New York City redistricting

[I’m not Stu]

I noticed NY-07 and NY-10 have odd shapes that don't make sense. Why were they drawn to connect completely unrelated areas?

[Brittain33]

I noticed NY-07 and NY-10 have odd shapes that don't make sense. Why were they drawn to connect completely unrelated areas?

Both of those districts have existed in some form since 1992 when New York lost a large number of districts to reapportionment and did a lot of VRA-inspired remapping.

NY-7 is a Latino district linking different neighborhoods.

As for the part of Brooklyn in NY-10, I think that was what was left over for largely white neighborhoods after you've attached other white parts of Brooklyn to Staten Island and made African-American districts and NY-7. I think this may go back to Steven Solarz's district being dismembered in 1992, but I'm not certain. Also, I have no idea how much the racial composition has changed in 30 years.

[I’m not Stu]

Nadler's residence isn't even close to Brooklyn. why would a distant part of Brooklyn be connected to distant parts of Manhattan by a snakemander where very few people live?

[EastAnglianLefty]

Because the distant part has a lot of Orthodox Jews, who can vote for the right Democrat but aren't exactly reliable and hence need to be vote-sinked somewhere. And connecting it via a thinly-populated area means you cause less disturbance to neighbouring seats.

[I’m not Stu]

Because the distant part has a lot of Orthodox Jews, who can vote for the right Democrat but aren't exactly reliable and hence need to be vote-sinked somewhere. And connecting it via a thinly-populated area means you cause less disturbance to neighbouring seats.

What would happen if the Orthodox Jewish population didn't have a vote-sink?

[Orwell]

Because the distant part has a lot of Orthodox Jews, who can vote for the right Democrat but aren't exactly reliable and hence need to be vote-sinked somewhere. And connecting it via a thinly-populated area means you cause less disturbance to neighbouring seats.

What would happen if the Orthodox Jewish population didn't have a vote-sink?

It could be a dangerous group that could elect a GOP congressman

[Oryxslayer]

Because the distant part has a lot of Orthodox Jews, who can vote for the right Democrat but aren't exactly reliable and hence need to be vote-sinked somewhere. And connecting it via a thinly-populated area means you cause less disturbance to neighbouring seats.

What would happen if the Orthodox Jewish population didn't have a vote-sink?

There are enough of them in South Brooklyn to make a competitive seat, at least with 27 seats. However, their location basically guarantees that the Orthodox are permanently gonna keep getting sunk into the minority seats as their white 'extraneous pop,' even if the arm to 10 gets severed. As NY loses seats, the districts will need to expand and these voters are easy targets for carve up.

Also you can't really talk about NYC redistricting without talking about LI redistricting. If NY loses 2 seats, Upstate north of Westchester has 8.97 Seats (guarenteeing what we already knew, the first loss comes from there), NYC+Westchester and Rockland has 12.41 seats, and Long Island has 3.62. This means that a seat could get axed in either LI or the City, depending on the goals of the mappers and how the Nassau/NYC border seats work out. If dems can work unipeated by the flimsy restrictions then for instance they would prefer to ax a NYC seat and then sink the .6 in NY05/06. Other may perfer to carve up AOC's seat (the most obtuse) and then make NY03/04 into safe blue seats, since they would each take in a significant slice of the city. The calculations are of course different based on who has control and especially if NYC only loses 1 seat.

[DC Al Fine]

Because the distant part has a lot of Orthodox Jews, who can vote for the right Democrat but aren't exactly reliable and hence need to be vote-sinked somewhere. And connecting it via a thinly-populated area means you cause less disturbance to neighbouring seats.

What would happen if the Orthodox Jewish population didn't have a vote-sink?

There are enough of them in South Brooklyn to make a competitive seat, at least with 27 seats. However, their location basically guarantees that the Orthodox are permanently gonna keep getting sunk into the minority seats as their white 'extraneous pop,' even if the arm to 10 gets severed. As NY loses seats, the districts will need to expand and these voters are easy targets for carve up.

Also you can't really talk about NYC redistricting without talking about LI redistricting. If NY loses 2 seats, Upstate north of Westchester has 8.97 Seats (guarenteeing what we already knew, the first loss comes from there), NYC+Westchester and Rockland has 12.41 seats, and Long Island has 3.62. This means that a seat could get axed in either LI or the City, depending on the goals of the mappers and how the Nassau/NYC border seats work out. If dems can work unipeated by the flimsy restrictions then for instance they would prefer to ax a NYC seat and then sink the .6 in NY05/06. Other may perfer to carve up AOC's seat (the most obtuse) and then make NY03/04 into safe blue seats, since they would each take in a significant slice of the city. The calculations are of course different based on who has control and especially if NYC only loses 1 seat.

This has been bugging me for a while and I was wondering if you can explain it a bit more:

I think I have a pretty good handle on the considerations and power plays that go into gerrymandering/mapmaking for a reasonably competitive state. Incumbents want protection, tring to break up opponent's districts or packing their voters into a small number of seats etc etc.

