US House Redistricting: Minnesota

[So the Heroes Fall]

That third district actually makes sense if you look at it without the rest of the districts, it's basically a southern string of immediate suburbs combined with a spike that obviously proves it was drawn with Terri Bonoff in mind. And it's 55% Obama and 52.6% Dem average, so Bonoff would definitely be heavily favored over Paulsen.

Torie might be right the 3-way Hennepin chop is ugly, but it also isn't entirely without reason, there's three distinct communities of interest in Hennepin that are seperated. The real problem and with the DFL's drawing of the third is the ugliness required in the other districts, like connecting northern Hennepin to Goodhue County or adding rural parts of Washington County in with St. Paul. But definitely more logical than many of those inane GOP chops. A court of course will likely just ignore both maps and simply modify the current one.

[muon2]

That's a very nice map, muon.  To the extent possible, I'd switch out the inner Hennepin suburbs for the Anoka suburbs to make MN-05 the Hennepin-only district, not MN-03, but I like it   Giving Woodbury and Cottage Grove to MN-04 is a bit unfortunate, but adding the northern suburbs of St. Paul gives the district an "intermediate" region.

Looks like trading out the Anoka bits in MN-05 for precinct W3 Brooklyn Park, New Hope, Crystal, Robbinsdale, Brooklyn Center, Golden Valley, St. Louis Park, Richfield, the airport, and Bloomington does the trick.  If you give up the "one district only in Hennepin" policy, you could also give Columbia Heights, Fridley, and Spring Lake Park back to MN-05 in exchange for Hopkins, New Hope, Crystal, and bits of St. Louis Park.

How do your proposed districts stand up to your partisan bias metrics?

Here's the PVI's for my districts:
CD 1: R+1
CD 2: R+3
CD 3: D+1
CD 4: D+12
CD 5: D+19
CD 6: R+8
CD 7: R+6
CD 8: D+3

That's 2 Strong D, 1 Lean D, 2 Even, 1 Lean R and 2 Strong R. Not that one can tell in MN since the GOP holds two D+ seats and the Dems hold two R+ seats. In any case the PBI is -2.2% and the PBF is 0.03, much less than 8. With 2 even and 2 lean districts the SSF is 9, which is right on target for 8 districts.

[muon2]

Myself, I would tolerate some cuts if that means a better tying together of communities of interest. Thus MN-05 going farther north into Anoka, seems undesirable to me, even if it avoid a municipal cut. Life is a balancing test. No one factor should reign supreme.

That's because you are a sane mapper.

My thesis is that even an independent commission needs some constraints to check any internal biases. Minimizing county splits is one such constraint, and spliting larger counties before smaller ones so that split pieces represent a small fraction of the whole county is part of that rubric. I'm willing to bend, but there has to be a compelling reason not to obey it. Relying too heavily on the subjective parts of communities of interest is where trouble begins.

For example, my first iteration was to keep Washington intact in CD 4 and use parts of Anoka and Ramsey to complete CD 5. Ramsey was a larger county, so my preference was to split it before Washington. Since I still wanted intact munis, that led to a finger that shot up through Champlin to Anoka city and a nasty line across northern Ramsey to White Bear Lake. I decided that going to the next largest county for the split was compelling as it made a much cleaner and compact CD-5 at the expense of a slightly less compact CD-6.

[jimrtex]

MOTHER OF ALL BUMPS!

The court will hand down the map in late february, of course.

Meanwhile, here's the parties' proposals to it, made in late november.

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/GOP-Congress.jpg

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/DFL-Congress.jpg

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/gop-metro.jpg

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/dfl-metro.jpg

Both of these include a double whammy that any unbiased court should laugh out of itself, obviously. In the GOP map, obvious attempt to bolster accidental congressman is obvious. And they are seriously suggesting splitting Saint Cloud (the city, not just the area) down the middle. Also, North Mankato from Mankato. That 7th is really something. In the metro, the third expands outward to boost its R hold.

In the Dem map, all of Saint Cloud (the city) is put in the 8th instead of exurbifying territory further east, otherwise it's sane minimal change outstate. Even that makes sense, or would if all of the St Cloud area could be transferred. The ugly bits are all around the 5th district. Moving way more of Washington into the St Paul district than is necessary in order to sink Bachmann (though she'd be replaced with another crazy in that 6th), putting the southern inner suburbs of St Paul into the 3rd in order to nick it, with outer Hennepin transferred to the 2nd as a result.

I think I'd take the GOP metro map and merge it with the DFL outstate map.

