Redistricting Washington with ten districts

[bgwah]

Okay, I'm insane and have redistricted Washington to have a 10th district. This is sort of a reply to muon2's thread, but considering how much time I wasted on this and how much crap I wrote, I thought it deserved its own thread.



I mostly used 2007 OFM (http://www.ofm.wa.gov/pop/default.asp) numbers. An ideal district is about 648,800 people.

I started with the fifth district (brown). Every county you see that is entirely within the fifth district has been that way since at least the 1980s. In the 1980s, part of western Walla Walla County was put into the fourth district. Currently, small parts of western Adams County near Othello are in the fourth district. I needed about 22,200 people from Walla Walla and/or Adams Counties in the fourth, and used these previous districts as precedent. I took about 13,000 from Othello/Adams Panhandle and the rest from  rural Walla Walla County and Waitsburg. I left the city of Walla Walla and College Place and what not in the fifth district.

I then moved onto the fourth (blue). Okanogan County was only put in the fifth district in 2002, and I moved it back to the fourth. The rest of the 4th district is the same as it always has been barring Yakima and Klickitat counties. The Tri-Cities and Yakima (the city) have always been in the fourth, so I decided to leave that it that way. Klickitat County and a portion of Yakima, however, have to be in a bicascadial district. I decided to cross at the southern part of the state based on precedent---districts almost always cross here when they have to. In the 80s, a portion of Clark and all of Skamania Counties were in the fourth, in the 90s a portion of Klickitat was in the 3rd, and now a portion of Skamania is in the 4th. So, I needed about 128,200 people from Yakima County out of the fourth district. I left all of Yakima City in the fourth, however I had to put Union Gap as well as some unincorporated suburban areas to the east and west of Yakima into the third district. All of south Yakima County is in the third.

Now, onto the third district (dark green). With part of Yakima and all of Klickitat counties, we now have more than 100,000 Easterners in the third district. Add in Skamania, Clark, and Cowlitz County and we’re at about 649,400 for the third district—about 600 too many. So a small area of NW Cowlitz County with about 600 people is now in the yellow district.

The yellow district is the “new” district—WA-10. With a portion of Cowlitz and all of Wahkiakum, Lewis, Pacific, Grays Harbor, Thurston, Mason, Jefferson, and Clallam counties, we have an Olympia-Lewis County-Coastal-Peninsula district. However, these counties fell about 88,000 people short of 648,800, so I put about 88,000 people from east Pierce County into the tenth district. You might be wondering why I put east Pierce into the tenth instead of west Pierce or part of Kitsap County, and I will explain why in the next paragraph.

I then created the 6th district (light green). It looks very similar to the 80s version of the 6th—west Pierce/Tacoma and south Kitsap/Bremerton. It contains the military bases, most of Tacoma, and Kitsap up to and including Bremerton. This is Dicks’ district, and would probably make him happy with its military bases and Tacoma + Bremerton. He lives in Mason County, but he only moved there in the 90s. If Dicks wants this district, he’ll have to move back to Pierce/Kitsap. Otherwise he could have the tenth. Although the 6th currently has the peninsula, its included parts of if not all of Tacoma/Bremerton for decades, and based on this I decided to name this the 6th district and the yellow district the 10th, as the peninsula/coast have been thrown around quite a bit and have not been in the same district for very long.

The next district I made was the pink one—the 9th. I’d just like to say that the borders in this part of Pierce are very approximate, so don’t get too picky with them! We have city estimates for 2007, but you kind of have to blindly guess for unincorporated areas. Anyway, the pink takes about 219,135 from Pierce and the rest from King. It has a small part of Tacoma and kind of the Puyallup Sumner areas (well, it’s supposed to!). With its core in south King and north Pierce, it isn’t too different from today. But today it’s kind of a stretched out fugly district all the way to Olympia, and I didn’t let that happen this time. It goes up to Burien and Seatac, and includes some unincorporated areas south and east of Renton. It has Auburn to Maple Valley and Black Diamond down to Enumclaw, and also includes Vashon Island.

The cyan district is the 8th. Auburn is now in the 9th, so assuming Reichert is still around he is going to have to move to Renton or Bellevue or something, unless he wants to lose to Adam Smith. The 8th district no longer includes east Pierce or parts the parts of south King County previously mentioned. It now includes Kirkland and Redmond and is more of an eastside/east King district.