My question is, what sort of considerations, fights, power plays etc, come into play in a borderline one party region like NYC or Chicago?

[Oryxslayer]

Because the distant part has a lot of Orthodox Jews, who can vote for the right Democrat but aren't exactly reliable and hence need to be vote-sinked somewhere. And connecting it via a thinly-populated area means you cause less disturbance to neighbouring seats.

What would happen if the Orthodox Jewish population didn't have a vote-sink?

There are enough of them in South Brooklyn to make a competitive seat, at least with 27 seats. However, their location basically guarantees that the Orthodox are permanently gonna keep getting sunk into the minority seats as their white 'extraneous pop,' even if the arm to 10 gets severed. As NY loses seats, the districts will need to expand and these voters are easy targets for carve up.

Also you can't really talk about NYC redistricting without talking about LI redistricting. If NY loses 2 seats, Upstate north of Westchester has 8.97 Seats (guarenteeing what we already knew, the first loss comes from there), NYC+Westchester and Rockland has 12.41 seats, and Long Island has 3.62. This means that a seat could get axed in either LI or the City, depending on the goals of the mappers and how the Nassau/NYC border seats work out. If dems can work unipeated by the flimsy restrictions then for instance they would prefer to ax a NYC seat and then sink the .6 in NY05/06. Other may perfer to carve up AOC's seat (the most obtuse) and then make NY03/04 into safe blue seats, since they would each take in a significant slice of the city. The calculations are of course different based on who has control and especially if NYC only loses 1 seat.

This has been bugging me for a while and I was wondering if you can explain it a bit more:

I think I have a pretty good handle on the considerations and power plays that go into gerrymandering/mapmaking for a reasonably competitive state. Incumbents want protection, tring to break up opponent's districts or packing their voters into a small number of seats etc etc.

My question is, what sort of considerations, fights, power plays etc, come into play in a borderline one party region like NYC or Chicago?

For this case, lets assume total one-party uniformity, and not the borderline between the suburbs and city. In Chicago for instance, since the suburbs are never far off, Madigan ends up tentacling into the city and prioritizing the former reasons. NYc though is contrained by geography and a weak redistricting law, so it is a good case.

Once a seat passes a certain partisan threshold, different depending on the area in question, the general election stops being the main concern and the primary becomes more important. Surviving your primary is the most crucial test of popularity, so your district needs to be centered around you. This happens in red rurals in the south and in urban dem metros. Ironically, the incumbent no longer cares if a decent amount of the opposition is placed in their seat, since those voters aren't in your primary, as long as the seat doesn't get too many opposition voters so as to push it competitive. This is why the NYC Hasidim are permanently screwed. IL03 is the best example of this, a seat with a bunch of Cop/machine/White Ethnic towns drawn inside since it would protect Lipinski in the primary (until this year) even though his seat is significantly less safe by PVI when compared to his neighbors.

So how is a seat drawn for the primary? A certain candidate may have support with a section of the population, based on racial, income, or community lines. Certain voters might have a higher primary turnout propensity when compared to others, so seats might be drawn for or against said groups. Certain groups may dislike a incumbent, and said incumbent would like them therefore in another seat. VRA seats are often required because of ethnic clustering in certain neighborhoods (a global trend), which can overlap with ones support network. After an incumbent is reelected 5 or 6 times, his/her base more or less has dissipated (unless facing a starkly different opponent, like a white in an AA seat for instance), and your base becomes the district itself. Therefore, consistency in district composition from map to map is desired in some capacity. This is extremely important in areas where the original base has entirely vanished or shifted (such as AA and Compton in 2010), and a history of service is the only thing an incumbent has to run on. Incumbent residencies should always be inside said seat, but this is a given. In safe GOP seats, media markets come into effect since seats can cross these groupings. So incumbents may desire a congruent seat for lower ads costs and district office costs, or may desire a dispersed seat to discourage primary challengers by the high ad costs.

This of course only focuses on the incumbent side of things. Legislators may desire districts drawn a different way so as to facilitate a primary against said incumbent.

[I’m not Stu]

What will NYC look like after the new redistricting committee was passed.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What will NYC look like after the new redistricting committee was passed.

I think we'll see elements of NJ-style commission in there, methinks.

[Zaybay]

If the Democrats take a supermajority in the senate (which they easily can thanks to a bunch of R retirements), then the committee wont matter. If they dont, then it likely has minimal influence and only softens the oncoming D gerrymander a bit.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If the Democrats take a supermajority in the senate (which they easily can thanks to a bunch of R retirements), then the committee wont matter. If they dont, then it likely has minimal influence and only softens the oncoming D gerrymander a bit.

true, fair point.

[Sol]

I noticed NY-07 and NY-10 have odd shapes that don't make sense. Why were they drawn to connect completely unrelated areas?

Why do you insist on starting new threads? There's already a New York thread and this would be perfectly in place there.