Outstate this keeps the current general configuration.  An Iowa-border district looks nice, but the population is concentrated in the Rochester and other areas in the southeast.  A Dakota-border districts seems to be elongated, but it gives you a a pure agricultural district, and ties to Dakota cities (Fargo, Grand Forks, Sioux Falls).   The fact that interstate is in the Dakotas is not reason to reject it.  And it keeps the mining/recreation/port areas separate in the northeast.

In the metro area, this gives you a clear northern and southern district and then the horizontal stack of three districts, including the Minneapolis and St. Paul seats.

It also would probably be a better transition to the 7-seat plan in 2010, which will have to be a 4:3 plan with St. Cloud definitely outstate.

[muon2]

MOTHER OF ALL BUMPS!

The court will hand down the map in late february, of course.

Meanwhile, here's the parties' proposals to it, made in late november.

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/GOP-Congress.jpg

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/DFL-Congress.jpg

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/gop-metro.jpg

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/dfl-metro.jpg

Both of these include a double whammy that any unbiased court should laugh out of itself, obviously. In the GOP map, obvious attempt to bolster accidental congressman is obvious. And they are seriously suggesting splitting Saint Cloud (the city, not just the area) down the middle. Also, North Mankato from Mankato. That 7th is really something. In the metro, the third expands outward to boost its R hold.

In the Dem map, all of Saint Cloud (the city) is put in the 8th instead of exurbifying territory further east, otherwise it's sane minimal change outstate. Even that makes sense, or would if all of the St Cloud area could be transferred. The ugly bits are all around the 5th district. Moving way more of Washington into the St Paul district than is necessary in order to sink Bachmann (though she'd be replaced with another crazy in that 6th), putting the southern inner suburbs of St Paul into the 3rd in order to nick it, with outer Hennepin transferred to the 2nd as a result.

I think I'd take the GOP metro map and merge it with the DFL outstate map.

Outstate this keeps the current general configuration.  An Iowa-border district looks nice, but the population is concentrated in the Rochester and other areas in the southeast.  A Dakota-border districts seems to be elongated, but it gives you a a pure agricultural district, and ties to Dakota cities (Fargo, Grand Forks, Sioux Falls).   The fact that interstate is in the Dakotas is not reason to reject it.  And it keeps the mining/recreation/port areas separate in the northeast.

In the metro area, this gives you a clear northern and southern district and then the horizontal stack of three districts, including the Minneapolis and St. Paul seats.

It also would probably be a better transition to the 7-seat plan in 2010, which will have to be a 4:3 plan with St. Cloud definitely outstate.

I think what you suggest is basically what I posted above. Do you see any reason why a judge wouldn't like it?

[Vasall des Midas]

Not quite. The GOP map quite needlessly shores up the third by running it out into some German rural/exurban counties. Other than that though, yeah.

[So the Heroes Fall]

Ironically muon's map above is basically a mild DFL gerrymander, it drives MN-05 into some swing middle suburban areas and thus allows MN-03 to take in some heavily DFL inner suburbs and greatly weaken Paulsen, it shores up Walz a bit more by dumping the heavily GOP rural areas in the western part of the district even if it replaces them with lean GOP counties, and MN-02 is also made more DFL by expanding into the inner suburbs of St. Paul. Kind of similar to what the DFL probably would've proposed if a court had to pick either their map or the GOP one like in Colorado.

[So the Heroes Fall]

Hmm interesting. Due to the loss of Cottage Grove MN-02's PVI is virtually unchanged.

MN-03 though moves to 54% Obama and 51.4% DFL average, guaranteeing Paulsen's defeat in a wave year and making it very likely in even a merely good Democratic year.

[BigSkyBob]

Not quite. The GOP map quite needlessly shores up the third by running it out into some German rural/exurban counties. Other than that though, yeah.

The fact that those counties might be considered "rural/exurban" might be relevent. The fact that many of the folks there may be ethnically German is not.

[jimrtex]

MOTHER OF ALL BUMPS!

The court will hand down the map in late february, of course.

Meanwhile, here's the parties' proposals to it, made in late november.

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/GOP-Congress.jpg

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/DFL-Congress.jpg

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/gop-metro.jpg

http://politicsinminnesota.com/files/2011/11/dfl-metro.jpg

Both of these include a double whammy that any unbiased court should laugh out of itself, obviously. In the GOP map, obvious attempt to bolster accidental congressman is obvious. And they are seriously suggesting splitting Saint Cloud (the city, not just the area) down the middle. Also, North Mankato from Mankato. That 7th is really something. In the metro, the third expands outward to boost its R hold.