The 7th district is red. Seattle alone has over 586,000 people. I got it up to 648,800 by putting the White Center, Riverton, and Skyway CDPs into it. I also put most of Tukwila into it, but the southern tip is in the 9th district (only about 1,500 people IIRC). Not much else to say about this district—it’s basically the same as it has been for decades.

The orange district is the first. It takes about 79,365 people from north Kitsap County (including Bainbridge Island, where Inslee lives) and about 134,835 people from north King County, where it has Shoreline to Woodinville and most of the Finn Hill CDP. With Redmond and Kirkland in the 8th  now, a larger chunk of Snohomish County has to be in this district (about 434,600 people or two thirds of the district). It keeps the southwestern-most part of Snohomish County that it already has (Lynnwood, Edmonds, Bothell, etc.). It now, however, has Everett, which is currently in the first district. Population-wise, most of Snohomish is now in the first district. The huge majority of its land area, however, is still in the second.

The second district (purple) loses Everett, but keeps the rest of Snohomish it already has. Without Everett, it isn’t really a Seattle area district anymore, but for the most part its borders have barely changed just like the 7th’s (rapidly growing suburban Snohomish County probably had something to do with this).

So, to summarize, I tried to make this as realistic as possible and not change the districts from the way they have been over the past few decades too much (and used precedent when making difficult decisions like what I should do with the bicascadial district or the Olympic Peninsula). Dicks would have to move a few miles if he wants to keep the military/Tacoma/Bremerton district, but could also run as the incumbent in the 10th district if he so desired. Reichert would have to move a bit north or east to keep the 8th district. Creating this has confirmed by belief that the most border changes (if we get a 10th district) are going to have to occur in the South Sound. Okay, that was a big post and may be full of spelling and grammatical errors, but I'm too lazy to check.

Comments welcome.

[Alcon]

Comments welcome.

You're freaking crazy.

Totally awesome.

[Frodo]

So what would be the ratio of Republican vs. Democratic congressmen with this map?  3 to 7? 

[Alcon]

So what would be the ratio of Republican vs. Democrat congressmen with this map?  3 to 7? 

Blue and brown will obviously retain their respective Republican representatives.

The orange and purple incumbents will both be lumped into orange.  I imagine Rick Larsen (purple) would be forced to move.  Purple is Dem-leaning enough that Larsen would retain, although the district could normally be competitive.  Orange would be an extremely solidly Democratic district, so it doesn't matter what happens there.

Norm Dicks might move to get his light green district back, which he'd retain.  Pink would be competitive as an open seat but Adam Smith would be fine.  Brian Baird loses Olympia from his district, but also Lewis County, and the areas of eastern Washington added are pretty moderate.  He'd be fine.

That leaves Dave Reichert with a much more unfriendly cyan district (he'd have to move a bit to run too).  Yellow would be an open seat.  That would be pretty interesting.  Without Pierce, Kerry won the district by about 10,000 of 260,000 votes.  Assuming that Pierce had about 50,000 votes, that means its yellow contribution would have to be 60% GOP to flip the entire CD, and it wouldn't be.  Slight Dem lean, there.

Dicks might run in that district instead, leaving an open seat in the somewhat safer, Tacoma/Bremerton-based light green, but then he'd lose out on his old constituency, and I think he'd object.

So: 2 Republican retains, 1 Dem-leaning toss-up (light green), 1 pure toss-up with maybe a very slight GOP lean (cyan), 6 Dem retains.

[Хahar 🤔]

Great job. This is way better than my pathetic Utah attempt, which I will now make a thread for.

[ottermax]

Excellent maps. I guess coming from a Washingtonian perspective it is easier to understand a lot of the districting. Muon did a very good job, but the districts were very objectively created, and districts need to be someone subjectively made if they are to work.

[muon2]

Excellent maps. I guess coming from a Washingtonian perspective it is easier to understand a lot of the districting. Muon did a very good job, but the districts were very objectively created, and districts need to be someone subjectively made if they are to work.

That's an interesting thought. Many who support a truly independent redistricting procedure want to avoid subjective measures. The example that is frequently used is the Iowa process. There an independent agency runs a computer program based on clearly determined data to generate the maps. Without quite as much detail as used in IA, I've tried to emulate the basic features of their method.

[minionofmidas]

Great work. Nice.

