2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Kansas

[Tekken_Guy]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/281928ef-d1ae-49ec-8c66-902c1e5e3212

Kansas honestly should have gone with this map. It leaves a KS-03 that Biden only won by 1,000 votes.

Not possible. You changed the big first too much.

They put Lawrence in the big first. So they already changed it quite a bit.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/aclukansas/status/1493255785031340036?s=20&t=iIXZxnmCjT4...

It is now time for Ad Astra to try and pass the final hurdle.

[GALeftist]

The merits of any lawsuit escape me and I have no idea what make weight arguments the court might use to move towards proportionality

https://twitter.com/aclukansas/status/1493255800667750405

As I suspected, the lawsuit will be based on generic language in the Kansas Constitution guaranteeing equal political power, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. Like it or not this is probably the new normal. To be fair, the Maryland lawsuit from the Republicans is basically equally shaky, although it's perhaps a little better since Maryland has a free elections clause and a compactness requirement which to my knowledge Kansas does not. Also, I doubt the court would mandate proportionality; a proportional map would be 2-2, not 3-1.

[nclib]

Surprised KS-2 still moved to the right, after taking KCK. Anyone have a DRA link or a full county map?

[Torie]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/cb180114-9581-42c0-990d-c5c7bf4996a9



Silly gerrymanderers, silly plaintiffs, silly courts, silly, silly, silly. KISS.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Surprised KS-2 still moved to the right, after taking KCK. Anyone have a DRA link or a full county map?

Cause it dropped most of hyper blue Lawrence

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a62e2215-fe4e-478f-b8ac-fa604fdd1d33

[lfromnj]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/cb180114-9581-42c0-990d-c5c7bf4996a9



Silly gerrymanderers, silly plaintiffs, silly courts, silly, silly, silly. KISS.

And now the big first is 250k from KC instead of just 90k from Lawrence.

[Torie]

The merits of any lawsuit escape me and I have no idea what make weight arguments the court might use to move towards proportionality

https://twitter.com/aclukansas/status/1493255800667750405
As I suspected, the lawsuit will be based on generic language in the Kansas Constitution guaranteeing equal political power, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. Like it or not this is probably the new normal. To be fair, the Maryland lawsuit from the Republicans is basically equally shaky, although it's perhaps a little better since Maryland has a free elections clause and a compactness requirement which to my knowledge Kansas does not. Also, I doubt the court would mandate proportionality; a proportional map would be 2-2, not 3-1.

Yes, I understand some courts and plaintiffs like to legislate using state equal protection under the law clauses, although KS doesn't really even have that, just equal rights:  "Equal rights. All men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." All states should move immediately to get that kind of crap out of their Constitutions ASAP, because all it does is encourage judicial abuse. And then the plaintiffs babble on disingenuously about chops, and how a few thousand rurals that make almost no partisan difference in Douglas County are being separated from Lawrence. Oh, the horror, the horror of it all. With my chopless wonder above  they would just be left with bitching that Johnson is not mated with either Douglas or Wyandotte because equal rights ("natural" rights no less) means that if you are a Dem, you deserve your proportionate share of Dem districts. If you are a Pub you don't, because to give people of color the influence they deserve, they need Dem districts, e.g. the Native Americans on the Res in AZ need to be in a Dem CD to have equal rights. What amazes me is that this crap is published without the slightest bit of embarrassment, but then the media is largely clueless itself, or itself part of the jig in some instances.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Two Kansas maps.
First is an effort at a least-change that removes all avoidable county splits.


Second is an effort at a GOPmander that seeks to retain the rural character of the 1st by avoiding Johnson County. It should be noted that by doing this, the GOP primary vote remains more overwhelmingly rural than it otherwise would be.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Two Kansas maps.
First is an effort at a least-change that removes all avoidable county splits.


Second is an effort at a GOPmander that seeks to retain the rural character of the 1st by avoiding Johnson County. It should be noted that by doing this, the GOP primary vote remains more overwhelmingly rural than it otherwise would be.

What are you making these maps with?

[Torie]

Two Kansas maps.
First is an effort at a least-change that removes all avoidable county splits.


Second is an effort at a GOPmander that seeks to retain the rural character of the 1st by avoiding Johnson County. It should be noted that by doing this, the GOP primary vote remains more overwhelmingly rural than it otherwise would be.