In the Dem map, all of Saint Cloud (the city) is put in the 8th instead of exurbifying territory further east, otherwise it's sane minimal change outstate. Even that makes sense, or would if all of the St Cloud area could be transferred. The ugly bits are all around the 5th district. Moving way more of Washington into the St Paul district than is necessary in order to sink Bachmann (though she'd be replaced with another crazy in that 6th), putting the southern inner suburbs of St Paul into the 3rd in order to nick it, with outer Hennepin transferred to the 2nd as a result.

I think I'd take the GOP metro map and merge it with the DFL outstate map.

Outstate this keeps the current general configuration.  An Iowa-border district looks nice, but the population is concentrated in the Rochester and other areas in the southeast.  A Dakota-border districts seems to be elongated, but it gives you a a pure agricultural district, and ties to Dakota cities (Fargo, Grand Forks, Sioux Falls).   The fact that interstate is in the Dakotas is not reason to reject it.  And it keeps the mining/recreation/port areas separate in the northeast.

In the metro area, this gives you a clear northern and southern district and then the horizontal stack of three districts, including the Minneapolis and St. Paul seats.

It also would probably be a better transition to the 7-seat plan in 2010, which will have to be a 4:3 plan with St. Cloud definitely outstate.

I think what you suggest is basically what I posted above. Do you see any reason why a judge wouldn't like it?

I would try to keep the central stack from leaking into Anoka County (beyond the panhandle) which is the core of a northern suburban district, but maybe that really isn't possible.

You could move MN-5 further west, and MN-3 into Carver, MN-2 further south, MN-1 west and northwest, but I don't see how you get into MN-6.

If you take the 5 Metro districts from the GOP map and plop them on to the Democratic map, which areas are:

(1) In a Demo-map outstate district, but a GOP-map metro district.  (this will cause underpopulation of the outstate districts).

(2) In a Demo-map metro district, but a GOP-map outstate district.  (these areas will be unassigned).

The two classes will have equal population.  To create a compromise plan you either have to assign the areas in (2) to outstate districts; or shift them into a metro district, and shift equivalent amounts of metro districts out.

[Snowguy716]

If you look at the northern 1/3 of Minnesota, there are 3 distinct communities of interest.  You have the farming areas of far western Minnesota.. which constitutes a narrower and narrower band hugging the ND border as you go north... the recreational/logging/tourism areas of north-central Minnesota (also where the bulk of the state's Ojibwe Indians live), and the mining/logging/wilderness recreation areas of northeastern MN.

The former and latter interests are both well represented in the 7th and 8th districts, respectively... but the 2nd, Bemidji's main interest, is split between both and poorly represented.  Jim Oberstar did represent those interests well with recreational trail funding... but outside of fishing and hunting, Colin Peterson couldn't care less about the hospitality industry or timber/forestry.

While a northern super district makes little sense... putting Bemidji in with St. Cloud makes even less sense.

I wouldn't mind extending the 8th district further west to about Fosston and keeping only the border counties with ND in the 7th down to Becker County.  Make up for this by putting more of Stearns County into the 7th (try to get as much of St. Cloud into it as you can, like how it was in the 90s).

This would lump most of the touristy lakes areas from Lake of the Woods to Bemidji to Walker and Brainerd into the 8th which would give whoever represents it two communities of interest (mining/logging and recreation/tourism) while keeping the 7th mostly agricultural (with the exception of Detroit Lakes and Alexandria... but both are so far west and south that it would impossible not to lump them into an ag district).

It also might let us take the southern portions out of the 8th district.. it's almost getting down into exurbs territory now.  The 1st, 7th, and 8th should remain completely outstate MN seats.

[muon2]

Ironically muon's map above is basically a mild DFL gerrymander, it drives MN-05 into some swing middle suburban areas and thus allows MN-03 to take in some heavily DFL inner suburbs and greatly weaken Paulsen, it shores up Walz a bit more by dumping the heavily GOP rural areas in the western part of the district even if it replaces them with lean GOP counties, and MN-02 is also made more DFL by expanding into the inner suburbs of St. Paul. Kind of similar to what the DFL probably would've proposed if a court had to pick either their map or the GOP one like in Colorado.

I think it's only a mild DFL gerrymander in the sense that they have strong candidates in Peterson and Walz that can hold districts that should trend GOP. Peterson in particular holds a district that should reliably be GOP.

I think if the DFL were really proposing something based on my map for the court, they would instead put all of Washington in MN-04 and put the northern part of Ramsey in MN-06. It's more compact with the same number of splits, though it is a more substantial change to the existing districts.