[Meeker]

Hopefully Baird would choose to run in the dark green district, otherwise we'd lose it for sure. I think Reichert would be finished though, and it'd be difficult for Larsen to survive against a well funded opponent in a normal year.

That new district is very oddly shaped... it'd be a b*tch to campaign in.

[Alcon]

Larsen should be OK.  Northern Snohomish isn't all that unfriendly.  He broke 60% in Skagit in 2006.  I think it would be a problem for the Dems as an open seat, though; Bush definitely won it.

[Frodo]

So what would be the ratio of Republican vs. Democrat congressmen with this map?  3 to 7? 

Blue and brown will obviously retain their respective Republican representatives.

The orange and purple incumbents will both be lumped into orange.  I imagine Rick Larsen (purple) would be forced to move.  Purple is Dem-leaning enough that Larsen would retain, although the district could normally be competitive.  Orange would be an extremely solidly Democratic district, so it doesn't matter what happens there.

Norm Dicks might move to get his light green district back, which he'd retain.  Pink would be competitive as an open seat but Adam Smith would be fine.  Brian Baird loses Olympia from his district, but also Lewis County, and the areas of eastern Washington added are pretty moderate.  He'd be fine.

That leaves Dave Reichert with a much more unfriendly cyan district (he'd have to move a bit to run too).  Yellow would be an open seat.  That would be pretty interesting.  Without Pierce, Kerry won the district by about 10,000 of 260,000 votes.  Assuming that Pierce had about 50,000 votes, that means its yellow contribution would have to be 60% GOP to flip the entire CD, and it wouldn't be.  Slight Dem lean, there.

Dicks might run in that district instead, leaving an open seat in the somewhat safer, Tacoma/Bremerton-based light green, but then he'd lose out on his old constituency, and I think he'd object.

So: 2 Republican retains, 1 Dem-leaning toss-up (light green), 1 pure toss-up with maybe a very slight GOP lean (cyan), 6 Dem retains.

Interesting -thanks for taking the time and effort to answer my inquiry. 

[jimrtex]

The following is related to the discussion between Muon2 and myself in the Apportionment thread with regard to counties being linked or not, even if they share a border.

The first map identifies the urban centers.  First the Urban Areas (UA) were sorted by Census County Division (CCD), and the total population within the UA's within each CCD was calculated.   In addition, the UA with the largest population within each CCD was identified.

An Urban Area is an area of continuous dense population settlement.  A Census County Division is a statistical area that to some extent identifies different geographical areas within a county.  They have no political meaning (in Washington) but are useful to analyze the geographic distribution of the population, especially in a state like Washington which has large irregular shaped counties.

CCD's where the UA population was less than 50%, as well as the total CCD population was less 10,000 were discarded.  The remaining areas are shown on the map based on their shared UA.  For example, the yellow blob represents the CCDs where the Seattle UA is dominant (the Seattle UA stretches from Everitt to Tacoma and its southern suburbs).  The colors: red, yellow, green have no meaning other than to distinguish the base UAs.

In counties with no qualifying CCD's the most populous CCD with a UA was identified.  These are marked with a small blue square (Omak, Dayton, Long Beach, Goldendale).  In the most rural counties, a town in the most populous CCD is marked with a small magenta square (Newport, Colville, Republic, etc.)




A single urban center was indicated for each county.  In counties which shared an urban center, the counties were treated as being merged: King-Pierce (Seattle); Chelan-Douglas (Wenatchee); and Benton-Franklin (Tri-Cities (Kennewick-Richland UA)).  In a few cases, the marker for the urban center was shifted.  The marker for Seattle is closer to Auburn to account for the spanning of the King-Pierce border; the marker for Adams County is nearer the center of the county, rather than in Othello in the panhandle in part to reflect the location of I-90.

A grid of lines indicating adjacent counties was then added.  This generally forms a triangular mesh.  A few extreme near-corners have been omitted (Douglas-Okanogan; Columbia-Franklin). 

It was then determined for each county-county link whether there was a reasonably direct surface transportation route between the urban centers for the counties, either by highway or ferry.  The route need not be limited to the two counties.  For example the route between Grant (Moses Lake) and Benton-Franklin (Tri-Cities) passes through the Adams panhandle.  On the other hand,  when the direct route is essentially formed by the direct routes to other counties, it was rejected.  For example the direct route from Grant (Moses Lake) to Yakima (Yakima) goes through Kittitas (Ellensburg).