The thing is, is that you can't get more than a swing CD out of a CD with Johnson County in it, and to do even that, you need to be careful or it could turn into a dummymander in due course. Given the direction the Pub party is going in, in an alternative universe the Pubs would be wise to just join Douglas and Johnson and call it a day. KS-03 will become a money pit to defend, if the uneducated white working class party wants to continue to contest it.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Two Kansas maps.
First is an effort at a least-change that removes all avoidable county splits.


Second is an effort at a GOPmander that seeks to retain the rural character of the 1st by avoiding Johnson County. It should be noted that by doing this, the GOP primary vote remains more overwhelmingly rural than it otherwise would be.

What are you making these maps with?

Made the map in DRA, and inputted them into MS Paint using a template I got back in 2017 iirc.

[Torie]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/cb180114-9581-42c0-990d-c5c7bf4996a9



Silly gerrymanderers, silly plaintiffs, silly courts, silly, silly, silly. KISS.

And now the big first is 250k from KC instead of just 90k from Lawrence.

Yes. Isn't it beautiful? The big first does not want a bunch of wokester academics anyway.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The thing is, is that you can't get more than a swing CD out of a CD with Johnson County in it, and to do even that, you need to be careful or it could turn into a dummymander in due course. Given the direction the Pub party is going in, in an alternative universe the Pubs would be wise to just join Douglas and Johnson and call it a day. KS-03 will become a money pit to defend, if the uneducated white working class party wants to continue to contest it.

Biden won KS-03 as it is currently constituted by 10, this map shrinks that margin to 2 points (rounding up from 1.7). I don't ascribe to the school of thought that we know that 2022 is likely to be a GOP wave, but either way, it makes sense to make the district less safe for Ds, not more. 3 Safe R, 1 Tossup, is better for Rs than 3 Safe R, 1 Lean/Likely D. Ds will have to fight for that one seat every cycle. Doing so means that Ds have less resources to fight for the 1st (which they would be obliged to go after, given it has their best strongholds), or the 2nd (that would have some friendly terrain but should be quite safe-as-houses R regardless).
If Ds are doing good enough in KS to have a lock on the 3rd and be able to realistically win another district, then this map is still depriving them of seats relative to a more neutral map to begin with, so it still makes sense for the GOP.

[Tintrlvr]

The merits of any lawsuit escape me and I have no idea what make weight arguments the court might use to move towards proportionality

https://twitter.com/aclukansas/status/1493255800667750405

As I suspected, the lawsuit will be based on generic language in the Kansas Constitution guaranteeing equal political power, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. Like it or not this is probably the new normal. To be fair, the Maryland lawsuit from the Republicans is basically equally shaky, although it's perhaps a little better since Maryland has a free elections clause and a compactness requirement which to my knowledge Kansas does not. Also, I doubt the court would mandate proportionality; a proportional map would be 2-2, not 3-1.

A map such as this one would be close enough to proportionality for a court interested in it, I think:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/6e3b67e0-3b05-45b8-8c3f-226db17d50f3

[Tekken_Guy]

Surprised KS-2 still moved to the right, after taking KCK. Anyone have a DRA link or a full county map?

Biden netted more votes out of Douglas than he did Wyandotte.

[Torie]

The thing is, is that you can't get more than a swing CD out of a CD with Johnson County in it, and to do even that, you need to be careful or it could turn into a dummymander in due course. Given the direction the Pub party is going in, in an alternative universe the Pubs would be wise to just join Douglas and Johnson and call it a day. KS-03 will become a money pit to defend, if the uneducated white working class party wants to continue to contest it.

Biden won KS-03 as it is currently constituted by 10, this map shrinks that margin to 2 points (rounding up from 1.7). I don't ascribe to the school of thought that we know that 2022 is likely to be a GOP wave, but either way, it makes sense to make the district less safe for Ds, not more. 3 Safe R, 1 Tossup, is better for Rs than 3 Safe R, 1 Lean/Likely D. Ds will have to fight for that one seat every cycle. Doing so means that Ds have less resources to fight for the 1st (which they would be obliged to go after, given it has their best strongholds), or the 2nd (that would have some friendly terrain but should be quite safe-as-houses R regardless).
If Ds are doing good enough in KS to have a lock on the 3rd and be able to realistically win another district, then this map is still depriving them of seats relative to a more neutral map to begin with, so it still makes sense for the GOP.

