Blumenauer Congressional Plan

[Oryxslayer]

I will note that I'm playing around with New York right now and surprisingly, once again the Haredim get screwed. You would think that with smaller districts the sotuh Brooklyn Whites would get their own seat. However, the smaller seats mean that there should in most circumstances, given the legal and community guidelines, a new Asian access seat already sliding in there. With much of the Bensonhurst and Gravesend area already getting used up, there just isn't enough precincts favorable to the GOP left and throwing Park slope in there defeats the whole purpose of such a seat. The other option is the ugly Rockaway gerrymander, but beyond it's obvious downsides, the Rockaways already fit perfectly with Long Island based on population deviation.

Which brings me to my second comment on NY: it really likes the 10 extra seats from County and community line purposes. Upstate just...works into nest county groups in most cases. Manhattan is almost perfectly 3 seats, and Staten Island + Bay Ridge/Ft Hamilton is only slightly overpopulated. Long Island + Rockaways and minus North Hempstead town is 5 seats. Its all a little too perfect.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This is actually a quite favorable map for the Democrats and I wasn't even trying to make one...this size fits them well.

IA-01: I usually start Iowa maps by starting here and drawing increasing sized squares because of how well the counties fit. Obviously very Safe R, Trump+36.

IA-02: So here's the first break the Democrats catch: Polk County is by itself just under the size of a district in this configuration so it can't be drowned out with rural Republicans. Jasper is the only neighboring county that fits and it's Republican, but not enough to get this under Biden+12. This is at worst Likely D.

IA-03: Trump+11, basically Safe R now.

IA-04: A collection of rural areas and Des Moines suburbs. Trump+24 so quite Safe R.

IA-05: Yeah this is kind of an ugly shape. That's due to some leftover counties that obviously couldn't go in the Des Moines district and there wasn't enough room for in the 3rd having to go somewhere. Johnson County is now the only remaining Democratic area in this but it's so overwhelming it carries it on its own...imagine if Iowa City was bigger. It's a Biden+7 seat, I'm calling Likely D.

IA-06: I actually like this shape and it's logical despite the random tacking on of Delaware County because there's nowhere else for it to go. The Quad Cities and Cedar Rapids are actually enough to carry it on its own, it's about a Biden+2.5 seat, so Tilt D perhaps?

So Democrats can conceivably win half the districts on this map, as opposed to zero currently and unlikely to be more than one from hereon. This is kind of the perfect size for Iowa Democrats, as noted you can't drown out Polk County anymore, and the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids-based districts also shed rural territory which is also enough so they can't be drowned. This is an interesting variation of the Alabama Paradox, the GOP actually loses a seat if the entire state gains two. Republicans might hope for a vote sink seat combining Johnson and Linn Counties but even if that would work that would be ceding two seats to the Democrats meaning they effectively pick up both new ones.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This is the scenario of combining Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. The 5th is actually marginally more D than the Des Moines-based 2nd. This is basically a locked in 4R-2D map...still much better for Democrats than the status quo, and it's honestly not too bad either despite how the 4th is awkwardly squeezed between the other districts.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

I've been making this maps since the act was introduced pretty much. Here's the ones I've done (mostly focusing on clean-ness plus some maj-minority districts rather than political goals)