County-County links that were rejected are marked with green lines.  Those that were accepted are shown as heavy red lines.  At this point, there could be a period of local consultation to consider changing the status of links.




The final map is a simplified graph, indicating county-county boundaries that may be crossed in drawing CDs.  The absence of a link between counties does not mean that they could not be included within the same CD (eg Whitman and Franklin) but simply that other counties must also be included.

[jimrtex]

The following is based on 2010 populations projected from 2006 estimates, and the 2000-2006 growth rate.  However, the districts in Snohomish, King, and Pierce counties assume a uniform growth rate throughout those counties.  The Census Bureau does not produce estimates for unincorporated areas except in the county-wide aggregate.  These areas account for roughly 30% of the total population of the 3 counties.




King and Pierce together have a population of almost exactly equivalent to 4 CDs, so an initial attempt was made to pair those two counties.  Snohomish has a population equivalent to 1.060 CDs, so the surplus was added to Whatcom and Skagit in a district that then includes the two island counties, and proceeds down the entire coast, bypassing Kitsap and Mason.  But if King and Pierce are paired, a district of Kitsap-Mason-Thurston-Lewis-? leads to a dead end.  So the effort to pair King and Pierce is abandoned.

The eastern part of the state has enough population for slightly more than 2 CD's.  But if we try the traditional crossing along the Columbia, we would end up splitting Yakima County.  So instead, we do a middle crossing along I-90, to pair Kittitas-Chelan-Douglas with King, with slightly less than 1/4 of the CD east of the Cascades and cutting deep into the Seattle suburbs.  Given the concentration of the Chelan-Douglas population in Wenatchee area, this district is reasonably compact.

The rest of the east is then split into an eastern district with a major city of Spokane, and a southern district with Yakima and the Tri-Cities and the major cities.  And continuing westward, we get a nice compact district for the Vancouver and Longview.

If the small surplus from Snohomish is added to the cross-Cascade district, we can reduce the Seattle suburbs in the district.   And then we can draw the northwestern district, adding Mason, and dropping Pacific and the small part of Snohomish.  This then leaves us the Puget Sound urban core of Everett-Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton-Olympia along with the transcascadian counties for 6 districts.

Inititially, I had linked Kitsap and Thurston with western Pierce County; a district with the rest of Pierce County,and a small smidgen on King County.  But it is likely that this district would either have to split the city of Tacoma, or wrap around the city.

I then came upon the final map that links Bremerton with the southern Seattle suburbs, and includes Thurston along with smaller portions of Pierce, King, and Snohomish with the transcascadian counties.

So the final districts are:

1. Eastern.  69% in Spokane County.
2. Southern, 36% in Yakima County, 37% in Benton-Franklin.
3. Southwestern, 69% in Clark County.
4. Northwest, 48% Whatcom-Skagit, 36% Olympic Peninsula, 16% Island-San Juan.
5. Seattle, plus Shoreline and Lake Forest Park
6. Eastern Seattle Suburbs, east to include Sammamish and Issaquah, south to East Hill-Meridian, including Bellevue, Renton, Redmond, and Kirkland.
7. Bremerton-Southern Seattle Suburbs, including Vashon Island, and everything south of Seattle as far east as Auburn and Maple Valluey, including Federal Way, Kent, and Auburn.
8. Greater Tacoma, most of the builtup area, excluding Fort Lewis, McChord AFB, Dupont, and the area west of the Tacoma Narrows including Gig Harbor.  King 64%, Kitsap 36%.
9. Snohomish, all but the the Skykomish valley inland from Monroe.
10. Olympia-Seattle-Tacoma exurban-Cascades.  Thurston 38%; Pierce 20%, including Olympic Peninsula, Fort Lewis-McChord AFB-Dupont, and area around Mt.Rainier; King 14%, area east of an including Duval, Carnation, Fall City, Mirrormont, Hobart, and Black Diamond; Snohomish 6%, Skykomish valley from Monroe, inland.  This provides a second highway to the east over Stevens Pass (which is actually on the King-Chelan border); and Chelan-Kittitas-Douglas 22%.

Proposed names:

1. Palouse-Spokane-Scablands
2. Columbia River-Yakima-Tri-Cities
3. Vancouver-Longview-Mouth of the Columbia
4. Olympic Peninsula-Strait of Juan de Fuca-Georgia Strait
5. Seattle Starbucks
6. Seattle Microsoft
7. Seattle Boeing-Bremerton
8. Tacoma
9. Snohomish
10. Olympia-Mt.Rainier-Cascades

Only the three largest counties are split, and they must be split.  There is one extra split in King County, which must have 3 districts, but this is preferable to a split it some smaller county.