If it were the GOP basing their submission on my map, they wold do away with my requirement that one district be wholly in Hennepin, and just keep to a maximum of one split per county. Then  it turns out that Coon Rapids, Blaine, Lexington, and Spring Lake Park are almost the same population as Wright county, so they could be swapped in MN-06. Then MN-03 would transfer Brooklyn Park, New Hope, Golden Valley and St Louis Park which have the same population from as the aforementioned Anoka communities from MN-03 to MN-05. That bumps up MN-03 to about an R+2 from my D+1.

One thing that I really objected to in both submitted party maps was the split of St Cloud. There's no reason it shouldn't get the same deference to remain intact that the other major cities do. So keeping it together means keeping the Stearns/Benton/Sherburne tri-county region together. If you move all of that into MN-7, and respect the cores of the MN-4 and 5, then either MN 06 heads north and forces a cross state MN-8 or it wraps around the eastern edge with all of Washington, and MN-02 goes to Rochester.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

The court will be releasing their maps tomorrow.

[Vasall des Midas]

Technically the ruling was that until tomorrow, no deadlines of any kind had been missed, the legislature and governor could still theoretically pass a map of their own design even though they'd clearly stated they wouldn't, and the court thus could not act at all until tomorrow at the earliest.

But yeah, that does mean they'll release their map tomorrow.

[ilikeverin]

More info is here; maps will be here.

[BigSkyBob]

More info is here; maps will be here.

Surely, the maps have been finalized. How could nothing have leaked?

[muon2]

More info is here; maps will be here.

Surely, the maps have been finalized. How could nothing have leaked?

That wouldn't be Minnesota Nice.

[ilikeverin]

More info is here; maps will be here.

Surely, the maps have been finalized. How could nothing have leaked?

That wouldn't be Minnesota Nice.

Outsiders just don't understand!

[Vasall des Midas]

Lol, website crashes at 1pm CT on the dot.

[Vasall des Midas]

Here we go.

http://www.mncourts.gov/Documents/0/Public/Court_Information_Office/Redistricting2011Final/Minnesota_Congressional_Districts_Statewide.pdf

Cravaack remains in the 8th. Saint Cloud remains in the sixth. None of Southern Washington County does. They found a compromise between extending the 7th to the southwest corner or not doing so - extending it almost to the southwest corner!

With changes.
Metro

[Vasall des Midas]

Fun fact: 2002 map had 8 split counties and 7 split townships. The Republican map (apparently it exists in two marginally different versions) has 7 and 7. The DFL map, 7 and 10.
The new court map, 9 and 8.

[Vasall des Midas]

So does Bachmann move, or just run for a district she doesn't live in, or lose to McCollum, or retire? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Gass3268]

I would say in general that this map is a positive for Democrats.
- Michelle Bachman was drawn out of the 6th and into the 4th . She'll have to move in order represent the majority of her previous district. I really hope she bullheadedly tries to run against Betty McCollum in the 4th and ends up losing by 15%.
- John Kline has a competitive district in the 2nd.
- Nothing else radically changes.

It is very possible that Democrats could come out of here with 6-2 advantage, with John Kline and Chip Cravaack losing.

[Vasall des Midas]

Kline losing? Keep dreaming. There's a reason they put those South St Paul suburbs they removed from the fourth (a fact they glossed over in their order, btw) here and not in the 3rd, as the Dem proposal did. Because they would have made a difference there.
It's a 4-4 map, but with Peterson having proven he can hold a (marginally) false-party district seemingly forever, and Cravaack not having proven anything of the kind yet. And thus arguably a 5-3 map.
And one R incumbent has a problem, but that just opens opportunities for other Republicans.

[jimrtex]

Here we go.

http://www.mncourts.gov/Documents/0/Public/Court_Information_Office/Redistricting2011Final/Minnesota_Congressional_Districts_Statewide.pdf

Cravaack remains in the 8th. Saint Cloud remains in the sixth. None of Southern Washington County does. They found a compromise between extending the 7th to the southwest corner or not doing so - extending it almost to the southwest corner!

With changes.
Metro

So the followed my recommendation and extended 3 westward into Carver County, and moved the northern tip of Dakota into 2, clearly establishing 2 and 6 as northern and southern metro districts.

I think I would have put more of Rice in 2, and Wabasha and Goodhue in 2, but that is a minor quibble.  A quite excellent plan.

It also prepares for 2020 when 3, 5, 4 get merged into two districts, 2 and 6 take up the leftovers beginning with Washington, Anoka, and Carver, and parts of Ramsey and Hennepin as needed (eg St.Paul and Minneapolis in one district, and Hennepin in the other).

It will be a bit of a challenge for 8 to pick up enough population, but perhaps that Benton and Sherburne with continued growth in Chisago and Isanti will be enough.  If not, start peeling townships off on northern Anoka.

The remainder of Stearns and possibly Wright go to 7.