Any Early Look At Redistricting
December 17, 2009Fast away the old decade passes.
Is there anything more fun than redistricting?
Certainly not for those addicted to numbers crunching.
Remember how after the House and Senate did a fine job redistricting in 2001, Governor Jeanne Shaheen (harking to the poor advise from partisan Peter Burling) vetoed both plans, thus setting up an even worse plan from the Supreme Court.
We can only hope it doesn’t happen again, so it’s not too early to begin thinking about redistricting, a task which the legislature elected in 2010 must accomplish (my current predictions are for Republicans to control the House 215-185 and the Senate to be tied at 12-12).
The first thing one must do when it comes to redistricting is divide the total state population by 400 to get the number of people in an ideal state rep district and by 24 to get the ideal state senate district size. Since rep districts cannot cross county lines, we then must allot reps by counties.
State population figures aren’t likely to change much in the next year (two years if we use 2008 population figures, the latest we have), so we know a great deal already.
With a population of 1,235,550 statewide in 2001, the average rep district was 3089 people. The 2008 estimated population is 1,315,ooo, up about 6.5 percent (79,450 people). If the population doesn’t change much in the next two years (that’s what we’re led to believe), the average rep district will be 3288 people. You can then take the size of your city or town and divide by 3288 to see how many reps your community deserves. Remember that with the new Constitutional Amendment, each town or city ward of approx 3288 people must have its own rep before we start adding floaterials.
For example, Keene and Rochester which elect all their Reps citywide now will all have to grant one rep to each ward with the remainder left over to float citywide. It could get very complicated.
Right now, thee counties would lose one rep apiece, Cheshire, Coos and Hillsborough. Grafton and Strafford would gain a rep with Merrimack and Belknap a close call to gain the third rep (only .05 percentage points separating them for who would get it). Thus, the most interesting population uptick to watch these next two years will be in those two counties.
Manchester stands to lose two reps, from 35 down to 33 (its 2008 population of 108,154 divided by 3288 gives it 32.88 reps), but Nashua could be a real problem. It will lose at least one of its 28 reps (which would be good mathematically considering 27 is easily divisible by its nine wards). However, with 87,111 people, Nashua currently deserves 26.49 reps and with two more years, that number will probably fall to something in the 26.40 range which means, rounding downward, it c0uld well end up with 26 reps.
In 2001, the ideal State Senate district included 51,481 people but the court really made a mess of that (especially in Nashua), and wide divergences were allowed. With the current population, each Senate district would contain 54,792 people.
That would lead some to ask why Manchester, with slightly less than enough people to justify two senators (but within the margin of error), should be broken up soas to create three Manchester senators. It could well be that the election of either Terry Pfaff or David Boutin, both of H0oksett, in Senate District 16 will signal a shakeup so that Manchester is split up with six wards in each of two Senate districts (one currently held by DeVries, the other by D’Allesandro) with wards 1 and 12 (from District 16) going into Lou’s district and ward 2 (going into the Devries district). Just a thought–one which most Manchester folks won’t want to hear.
As always, I let the numbers speak for themselves, putting both parties and geography aside. Fair is fair, when it comes to both life and redistricting.
Just the facts Santa, just the facts.
How could Manchester divide its 33 Reps? Not that difficult a task. Each of 12 wards would get two reps (24) with the remaining nine split up into three districts each getting three reps (wards 1 ,2, 4 and 5; wards 6,7,8, and 9; and wards 3, 10, 11, and 12 would seem to make the most sense although you could do 1, 2, 3, and 4; 5, 6, 7, and 8; and 9, 10, 11, and 12). Thus, every citizen would actually get to vote for five reps (two plus three diluted). This is something like we had back in the 80s when Manchester had 40 reps, three per ward with the other four split into three-ward floaters).
How could Nashua divide 26 reps with nine wards? Not so easy, not so easy. Two per ward would produce 18 with eight left to float citywide??? Not a good idea. These problems are left to those in charge come 2011.
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 18, 2009
Nashua is two distinct cities when it comes to House districting divided by a line that goes from the Hollis river on the Hollis Border to the F.E Everett Turnpike to the Exit 2 Bridge. Wards 5,8 and 9 are currently south of that border and make a superdistrict of 8 reps, similiar to Manchester’s west side. The other wards have 3 reps a piece, similiar to Manchester east side wards.
Let’s say that Nashua as a whole does get 26 reps after redistricting. It’s not that hard, just give each ward 3 reps (24), and then give 2 to the current superdistrict.
steve vaillancourt
Dec 18, 2009
But unless they change, and I don’t expect they will, Nashua has nine, not eight, wards. We would never start with a superdistrict (that was a phony creation of the court, illegal if we did it, but the court let itself get away with it). Thus nine times three is 27, one too many. They’d have to go two per ward, two times nine is 18 then add eight at large, not a good idea at all (it would mean a district with 88,000 people, what we try to avoid). We’ll see how the final numbers break…if the rest of the county works out all right, thre’s some leeway and they conceivably could bed given 27 reps. I spent hours looking at things last night…it’s never easy, but as long as it’s fair, it’ll be acceptable.