[Alcon]

Haha, wow.

Kudos on creating a district that includes both Olympia and part of the Grand Coulee Dam.

Would this put Reichert in the same district as Inslee, though?

[jimrtex]

Haha, wow.

Kudos on creating a district that includes both Olympia and part of the Grand Coulee Dam.

Would this put Reichert in the same district as Inslee, though?

I think the that the Douglas-Grant border is actually west of the Grand Coulee.  80% of the population of Douglas County is in the Wenatchee area.  The other two CCDs in the county are Bridgeport and Waterville.  Waterville, the county seat is toward the western edge of the county, and Bridgeport is towards the western edge of the northern border.  Even in Grant County, there is less than 10% of the population in the northern tip.

I think that my map is quite responsible approach to meeting concerns of equal population, avoiding unnecessary county splitting, and providing reasonable district connectivity.

Current representatives or political results are illegitimate goals of redistricting, and would be outlawed by any sort of responsible redistricting legislation passed by Congress.

It is difficult to determine who lives in what district, it appears that many representatives have relocated to become more electable.  Inslee for example, relocated from Selah after being defeated.  Baird was associated with Pacific Lutheran in Tacoma before election, but now lives in Vancouver.  Smith was a Seattle prosecutor but now lives in Tacoma suburbs.

Anyhow, Inslee and Dick both live in Kitsap County.  Inslee would lose the portion of his district to the north of Seattle.  Dicks would lose the area to the west.  Smith represents a large chunk of southern King County which would be placed with Kitsap County, and Reichart may live in that area.

So Baird could take the Tacoma seat.  Inslee could still run in the Kitsap-King South district, though most of the voters would be new.  Since Dicks is from Bremerton, he could run as well.  Larsen could represent Snohomish.  This would open up the northwest seat, so Inslee could jump there.  Reichart represents more of the area to the east of Lake Washington, so even if he lives in Kent, he could run for many of the same voters.  This makes the Olympia-Rainier-Cascasdes seat the open seat.

[muon2]

The following is related to the discussion between Muon2 and myself in the Apportionment thread with regard to counties being linked or not, even if they share a border.

A single urban center was indicated for each county.  In counties which shared an urban center, the counties were treated as being merged: King-Pierce (Seattle); Chelan-Douglas (Wenatchee); and Benton-Franklin (Tri-Cities (Kennewick-Richland UA)).  In a few cases, the marker for the urban center was shifted.  The marker for Seattle is closer to Auburn to account for the spanning of the King-Pierce border; the marker for Adams County is nearer the center of the county, rather than in Othello in the panhandle in part to reflect the location of I-90.

A grid of lines indicating adjacent counties was then added.  This generally forms a triangular mesh.  A few extreme near-corners have been omitted (Douglas-Okanogan; Columbia-Franklin). 

It was then determined for each county-county link whether there was a reasonably direct surface transportation route between the urban centers for the counties, either by highway or ferry.  The route need not be limited to the two counties.  For example the route between Grant (Moses Lake) and Benton-Franklin (Tri-Cities) passes through the Adams panhandle.  On the other hand,  when the direct route is essentially formed by the direct routes to other counties, it was rejected.  For example the direct route from Grant (Moses Lake) to Yakima (Yakima) goes through Kittitas (Ellensburg).

County-County links that were rejected are marked with green lines.  Those that were accepted are shown as heavy red lines.  At this point, there could be a period of local consultation to consider changing the status of links.

The final map is a simplified graph, indicating county-county boundaries that may be crossed in drawing CDs.  The absence of a link between counties does not mean that they could not be included within the same CD (eg Whitman and Franklin) but simply that other counties must also be included.

This is an interesting idea, but I need to understand some of your non-connections.

Some land questions:

Why doesn't Skagit connect to Okanogan by way of hwy 20, or Snohomish to Chelan by way of US 2?

Why doesn't Okanagan connect to Grant on hwy 155 over the Grand Coulee Dam?

Some sea questions:

Doesn't the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston link Snohomish to Kitsap?

San Juan to Island uses the same ferry as San Juan to Skagit. Isn't that the direct route to Skagit and therefore excluded?