AR: https://davesredistricting.org/join/a0822f8f-4ff4-4992-9fe5-0e4318736553

CO: https://davesredistricting.org/join/20b93da9-24b0-446a-95b9-08b0403e50b1

CT: https://davesredistricting.org/join/32a9dc64-07a7-4ed5-bfd4-e19b3841cf05

DE: https://davesredistricting.org/join/9d12f24a-264c-47ab-bf35-96abb627fe73

HI: https://davesredistricting.org/join/96c3888a-b848-4b92-8302-81c3be2f0e8e

IA: https://davesredistricting.org/join/f0b25dda-61dc-48f1-bcc1-230637b259d7

ID: https://davesredistricting.org/join/3e4436bf-ab49-434e-a4e8-ca26dba157d7

IL: https://davesredistricting.org/join/817e6ea7-74de-4c26-86d7-726506bbfaf4

IN: https://davesredistricting.org/join/923a220e-429b-430e-a7a0-55760817fdb9

KS: https://davesredistricting.org/join/56a3ba3c-b2f6-440d-8ee4-47c0f8551c44

KY: https://davesredistricting.org/join/e0b381d2-9b5f-45be-8b7a-94b168586886

LA: https://davesredistricting.org/join/bb303eb1-51dc-45df-81d6-cccafd4385e8

MA: https://davesredistricting.org/join/c26be8b6-b6a1-4ac6-a129-5900fdfb5e29

MD: https://davesredistricting.org/join/9b3fc4e5-295a-403c-bf51-c7c4de1eca09

MI: https://davesredistricting.org/join/048950dd-825d-4da2-8638-31cf33bf12ad

MN: https://davesredistricting.org/join/e49f7fc6-ce85-40ee-8d01-bbeee2e63984

MO: https://davesredistricting.org/join/1e503f1b-52a7-4674-8a38-1263b1da54ec

MS: https://davesredistricting.org/join/070750b4-3c4a-4918-9a35-abecc0e87558

NC: https://davesredistricting.org/join/b5eae8ea-4e17-496c-81fa-4d84cb684b1e

NJ: https://davesredistricting.org/join/c7e4d0bb-9bc7-4dd2-8f24-4514bb01f413

NM: https://davesredistricting.org/join/409dedd1-88d6-4545-ab1a-2687deea3f7c

NV: https://davesredistricting.org/join/20d89e05-6034-4c1b-80b3-d944bc853cb8

NY: https://davesredistricting.org/join/38096727-7688-417c-88fc-14771cf0d04c

OH: https://davesredistricting.org/join/2e4575e6-af57-4d71-855b-2f98581fd393

OK: https://davesredistricting.org/join/8199962f-16df-42f4-8f78-7c998d363a4c

OR: https://davesredistricting.org/join/7041f06b-5ac2-4e30-a52e-eda16888d108

PA: https://davesredistricting.org/join/a69319a3-d3f9-4eaf-a86f-9f2279adf6ef

SD: https://davesredistricting.org/join/028b466e-677e-4b83-a97f-447961c41821

TN: https://davesredistricting.org/join/ac6aa07f-358e-4dab-896a-a576e12c08b7

UT: https://davesredistricting.org/join/5e81438e-8e27-47c5-a332-775b8ad85e9a

VA: https://davesredistricting.org/join/13ad16a9-015c-41b2-96f5-99e60b6ddc7f

WA: https://davesredistricting.org/join/cfd6188a-9071-46ea-af56-5b5e1279c95f

WV: https://davesredistricting.org/join/879ecf52-5b55-4d8f-9f61-b9a047aecc00

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/99497d6f-a0ae-4a6b-ad4e-b5f4cde541b8

So I did my own few attempts at Iowa and this was my favorite. It results in two districts that will usually elect democrats, one thats highly competitive, and one that is lean republican. I actually went on the Secy of State website and did the math for these districts.

                 Hinson   Fink
Winneshiek   6,041   5,807
Allamakee      4,595   2,697
Clayton      5,895   3,590
Buchanan      6,180   4,481
Delaware      6,608   3,280
Dubuque      26,263   26,541
Benton      9,165   5,307
Linn         56,243   69,391
Jones      6,621   4,242
Jackson      6,225   4,340
Clinton*      10,945   12,997    11,253   12,689
         144,781   142,673   145,089   142,365

         50.37%   49.63%   50.47%   49.53%

Clinton is asteriked as it was not in Fink's district so the first column is the results from Hart v. M-M and the second is a rough estimation of what it would look like if it were in Fink's seatbased on her usually running 1.2% behind Hart. Still, the Debuque and Cedar Falls seat would have been very close and IRL Fink might have pulled it out.