Yes I understand, and I think my map is best suited to doing that while avoiding dummymander risk, and forcing the court to really reveal it has no clothes if it still insists on dumping it, and then with a court regime change later facilitated by its indecent exposure, redraw later, and in the meantime perhaps repeal the silly in its Constitution.

[GALeftist]

Therapist: Don't worry, proportional Kansas isn't real. It can't hurt you.

Proportional Kansas:

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The thing is, is that you can't get more than a swing CD out of a CD with Johnson County in it, and to do even that, you need to be careful or it could turn into a dummymander in due course. Given the direction the Pub party is going in, in an alternative universe the Pubs would be wise to just join Douglas and Johnson and call it a day. KS-03 will become a money pit to defend, if the uneducated white working class party wants to continue to contest it.

Biden won KS-03 as it is currently constituted by 10, this map shrinks that margin to 2 points (rounding up from 1.7). I don't ascribe to the school of thought that we know that 2022 is likely to be a GOP wave, but either way, it makes sense to make the district less safe for Ds, not more. 3 Safe R, 1 Tossup, is better for Rs than 3 Safe R, 1 Lean/Likely D. Ds will have to fight for that one seat every cycle. Doing so means that Ds have less resources to fight for the 1st (which they would be obliged to go after, given it has their best strongholds), or the 2nd (that would have some friendly terrain but should be quite safe-as-houses R regardless).
If Ds are doing good enough in KS to have a lock on the 3rd and be able to realistically win another district, then this map is still depriving them of seats relative to a more neutral map to begin with, so it still makes sense for the GOP.

Yes I understand, and I think my map is best suited to doing that while avoiding dummymander risk, and forcing the court to really reveal it has no cloths if it still insists on dumping it, and then with a court regime change later facilitated by its indecent exposure, redraw later, and in the meantime perhaps repeal the silly in its Constitution.

In my view, the single best way to deal with dummymander risk if you are the KS GOP and you don't think it's possible to have no clearly Dem-leaning seats, it's best to just pack the 3rd and try to bolt down every other district if possible.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fe94eea8-35aa-45a8-9868-cfecf6048967
This is what I'm talking about here. We see All of Douglas+Wyandotte+most of Johnson in one CD that voted for Biden by 19 points, and then a 2nd that is now ultra-safe even in D waves, sitting at Trump+20. The raw vote margin in both CDs is around 72,000 votes. LaTurner and Davids should be ultra-safe under these lines and should be in zero danger no matter the national environment.

[Torie]

The thing is, is that you can't get more than a swing CD out of a CD with Johnson County in it, and to do even that, you need to be careful or it could turn into a dummymander in due course. Given the direction the Pub party is going in, in an alternative universe the Pubs would be wise to just join Douglas and Johnson and call it a day. KS-03 will become a money pit to defend, if the uneducated white working class party wants to continue to contest it.

Biden won KS-03 as it is currently constituted by 10, this map shrinks that margin to 2 points (rounding up from 1.7). I don't ascribe to the school of thought that we know that 2022 is likely to be a GOP wave, but either way, it makes sense to make the district less safe for Ds, not more. 3 Safe R, 1 Tossup, is better for Rs than 3 Safe R, 1 Lean/Likely D. Ds will have to fight for that one seat every cycle. Doing so means that Ds have less resources to fight for the 1st (which they would be obliged to go after, given it has their best strongholds), or the 2nd (that would have some friendly terrain but should be quite safe-as-houses R regardless).
If Ds are doing good enough in KS to have a lock on the 3rd and be able to realistically win another district, then this map is still depriving them of seats relative to a more neutral map to begin with, so it still makes sense for the GOP.

Yes I understand, and I think my map is best suited to doing that while avoiding dummymander risk, and forcing the court to really reveal it has no cloths if it still insists on dumping it, and then with a court regime change later facilitated by its indecent exposure, redraw later, and in the meantime perhaps repeal the silly in its Constitution.