[muon2]

Haha, wow.

Kudos on creating a district that includes both Olympia and part of the Grand Coulee Dam.

Would this put Reichert in the same district as Inslee, though?

I think the that the Douglas-Grant border is actually west of the Grand Coulee.  80% of the population of Douglas County is in the Wenatchee area.  The other two CCDs in the county are Bridgeport and Waterville.  Waterville, the county seat is toward the western edge of the county, and Bridgeport is towards the western edge of the northern border.  Even in Grant County, there is less than 10% of the population in the northern tip.

I think that my map is quite responsible approach to meeting concerns of equal population, avoiding unnecessary county splitting, and providing reasonable district connectivity.

Current representatives or political results are illegitimate goals of redistricting, and would be outlawed by any sort of responsible redistricting legislation passed by Congress.

It is difficult to determine who lives in what district, it appears that many representatives have relocated to become more electable.  Inslee for example, relocated from Selah after being defeated.  Baird was associated with Pacific Lutheran in Tacoma before election, but now lives in Vancouver.  Smith was a Seattle prosecutor but now lives in Tacoma suburbs.

Anyhow, Inslee and Dick both live in Kitsap County.  Inslee would lose the portion of his district to the north of Seattle.  Dicks would lose the area to the west.  Smith represents a large chunk of southern King County which would be placed with Kitsap County, and Reichart may live in that area.

So Baird could take the Tacoma seat.  Inslee could still run in the Kitsap-King South district, though most of the voters would be new.  Since Dicks is from Bremerton, he could run as well.  Larsen could represent Snohomish.  This would open up the northwest seat, so Inslee could jump there.  Reichart represents more of the area to the east of Lake Washington, so even if he lives in Kent, he could run for many of the same voters.  This makes the Olympia-Rainier-Cascasdes seat the open seat.

On your map what deviation do you permit? From my projections it appears that you allow 1% from the ideal, whereas I've held to 0.5%.

[ottermax]

Wow, a lot of work has been put into this. Awesome. I think it is necessary to split counties in Washington. The only reasonable cross-Cascades region is in the south/Columbia River area. We only have 39 counties, and it is extremely hard to have balanced, reasonable districts without county splitting. If the Olympia-Chelan district actually happened, I think there would be a lot of people screaming, "yikes!" Olympia and Wenatchee just don't go together well at all.
However I really like your idea of the transportation connections, but there must be a better way of creating districts than connecting far flung, polarized locations.

[CultureKing]

Wow, a lot of work has been put into this. Awesome. I think it is necessary to split counties in Washington. The only reasonable cross-Cascades region is in the south/Columbia River area. We only have 39 counties, and it is extremely hard to have balanced, reasonable districts without county splitting. If the Olympia-Chelan district actually happened, I think there would be a lot of people screaming, "yikes!" Olympia and Wenatchee just don't go together well at all.
However I really like your idea of the transportation connections, but there must be a better way of creating districts than connecting far flung, polarized locations.

Yeah, there would be screams of foul, I would be one of them. Basically in Washington there is a standing of trying to keep everything as simple as possible when it comes to the districts and I have a feeling that the new district would indeed be and Olympic penninsula with Olympia and/or Bremerton district.

[jimrtex]

This is an interesting idea, but I need to understand some of your non-connections.

Some land questions:

Why doesn't Skagit connect to Okanogan by way of hwy 20, or Snohomish to Chelan by way of US 2?

The distance from Mount Vernon to Omak is close to 200 miles, and the road is closed in winter.

A better case could be made for the Everett-Wenatchee link via US-2, which also forms one of the two rail links into the Seattle area.  It is also much shorter. 

A slight problem is that the road crosses into King County for a significant distance.   On the other hand, it could be argued that the area in the Skykowish watershed in NE King County should not be associated with a Seattle area district, unless it also included the lower parts of the watershed in Snohomish County.

There should be some discretion in defining the units used in reapportionment.  A State could define primary, secondary, and tertiary units.  The units must fully nest, and also provide 100% coverage of the containing unit.  There need not be secondary and tertiary units throughout a State, but there would have to be a consistent basis of definition.

In Illinois, you would have (1) counties; (2) cities and townships; and (3) Chicago neighborhoods.  Legislative districts and city council districts should be avoided.  The other units need not have permanent boundaries and can be adjusted to reflect changes in development, annexations, etc. 