   M-M   Hart
Johnson    24,101     56,129
Cedar    5,534     4,629
Scott       24,487     37,333
Muscatine    10,279     9,731
Washington 6,633     4,650
Louisa    3,169     1,917
Jefferson    4,226     4,374
Henry    5,857     3,607
Des Moines 9,641     9,268
Lee       9,145     6,969
        103,072     138,607
       42.65%    57.35%
On the flip side Hart would have had a resounding victory against M-M in the Iowa City based seat. She would likely be in the House to this day.

edit: idk why the numbers are so curvy they're lined up perfectly in the text box

[BenjiG98]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/99497d6f-a0ae-4a6b-ad4e-b5f4cde541b8

So I did my own few attempts at Iowa and this was my favorite. It results in two districts that will usually elect democrats, one thats highly competitive, and one that is lean republican. I actually went on the Secy of State website and did the math for these districts.

             Hinson Fink
Winneshiek 6,041 5,807
Allamakee 4,595 2,697
Clayton 5,895 3,590
Buchanan 6,180 4,481
Delaware 6,608 3,280
Dubuque 26,263 26,541
Benton 9,165 5,307
Linn 56,243 69,391
Jones 6,621 4,242
Jackson 6,225 4,340
Clinton* 10,945 12,997 11,253 12,689
 144,781 142,673 145,089 142,365

 50.37% 49.63% 50.47% 49.53%

Clinton is asteriked as it was not in Fink's district so the first column is the results from Hart v. M-M and the second is a rough estimation of what it would look like if it were in Fink's seatbased on her usually running 1.2% behind Hart. Still, the Debuque and Cedar Falls seat would have been very close and IRL Fink might have pulled it out.

 M-M Hart
Johnson 24,101 56,129
Cedar 5,534 4,629
Scott 24,487 37,333
Muscatine 10,279 9,731
Washington 6,633 4,650
Louisa 3,169 1,917
Jefferson 4,226 4,374
Henry 5,857 3,607
Des Moines 9,641 9,268
Lee 9,145 6,969
 103,072 138,607
 42.65% 57.35%
On the flip side Hart would have had a resounding victory against M-M in the Iowa City based seat. She would likely be in the House to this day.

edit: idk why the numbers are so curvy they're lined up perfectly in the text box

That's funny because your districts are very similar to the ones I did for my map yesterday. Looks like we had the same ideas for the dem seats.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/99497d6f-a0ae-4a6b-ad4e-b5f4cde541b8

So I did my own few attempts at Iowa and this was my favorite. It results in two districts that will usually elect democrats, one thats highly competitive, and one that is lean republican. I actually went on the Secy of State website and did the math for these districts.

             Hinson Fink
Winneshiek 6,041 5,807
Allamakee 4,595 2,697
Clayton 5,895 3,590
Buchanan 6,180 4,481
Delaware 6,608 3,280
Dubuque 26,263 26,541
Benton 9,165 5,307
Linn 56,243 69,391
Jones 6,621 4,242
Jackson 6,225 4,340
Clinton* 10,945 12,997 11,253 12,689
 144,781 142,673 145,089 142,365

 50.37% 49.63% 50.47% 49.53%

Clinton is asteriked as it was not in Fink's district so the first column is the results from Hart v. M-M and the second is a rough estimation of what it would look like if it were in Fink's seatbased on her usually running 1.2% behind Hart. Still, the Debuque and Cedar Falls seat would have been very close and IRL Fink might have pulled it out.

 M-M Hart
Johnson 24,101 56,129
Cedar 5,534 4,629
Scott 24,487 37,333
Muscatine 10,279 9,731
Washington 6,633 4,650
Louisa 3,169 1,917
Jefferson 4,226 4,374
Henry 5,857 3,607
Des Moines 9,641 9,268
Lee 9,145 6,969
 103,072 138,607
 42.65% 57.35%
On the flip side Hart would have had a resounding victory against M-M in the Iowa City based seat. She would likely be in the House to this day.

edit: idk why the numbers are so curvy they're lined up perfectly in the text box

That's funny because your districts are very similar to the ones I did for my map yesterday. Looks like we had the same ideas for the dem seats.

The Daveport-Iowa City seat is just so natural and works so well with this map that it's basically impossible to not include. I did draw a dem county compliant gerrymander and boy do I hate it. It should elect 3 democrats the majority of the time though.