In my view, the single best way to deal with dummymander risk if you are the KS GOP and you don't think it's possible to have no clearly Dem-leaning seats, it's best to just pack the 3rd and try to bolt down every other district if possible.

We both drew swing CD's, and whether or not swing is just a brief pit stop on the way to Dem depends on whether the Pub party continues on its no nothing Trumpist course or not. My parents were life long Pubs who would have been appalled by the no nothing mean xenophobic populism of the current Pub Party, and would have been uncomfortable with the inarticulate, wearing religion on his sleeve and rather reckless GWB, the maverick gun slinger McCain, and would have joined me in blowing the herself problematical Hillary a wet kiss, and now wishing that Trump spend the balance of his days in a prison cell without room service.

[Nyvin]

Yes, I understand some courts and plaintiffs like to legislate using state equal protection under the law clauses, although KS doesn't really even have that, just equal rights:  "Equal rights. All men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." All states should move immediately to get that kind of crap out of their Constitutions ASAP, because all it does is encourage judicial abuse. And then the plaintiffs babble on disingenuously about chops, and how a few thousand rurals that make almost no partisan difference in Douglas County are being separated from Lawrence. Oh, the horror, the horror of it all. With my chopless wonder above  they would just be left with bitching that Johnson is not mated with either Douglas or Wyandotte because equal rights ("natural" rights no less) means that if you are a Dem, you deserve your proportionate share of Dem districts. If you are a Pub you don't, because to give people of color the influence they deserve, they need Dem districts, e.g. the Native Americans on the Res in AZ need to be in a Dem CD to have equal rights. What amazes me is that this crap is published without the slightest bit of embarrassment, but then the media is largely clueless itself, or itself part of the jig in some instances.

I don't find this part true - Commissions in CO and MI achieved proportionality (or at least something very close to it) while having minority seats on the maps.   VA more or less did as well.   

If anything the maps drawn with proportionality seem to have a small GOP bias if anything, the minority seats really don't produce this massive Dem advantage you're pushing here.

[nclib]

Surprised KS-2 still moved to the right, after taking KCK. Anyone have a DRA link or a full county map?

Cause it dropped most of hyper blue Lawrence

https://davesredistricting.org/join/a62e2215-fe4e-478f-b8ac-fa604fdd1d33

I meant specifically for Kansas. The master map does not show county boundaries or district information.

[Torie]

Yes, I understand some courts and plaintiffs like to legislate using state equal protection under the law clauses, although KS doesn't really even have that, just equal rights:  "Equal rights. All men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." All states should move immediately to get that kind of crap out of their Constitutions ASAP, because all it does is encourage judicial abuse. And then the plaintiffs babble on disingenuously about chops, and how a few thousand rurals that make almost no partisan difference in Douglas County are being separated from Lawrence. Oh, the horror, the horror of it all. With my chopless wonder above  they would just be left with bitching that Johnson is not mated with either Douglas or Wyandotte because equal rights ("natural" rights no less) means that if you are a Dem, you deserve your proportionate share of Dem districts. If you are a Pub you don't, because to give people of color the influence they deserve, they need Dem districts, e.g. the Native Americans on the Res in AZ need to be in a Dem CD to have equal rights. What amazes me is that this crap is published without the slightest bit of embarrassment, but then the media is largely clueless itself, or itself part of the jig in some instances.

I don't find this part true - Commissions in CO and MI achieved proportionality (or at least something very close to it) while having minority seats on the maps.   VA more or less did as well.   

If anything the maps drawn with proportionality seem to have a small GOP bias if anything, the minority seats really don't produce this massive Dem advantage you're pushing here.

I was being snarky, but that was actually an argument made that was rejected by the neutral commissioner on the AZ redistricting panel. For whatever reason we still await a case where a court or commission gerrymanders in favor of the Pubs to achieve proportionality, and of course the NYS legislature and Dem party is trying to justify its Dem gerrymander and utter lack of proportionality and that the map does not unduly favor the Dems because it is based on COI's that involve persons of color so there is no "unduly" to be seen there. The argument is disingenuous, but it is out there. As I have posted before, redistricting is more likely to bring out the hack in most of us than any other human endeavor imaginable.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/RStantonJonesDC/status/1499771870018772992?s=20&t=fHp3sH...

And so the battle over the final hurdle begins.