There would have to be some rule requiring definition of subordinate level units (for example if a unit had 20% of the population of a CD - this would trigger the tertiary definition in Chicago and Rockford(?).  I would expect that Illinois would go ahead and define secondary units statewide, simply because the townships exist and are well recognized, even though it is unlikely that they would be used to divide counties.

There could be further adjustments.  For example, the part of Chicago that is in DuPage County, could be considered as part of the Cook County primary unit so that Chicago could then be fully contained as a secondary unit.  There is township just to the east of O'hare that is fragmented by Chicago's annexation.  These could be treated as separate secondary units, or as a single unit (I would consider political units to be self-contiguous, even if physically separated parts, or perhaps as parts of other townships.

Back to Washington.  Since they don't use townships as units of governments, cities might form the basis of secondary units.  But they don't provide 100% coverage, so Washington would have to define some sort of extended cities, at least in the larger counties, and these might well extend across county boundaries.  And then, Washington might consider using these extended cities as the primary units.  It could well make more sense to simply start adding cities as you started south from Bellingham, and not worry that you were going to have to end somewhere in the middle of Snohomish County.

Why doesn't Okanagan connect to Grant on hwy 155 over the Grand Coulee Dam?

The border is a little over 1 mile long.  Based on my corner test it is less than 1% connectivity.  I also rejected the much longer border (almost 6 miles) between Okanogan and Lincoln counties for the same reason (about 3% connectivity).

Some sea questions:

Doesn't the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston link Snohomish to Kitsap?

San Juan to Island uses the same ferry as San Juan to Skagit. Isn't that the direct route to Skagit and therefore excluded?

You are correct in both cases.  There could be a case for San Juan to Island based on the route cutting through the corner or edge of Skagit County.  The peninsula that Anacortes is on, looks to be similar to the islands of the other counties.

[CultureKing]

This is an interesting idea, but I need to understand some of your non-connections.

Some land questions:

Why doesn't Skagit connect to Okanogan by way of hwy 20, or Snohomish to Chelan by way of US 2?

The distance from Mount Vernon to Omak is close to 200 miles, and the road is closed in winter.

A better case could be made for the Everett-Wenatchee link via US-2, which also forms one of the two rail links into the Seattle area.  It is also much shorter. 

A slight problem is that the road crosses into King County for a significant distance.   On the other hand, it could be argued that the area in the Skykowish watershed in NE King County should not be associated with a Seattle area district, unless it also included the lower parts of the watershed in Snohomish County.

There should be some discretion in defining the units used in reapportionment.  A State could define primary, secondary, and tertiary units.  The units must fully nest, and also provide 100% coverage of the containing unit.  There need not be secondary and tertiary units throughout a State, but there would have to be a consistent basis of definition.

In Illinois, you would have (1) counties; (2) cities and townships; and (3) Chicago neighborhoods.  Legislative districts and city council districts should be avoided.  The other units need not have permanent boundaries and can be adjusted to reflect changes in development, annexations, etc. 

There would have to be some rule requiring definition of subordinate level units (for example if a unit had 20% of the population of a CD - this would trigger the tertiary definition in Chicago and Rockford(?).  I would expect that Illinois would go ahead and define secondary units statewide, simply because the townships exist and are well recognized, even though it is unlikely that they would be used to divide counties.

There could be further adjustments.  For example, the part of Chicago that is in DuPage County, could be considered as part of the Cook County primary unit so that Chicago could then be fully contained as a secondary unit.  There is township just to the east of O'hare that is fragmented by Chicago's annexation.  These could be treated as separate secondary units, or as a single unit (I would consider political units to be self-contiguous, even if physically separated parts, or perhaps as parts of other townships.

Back to Washington.  Since they don't use townships as units of governments, cities might form the basis of secondary units.  But they don't provide 100% coverage, so Washington would have to define some sort of extended cities, at least in the larger counties, and these might well extend across county boundaries.  And then, Washington might consider using these extended cities as the primary units.  It could well make more sense to simply start adding cities as you started south from Bellingham, and not worry that you were going to have to end somewhere in the middle of Snohomish County.

Why doesn't Okanagan connect to Grant on hwy 155 over the Grand Coulee Dam?

The border is a little over 1 mile long.  Based on my corner test it is less than 1% connectivity.  I also rejected the much longer border (almost 6 miles) between Okanogan and Lincoln counties for the same reason (about 3% connectivity).