[the artist formerly known as catmusic]

Gave AZ a go. Pretty happy with this.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Gave AZ a go. Pretty happy with this.

How many hispanic majority seats are there?

[the artist formerly known as catmusic]

Gave AZ a go. Pretty happy with this.

How many hispanic majority seats are there?

4 are majority/plurality hispanic, 2 others are majority-minority as well.

[Oryxslayer]

Gave AZ a go. Pretty happy with this.

How many hispanic majority seats are there?

4 are majority/plurality hispanic, 2 others are majority-minority as well.

2020 CVAP please

[patzer]

This isn't remotely pretty, but it's what I came up with if South Carolina Republicans were to want to make a gerrymander that leaves their six seats as absolutely safe as possible.

 

[Oryxslayer]

My attempt at NY. Since the state was remapped by a court master, this map is intended to respect COIs unlike some of the previous ones I posted here. And like I described above, things kinda fall into place a little too well with 10 extra seats.





Starting with upstate you can kinda see how things nest almost perfectly into county groupings. Only in the west does this break down a bit but it still is in a neat multi-county grouping of ~5 seats. Politically, it is also competitive, though once again I have to express my dislike with DRA's partisanship color categories. 54-44 NY-18 around Poughkeepsie is the same color as 57-41 NY-24 in Syracuse and 58-39 NY-20 in Albany. Anyway Trump won the three seats less Blue than NY-18 and barely lost NY-18 in 2016, so there's plenty of opportunity here - GOP would probably win all three in the 2022 environment.





Long Island also basically draws itself. Dropping North Hempstead and adding in the Rockaways is perfectly 5 seats. Islip and Babylon are themselves almost exactly 1 seat, so shuffling a few of the suburban 'villages' around the two for population equity while maintaining communities means that seat is done. Which means NY-01 and NY-03 draw themselves through the geography of the region. Throw in making NY-04 a majority-minority seat by CVAP and everything's done. And every seat except the interlocking majority-minority could be competitive.



And like I mentioned above, if you don't have something like this Asian (Chinese') access seat - which itself is just the 17th Senate seat plus a bit - you are ignoring a large and growing COI. And like I said above, this kinda screws over the Orthodox and Eastern Europeans who live next door. Without any politically  'marginal' areas to throw in with them, or the Rockaways to do the ugly linkage, their only potential partner is the White Progressive areas. This defeats the whole point of a Orthodox seat since the added areas would outvote the supposed 'core' of the seat. Add in the possibility of a 4th AA access seat and things don't get any better.

Of course the new Chinese seat isn't as democratic as the rest of NYC - it probably goes GOP in the 2022 environment.



And NYC, which itself is a maze of access seats in most areas. Manhatten is almost exactly 3 seats, so you can restore the appropriate divide between the east and west sides. The existing minority seat reaches from Harlem and northwards.

The Bronx has it's two Hispanic seats and a new Majority African American seat. Though outside of Mt Vernon and Wakefield I'm sure most of the people measured as "African American" are better identified as Caribbean-American and more similar to their Hispanic neighbors.

Four African American seats in Brooklyn and Jamaica, which necessitates some peculiar linkages to balance out the various populations. District 6 covers most of the Chinese population centers in Queens, with the new 29 grabbing what remains - multiethnic or Whiter areas. 39 is the Hispanic seat, which means the existing 7th is used as a White Pack for the Progressive neighborhoods.

All seats described here are Safe D, though I'm sure the one labeled 29 would be close in 2022.

[vileplume]

I've had a play around with a few states and interestingly the 3 States with 11 congressional districts (MA, IN & TN) would still be brutal for the minority party even as states like WI get a bit more proportional with more districts.


The GOP would still be locked out in MA with their only hope being the Bristol County based 11th (Biden+12) continuing a rightward drift.




The Dems would get their stolen Nashville district back in TN but every other district is over Trump+20 as the Nashville suburbs neatly dice up when following county lines.




