Republican U.S. Congressional map is now out.
Shuler's 11th gets redder (natch). He's lost big chunk of Buncombe (city of Asheville, mainly, which has been moved into Patrick McHenry's 10th), and gains four Republican counties (Avery, Mitchell, Caldwell, and Burke). That athletic director job at the University of Tennessee is perhaps looking better all the time.
Brad Miller's 13th adds Surry and Stokes, formerly in the 5th. He loses some of Raleigh, loses Greensboro, but also gets northern Durham and Orange.
David Price's 4th loses Raleigh and Wake County except for a small chunk. He's left with southern Durham and Orange, a piece of Chatham, and Lee, Harnett, and Cumberland counties.
Wake County (Raleigh) is now split up between four different districts: Miller's, Price's, Ellmers', and (amazingly) Butterfield's. Butterfield's 1st District now does the loop-de-loo from the coast into Wake County.
Larry Kissell's 8th gets redder with Rowan, Davidson, and part of Randolph.
Renee Ellmer's 2nd moves south, out of Franklin, Nash, Chatham, and Lee, loses most of Harnett but gets Sampson, most of Cumberland, and west Wayne.
Virginia Foxx's 5th adds more of Forsyth (but not downtown Winston-Salem) and gains parts of northern Davidson and Rowan counties in exchange for losing Surry and Stokes to Brad Miller. They managed to keep all those black voters in W-S out of Foxx's district by wrapping her around downtown.
County borders should be the only allowable lines used for districting.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea, Mike D! The divvying up of Wake Co. seems particularly gratuitous.
ReplyDeleteThen how will you achieve equal representation per population group? Are you also doing away with the number of representatives federally proportioned by the state?
ReplyDeleteGood point, Anonymous 7:09. I guess it would be more practical to indicate that county borders be used whenever possible.
ReplyDeleteThe division of Wake Co. is still pretty heinous in my book.
For anyone who's interested, here's the website of the citizen commission in CA that is redrawing district lines there:
http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/
Wish we had something like this in NC!
Anonymous,
ReplyDeletePick a name if you wish to converse with me.
It would be good in my opinion to stick with the county borders...and if a county is too large, to split it into as few pieces as possible.
ReplyDeleteBut, on the other hand, you have the justice department and the civil rights issue where they have to have a certain number of congressional districts with majority black voters. Thats why you have those odd shaped districts like NC12
I did. It is Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteI did not really mean to converse with you, only to point out the fallacy of your statement.
I agree with Mike D... whenever possible, counties should not be split into different congressional districts. It would be weird if Watauga was part of two or more districts. Also, I don't really think that cities or towns should be split into different districts, unless the population is large enough to warrant that.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteAs I said, happy to converse with you, but only if you choose a name which differentiates you.
Moose,
ReplyDeleteI would add that when a high density population has to be split up, it should be in an honest, reasonable way, either with a straight line, or a river, or perhaps even by zip code, but no more of this cherry picking of pockets of one concentration or another for the purpose of altering election outcomes.
mike d If you are suggesting that counties of a certain size need to be split, then the logical way would be by voting precinct and in the most compacted way possible. You still haven't overcome the NC problem with the DOJ though.
ReplyDeleteInteresting.... putting Asheville into the 10th district actually gives that district more Democrats than Republicans. McHenry may get into a little trouble, and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy!
ReplyDeleteAn independent commision should be created to draw lines... Or ...the parties in power should split the job. Repubs draw the first district, dems draw the next. Flip flop back and forth until done. Hopefully this would create a compromise so neither party stacks the deck.
ReplyDeleteYou appear to be conversing with me anyway, Mike D. Please stop.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to see how to do redistricting properly, look at Iowa.
ReplyDeleteIt has a state agency in charge of redistricting, leaving politicians completely out of the loop. In addition to having equal population, by law the districts must:
1) respect political subdivisions (counties and most cities/towns),
2) be contiguous,
3) be as compact ("square or rectangular") as possible,
4) may not be augment or dilute any racial/linguistic minority,
5) may not be drawn to favor one political party.
Seems like a lot of coastal folks could learn something from flyover country.
Well the liberals in Asheville who whine about Heath Shuler's moderate tendencies often complain that they would "vote for a real Republican if they wanted one." Well now they get to! So, is being represented by a Republican, McHenry no less, better than being represented by Shuler? I'm curious to know.
ReplyDeleteThey should also be happy that they have a sexuality-questioning Congressman now too.
Maybe Little Patty McHenry will find an excuse now to come out of the closet when he discovers there's a large GLBT constituency in Asheville....
ReplyDeleteNever thought I would agree with a Teahadist but it's true the Iowa model is a rational one and I would like to see it applied nationwide.
Mike D. - What a silly, petty child you are!
ReplyDeleteArticle II of the State Constitution says that in drawing State House and Senate districts, no county shall be divided. In 1981, the US Department of Justice said that requirement was inconsistent with the Voting Rights Act, so the General Assembly disregarded it for 21 years. Then in 2002 the State Supreme Court in the case of Stephenson v. Bartlett said the "Whole County Provision", found in the State Constitution must be honored to the extent it can be honored, consistent with the Voting Rights Act and other State and federal precepts. The Stephenson decision for the first time said the equal protection clause of the State Constitution contained a presumption for single-member legislative districts, and that presumption should be a limitation on the Whole County Provision. The US Justice Department approved the Stephenson opinion and withdrew its 1981 objection to the Whole County Provision. The Court in Stephenson prescribed a step-by-step method for harmonizing the Whole County Provision with the other laws. First, the General Assembly should draw the districts required by the Voting Rights Act. Second, it should take all the counties with just the right population to be single-member districts and make them one-county single-member districts. Third, it should take all the counties that have just the right populations for one or more districts and divide those counties into compact single-member districts. Fourth, for the remaining counties it should group them into clusters of counties and divide the clusters into compact single-member districts, crossing county lines within the cluster as little as possible.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteWow! Great research!
See? This is one of the reasons anonymous posts are bad. I would like a nickname to attach to that post so I can give some credit in my mind for the excellent work!
Awesome post. I look forward to reading more of your work (hopefully with a name attached).
Suggestion: "Seeker of Truth" :-)