Some sea questions:

Doesn't the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston link Snohomish to Kitsap?

San Juan to Island uses the same ferry as San Juan to Skagit. Isn't that the direct route to Skagit and therefore excluded?

You are correct in both cases.  There could be a case for San Juan to Island based on the route cutting through the corner or edge of Skagit County.  The peninsula that Anacortes is on, looks to be similar to the islands of the other counties.

Technically Anacortes is on an island.

[jimrtex]

Well, the dam itself may not be, but:

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Most of Coulee Dam is in Okanogan County (915 people and 354 acres).  A smaller part is in Douglas County (125 people and 78 acres).  In Grant County there are (4 people and 3.5 acres).  Metropolitan areas are defined based on counties that include an urban corps.  In this case, the urban corp is the Wenatchee-East Wenatchee area 70 miles away at the other end of Douglas County.

Bridgeport is a much more significant population center than Coulee Dam.

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It was hard to tell exactly where some representatives live.  They don't typically include things like, "Joe Bloggs, his wife Jane, and 3 children have lived in Belfair, Mason County since 2001, where they moved after redistricting placed their old residence on the edge of the congressional district."

How about this alternative: Thurston and western Pierce, including Tacoma.  About 5/8 would be in Pierce County, 3/8 in Thurston County.  Then the rest of Pierce County - the eastern suburbs would be placed in the new district.  This would split Pierce County, roughly 50-50 between the two districts.

[jimrtex]

On your map what deviation do you permit? From my projections it appears that you allow 1% from the ideal, whereas I've held to 0.5%.

The easternmost district is 1%, the 3 other outer districts are about 0.5%.  I can make the eastern district closer (by swapping Grant for Adams-Whitman-and 3-small counties in the SE corner), but then the southern district is off by 1%. 

The inner districts would be over about 0.5%, but should be pretty easy to hit since counties are divided.

I would be willing to accept 5%, if the process were fully automated, and the 5% was used as a limit, and not as a target.  The problem with that is you end up with someone figuring out that Cook County can have N districts, as long as they all have 5% extra or 5% less, and Cook County gets an extra 1/2 CD or gets shorted a CD.

The approach I took in Texas was to separate the major metropolitan areas, and do a preliminary sub-apportionment.  I would then add or subtract counties until I was within 1% of one CD for the entire area (7.99 to 8.01 - not 7.92 to 8.08).  This was generally easy to achieve without oddly shaped districts.

[jimrtex]

Wow, a lot of work has been put into this. Awesome. I think it is necessary to split counties in Washington. The only reasonable cross-Cascades region is in the south/Columbia River area. We only have 39 counties, and it is extremely hard to have balanced, reasonable districts without county splitting. If the Olympia-Chelan district actually happened, I think there would be a lot of people screaming, "yikes!" Olympia and Wenatchee just don't go together well at all.
However I really like your idea of the transportation connections, but there must be a better way of creating districts than connecting far flung, polarized locations.

The southern crossing is traditionally used for CDs, but it actually a weaker link.  I think you would find that most people in Yakima would head up to Seattle for shopping, rathern than to Vancouver.  More of the population along the Columbia is actually in Oregon.  And if you insist on only the single route, you end up with having to split Yakima County, possibly the city of Yakima itself, and Cowlitz County, possibly very near to Longview.

[CultureKing]

Wow, a lot of work has been put into this. Awesome. I think it is necessary to split counties in Washington. The only reasonable cross-Cascades region is in the south/Columbia River area. We only have 39 counties, and it is extremely hard to have balanced, reasonable districts without county splitting. If the Olympia-Chelan district actually happened, I think there would be a lot of people screaming, "yikes!" Olympia and Wenatchee just don't go together well at all.
However I really like your idea of the transportation connections, but there must be a better way of creating districts than connecting far flung, polarized locations.

The southern crossing is traditionally used for CDs, but it actually a weaker link.  I think you would find that most people in Yakima would head up to Seattle for shopping, rathern than to Vancouver.  More of the population along the Columbia is actually in Oregon.  And if you insist on only the single route, you end up with having to split Yakima County, possibly the city of Yakima itself, and Cowlitz County, possibly very near to Longview.

The reason they use the south is because it is a physical gap in the mountain and also there are people who actually live on that link between the two sides of Washington (otherwise you simply have a 50-75 mile long highway but no people...)