The Dems likely are still stuck at 2 seats in Indiana as they are now. The Hamilton County based 5th is actually a point further right than the current iteration in this map (Trump+17 as opposed to Trump+16), the Southern Indianapolis suburbs in the Trump+15 7th are pretty WWC and aren't really drifting left, whilst the traditionally swingy Trump+5 2nd district is getting redder.




Incidentally I suspect the number of 585 districts was chosen as it is quite close to the current Wyoming rule (currently 573 districts). But adding 150 seats to the current number is much 'cleaner' than proposing to add 138.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I've had a play around with a few states and interestingly the 3 States with 11 congressional districts (MA, IN & TN) would still be brutal for the minority party even as states like WI get a bit more proportional with more districts.


The GOP would still be locked out in MA with their only hope being the Bristol County based 11th (Biden+12) continuing a rightward drift.

As I've noticed before the Massachusetts GOP has a pretty unique problem that no other state Republican Party has with all of their strongest areas being in areas that are basically worthless for them in any map with fewer than something like 25 seats.

The area around Springfield has a lot of Republican suburbs and some rural towns, but you can't put them into a district that also doesn't include Springfield. And in your map also Western Massachusetts. So they'll always be outvoted.

That's also true of the area surrounding Worcester, but again, to get to the size of a district you also have to include Worcester. And also some smaller urban areas like Leominster and Fitchburg. There's a bunch of Republican state legislators from this area but even the State Senate can't get a Republican district in the region.

The southeast is the last such region that you kind of mentioned, but there's too many urban cities in that area for them to not be outvoted. Even places like Fall River and New Bedford are pretty D.

Another big problem for the GOP is that the Boston metro developed in a way that doesn't really result in any notable R suburban areas because of the surrounding smaller urban areas. To the northeast you have Salem (this region actually did use to have some notable pockets of Republicanism but Trump did away with that), northwest is Lawrence and Lowell, direct west is Framingham, southwest is Providence, RI and southeast you have Quincy and Brockton. So the areas that you would normally expect Republican exurbs to develop in don't because instead they're just suburbs of those smaller urban cities. Now there is one notable cluster of Republican exurbs of metro Boston. But it's in New Hampshire, and thus doesn't help out the MAGOP any.

[patzer]

Nevada. Data is President 2020

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Too lazy to do a write-up now, maybe later, but that's why I colored all the districts by their partisanship. A fair map, and would actually most likely be a 50/50 split in parties shockingly.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Six district Utah is really annoying to draw, something I learned awhile ago when I drew another map of it with that size for some reason I can't even remember. The problem is that the area north of Salt Lake City has enough population at this size for about 1 1/2 districts. That means one district draws pretty well but then you have a chunk that isn't big enough for its own seat, but the easiest place to connect it to is SLC proper, which isn't a good fit at all from a CoI perspective because despite proximity this area is kind of considered its own thing, Davis County is actually part of its own metro area based around it and Weber County instead of in the SLC metro. What's weird is this is called the Ogden-Clearfield Metro, even though Clearfield isn't one of the largest cities and there's the much larger Layton just south of it. It also has only a few roads into Salt Lake City and the parts of SLC these run through look pretty remote and undeveloped (it is close to the airport but airports were historically built on the outskirts of cities for obvious reasons so that's not surprising at all, the development patterns of SLC look like much of the northern part was only developed post-WWII even if it's in the city proper.) You could theoretically go east and draw a sort of district that wraps around the SLC metro core to the south of it, but this would only be continuous if you swam across the lake to the western end. So to avoid that I just went east ended up with a weird district combining rural western Utah with most of Davis County.





1, 2, 5 and 6 are obviously all Safe R. 3 is a Biden+34 seat that's Safe D. And 4...it's a kind of interesting seat combining more Democratic SLC suburbs with the more conservative ones on the south end of the county. It ended up voting about Trump+2 with a large third party vote and would probably be a good fit for Ben McAdams or another sort of conservatish Mormon Democrat. PlanScore even gives it a 48% chance of voting D.

So basically a 4R-1D-1S map. Also shows how if Utah gained even just a 5th district it'd be impossible to continue with an all R delegation, the Republicans would have to cede a D sink around Salt Lake City.

