimizing the odds that the federal court says, or my God, VRA violations, and we still have time to fix it and issue a stay, rather than no we don't have time, but maybe in the next election cycle? No, it does not make any sense.

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/WI_Forward/status/1482557812848963585?s=20&t=yPx8zaS0HGK...

So this map should deny R legislative supermajorities pretty consistently, right?

In the Assembly yes, Senate will be close early in the decade.

Won’t the senate probably be 22-11 Republican in 2022, which is the minimum for a supermajority?  Republicans should pick up 25 and 31, but Dems should pick up the new 5, which is a 58% Biden district.

In the Assembly, I assume Dems lose their two seats within SD-25 and AD-13 in the Milwaukee suburbs and the WOW.  That would put them at 35 seats.  Is there a new seat somewhere that they are favored to pickup?

I imagine one seat shifts to Dane.

When I drew my House district map, I verified that to indeed be the case, and so posted.

[Torie]

The WI Supreme court invalidating the WI maps under state law would be the NC SCOTUS case on steroids. There is nothing in state law on redistricting other than districts must be contiguous and compact. Zip. Nada.

The WI state constitution doesn’t even really have much of an equal protection clause. It merely states that, “All people are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; to secure these rights, governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=does+the+wisconsin+state+constitutuion+have+an+equal+protection+clause

Here is some legal chatter on the WI redistricting law, or lack thereof:

“Jeff Mandell, board president of the liberal group Law Forward and attorney at Stafford Rosenbaum in Madison, believes there are several areas of the state constitution that could be grounds for a challenge.

"There is no hard and fast plan," he said. "There is no complaint or document that is written. But there are plenty of conversations going on about what such a lawsuit would look like."
A challenge could be based on the state constitution's redistricting provisions, he said, but also on other areas related to voting.

"You could also imagine claims that maybe it violates that right to vote," he said. "Is the right to vote merely the right to stand on a line on Election Day and cast a ballot? Or is it a right to cast a meaningful ballot?"

Rick Esenberg, president of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, says that even if a map challenge were to be brought before the state Supreme Court, he doubts a violation of the Wisconsin Constitution could be proven.

"The problem is that there really isn't anything in the Wisconsin Constitution, other than a requirement that the maps be contiguous and compact," he said. "And the thing about the maps in Wisconsin is that they are contiguous and compact."



https://www.wpr.org/wisconsin-supreme-court-april-race-state-legislature-redistricting-maps



If the WI high court redraws the maps based on the efficiency gap theory or whatever other theory it embraces, SCOTUS will bounce it. Roberts will write the opinion.

The Dems may well take over the House due to the abortion issue and Pub fecklessness in general, but the road to control will not be through Wisconsin.  It’s a dry hole.

We shall see. Anyone want to bet the other way?  

Incidentally, drawing a WI CD map following the Muon2 rules, ends up having  WI-06 that with no county splits has a perfect population, with a zero deviation, and there was great rejoicing. This is the first time that has happened to me ever.

 

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f79942cc-46a5-4595-9f8c-f722ac98603a