[vileplume]

Six district Utah is really annoying to draw, something I learned awhile ago when I drew another map of it with that size for some reason I can't even remember. The problem is that the area north of Salt Lake City has enough population at this size for about 1 1/2 districts. That means one district draws pretty well but then you have a chunk that isn't big enough for its own seat, but the easiest place to connect it to is SLC proper, which isn't a good fit at all from a CoI perspective because despite proximity this area is kind of considered its own thing, Davis County is actually part of its own metro area based around it and Weber County instead of in the SLC metro. What's weird is this is called the Ogden-Clearfield Metro, even though Clearfield isn't one of the largest cities and there's the much larger Layton just south of it. It also has only a few roads into Salt Lake City and the parts of SLC these run through look pretty remote and undeveloped (it is close to the airport but airports were historically built on the outskirts of cities for obvious reasons so that's not surprising at all, the development patterns of SLC look like much of the northern part was only developed post-WWII even if it's in the city proper.) You could theoretically go east and draw a sort of district that wraps around the SLC metro core to the south of it, but this would only be continuous if you swam across the lake to the eastern end. So to avoid that I just went west...and ended up with a weird district combining rural western Utah with most of Davis County.





1, 2, 5 and 6 are obviously all Safe R. 3 is a Biden+34 seat that's Safe D. And 4...it's a kind of interesting seat combining more Democratic SLC suburbs with the more conservative ones on the south end of the county. It ended up voting about Trump+2 with a large third party vote and would probably be a good fit for Ben McAdams or another sort of conservatish Mormon Democrat. PlanScore even gives it a 48% chance of voting D.

So basically a 4R-1D-1S map. Also shows how if Utah gained even just a 5th district it'd be impossible to continue with an all R delegation, the Republicans would have to cede a D sink around Salt Lake City.

What about something like this for a 6 District Utah?



It's a pretty clean map although worse for the Democrats than the one you drew, they'd only get 1 district (the 3rd) although the 2nd (Trump+18) and the 4th (Trump+20) could become competitive down the road. In reality though, the GOP would likely draw 5 very solid districts as they'd have complete control of redistricting.

[Sol]

Six district Utah is really annoying to draw, something I learned awhile ago when I drew another map of it with that size for some reason I can't even remember. The problem is that the area north of Salt Lake City has enough population at this size for about 1 1/2 districts. That means one district draws pretty well but then you have a chunk that isn't big enough for its own seat, but the easiest place to connect it to is SLC proper, which isn't a good fit at all from a CoI perspective because despite proximity this area is kind of considered its own thing, Davis County is actually part of its own metro area based around it and Weber County instead of in the SLC metro. What's weird is this is called the Ogden-Clearfield Metro, even though Clearfield isn't one of the largest cities and there's the much larger Layton just south of it. It also has only a few roads into Salt Lake City and the parts of SLC these run through look pretty remote and undeveloped (it is close to the airport but airports were historically built on the outskirts of cities for obvious reasons so that's not surprising at all, the development patterns of SLC look like much of the northern part was only developed post-WWII even if it's in the city proper.) You could theoretically go east and draw a sort of district that wraps around the SLC metro core to the south of it, but this would only be continuous if you swam across the lake to the eastern end. So to avoid that I just went west...and ended up with a weird district combining rural western Utah with most of Davis County.





1, 2, 5 and 6 are obviously all Safe R. 3 is a Biden+34 seat that's Safe D. And 4...it's a kind of interesting seat combining more Democratic SLC suburbs with the more conservative ones on the south end of the county. It ended up voting about Trump+2 with a large third party vote and would probably be a good fit for Ben McAdams or another sort of conservatish Mormon Democrat. PlanScore even gives it a 48% chance of voting D.

So basically a 4R-1D-1S map. Also shows how if Utah gained even just a 5th district it'd be impossible to continue with an all R delegation, the Republicans would have to cede a D sink around Salt Lake City.

Yeah ultimately I don't think you can really justify putting Davis County with rural Eastern UT. There's a little flexibility around there but ultimately it's hard to get around the fact that Layton and Kanab are extremely far apart. SLC and Magna plus Davis County is just about the right size for a district, even if it's crummy CoI.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/6b571a90-4ce8-4b18-8f20-915688612a82
Michigan.
Perfectly balanced, at 9 Biden seats and 9 Trump seats. 2 majority black seats in Wayne. Battle Creek and Kalamazoo in the same seat. Only two splits of a contiguous portion of a municipality.
I feel satisfied with what I have drawn.

[EastAnglianLefty]

If you're increasing the number of congressional districts by 50%, I think you need to make an effort to increase the number of VRA seats by the same percentage. You can't draw three black-majority districts in Greater Detroit by CVAP without squiggly lines, but you can easily draw three fairly compact districts where black voters would be a majority in the Democratic primary so I think you should.

It's doable just using Wayne and Oakland counties (with an arm reaching up to Pontiac) but much cleaner if you use southern Macomb (where Eastpointe is now black-plurality and Warren and Roseville are much less white than a decade ago). In either case, you don't need to split any cities.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If you're increasing the number of congressional districts by 50%, I think you need to make an effort to increase the number of VRA seats by the same percentage. You can't draw three black-majority districts in Greater Detroit by CVAP without squiggly lines, but you can easily draw three fairly compact districts where black voters would be a majority in the Democratic primary so I think you should.

It's doable just using Wayne and Oakland counties (with an arm reaching up to Pontiac) but much cleaner if you use southern Macomb (where Eastpointe is now black-plurality and Warren and Roseville are much less white than a decade ago). In either case, you don't need to split any cities.

I unwilling to cross 8 Mile Road. But I'm willing to cross the Macomb-Oakland border. (Once)

[Oryxslayer]

If you're increasing the number of congressional districts by 50%, I think you need to make an effort to increase the number of VRA seats by the same percentage. You can't draw three black-majority districts in Greater Detroit by CVAP without squiggly lines, but you can easily draw three fairly compact districts where black voters would be a majority in the Democratic primary so I think you should.

It's doable just using Wayne and Oakland counties (with an arm reaching up to Pontiac) but much cleaner if you use southern Macomb (where Eastpointe is now black-plurality and Warren and Roseville are much less white than a decade ago). In either case, you don't need to split any cities.

See, I agree and disagree with you here.

In this hypothetical project, you must create new and fair access seats in many states. I already showed of NY where you can create new urban AA and Chinese access seats for example. Every southern state needs at least one more majority-minority seat by VAP/CVAP. One Columbus seat in a Ohio map should be plurality African American.

The issue is that I don't think this is the case with Michigan. MI has a 13% Black alone VAP. That technically is below two African American seats under our present 13 district arrangement, to give you some indication of where things are going. Of course, the concentration of African American population in the Detroit area means that you can get two seats. Under 19 seats, you are not required to draw a third seat.

Which then begs the two big questions: What do you define to be Black access under plurality, and is this infringing on the access of another group? The former question gets at the heart of the Detroit area seats under the 2022 commission legislative maps, and one has to do primary Racially-polarized-voting analysis outside of DRA to find the appropriate percentage based on turnout, candidate choice, and the relevant elections. Based on last year, 42% is probably not enough.

The second question is also crucial, because the commission legislatively did not treat Detroit area Arabs as Whites, which the census does. They drew Access seats for Arab voters in the Dearborn area. And so we must ask ourselves, is a third African American seat going to come at the expense of their interests? Cause Dearborn and Dearborn are now large enough under the smaller districts to carry a lot of weight in the right western Wayne seat. And even if we don't want to create an access seat, we should also be aware that drawing these three hypothetical AA seats in an ideal fashion my force the communities to be only put in the black seats, which would only serve to deny access to one of the groups, as the 2018 elections show.

[Sol]

It's really not hard to draw three Black-influence districts:



It keeps heavily Arab areas in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights in one district, and unifies them with Hamtramck.

Sometimes it feels like Atlas redistricters just don't want to draw minority-influence seats.