That superdistrict currently has not eight but 10 reps because Nashua now has 28 reps (6 wards times three for 18 plus the 10).
When it comes to districting, equality of numbers is what counts, not potential voters but living breathing people. That’s a Supreme Court mandate from decades ago, “one man, one vote”.
The west side district in Manchester, combing three wards, was only possible because each west side ward has slightly fewer people; thus less population can justify only eight reps for three wards rather than three per ward as on the east side.
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 18, 2009
Nashua’s wards are also fairly good for the most part because you could replace the numbers with names for the most part and get the general gist of where they are..
Ward 1- Broad Street
Ward 2- Exit 7 and 8
Ward 3- French Hill
Ward 4- Clocktower Place
Ward 5- West of Main Dunstable
Ward 6- Tree Streets
Ward 7- Crown Hill
Ward 8- Harris Road
Ward 9- South Nashua
There are a few exceptions and anomalies though (that little chunk of Ward 5 near Conant Rd, the part of Ward 2 east of the F.E Everett, etc.),
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 18, 2009
Thanks for catching my error in the first comment, let me go back for a sec.
Wards 5 and 8 are a little more suburban, if you had to break up the super district, it’d probably go 3 for the south nashua ward and 2 for the other 2.
Might as well do that, give every ward 2 (18), then give one more to each other ward (25) and one for the current super district or for those two suburban districts (5 and 8) currently in the super district.
steve vaillancourt
Dec 18, 2009
The other problem is that Nashua’s wards are not even in population, another mess the court created. Presumably, Paul Bergeron and folks at Nashua City Hall will try to get numbers equal in all nine wards when they redistrict, approx 10,000 people per ward. (This will also matter when it comes to senate districts–five wards won’t be enough for a senate district; six wards will be too many–assuming 55,000 is the number–so you’ll need to dip into surrounding towns, probably for both Nashua senate districts). This is also a problem in Portsmouth. It didn’t matter when Portsmouth chose all its reps in one group, but when they break up into wards, the court will want the wards substantially equal in size, no more than a five percent deviation is ideal. It’s going to be a fun 2011, but now is the time to start thinking in these terms.
You still don’t understand–we won’t start with the current super district. That in itself was controvertial, Dems opposed it as currently configured as I recall. We’d start with a fresh slate, once we get the ward lines from city hall. While it’s good to have suburban wards grouped together, that’s not the numbe one concern. Numerial equality rules!
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 18, 2009
The problem with having them exactly equal though is that leaves the door open to gerrymandering.
Nashua’s wards are fairly good in terms of avoiding gerrymandering (with those few exceptions and a few small others)
Portsmouth’s wards are not as good, but still are not bad. I could do the same exercise for the most part
Ward 1- Fox Run Mall
Ward 2- Downtown
Ward 3- Pease Trade Port
Ward 4- Lafayette Road
Ward 5- South Mill Pond
With the “neighborhoods” of Ward 1 and 5 seeping into Newington, thus why Portsmouth shares a district with them.
I don’t have a breakdown of how many voters are in each ward, I know there was a breakdown I saw once at City Hall in Portsmouth, but I can’t remember it.
I’d be wiling to bet that Ward 3 and 5 have the bulk of the city’s population though.
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 18, 2009
If the state focuses on just on numerical equality and ignore gerrymandering, the issue will be back, except focused on gerrymandering rather than numerical equality. Better to get it done right the first time.
steve vaillancourt
Dec 18, 2009
Gerrynmandering is stretching lines in weird contorted shapes to get pre-determined results. The state has nothing to do with establishing ward boundaries–they are done by cities, and at least in Manchester, the only concern is getting a geographically coherent area, as much like a circle or square or rectangle as possible with no zigs and zags, with AND I’LL SAY IT AGAIN BECAUSE THE COURT DEMANDS IT–AN EQUAL NUMBER OF PEOPLE. The state is not constiutionally permitted to tamper with ward lines as established by cities. We simply assign reps to wards in the proper numerical combination,hopefully without arriving at overly large districts. I believe Andrew has run and lost on more than one occasion; but you’re welcome to try again. I seem to recall you being from Merrimack but I could be wrong. Merrimack has no wards. The state thus has no right to break up the town. If it has–let’s say–26,000 people, it would be entitled to eight reps (8 times 3300 equals 26,400). If it has 28,000 people, it would deserve eight reps and then have to be combined into a floaterial with another town for its share of the extra 0.5 rep. It’s not rocket science but with lots of moving pieces and the mandate of being within five percent deviation, it’s by no means an easy task. The best way is to put partisan politics aside and just concentrate on the numbers. It seems to me you want things gerrymandered to help your people get elected, maybe even help you get elected.
Sure enough, I checked my bible, the red book. Andrew Sylvia came in 11th in Merrimack in 2008 with eight winners, 7 Rep and 1 Dem. The only Dem winner was seventh place Jim O’Neil who fnished less than 100 votes ahead of the one Republican loser. Andrew finished about 1000 votes out of the running. I only note this becaue I’m in the process of doing projections for 2010, and frankly, I have Republicans capturing all eight Merrimack seats. It will remain an entity unto itself and will not be split up; it would take a constitutional change–not likely–to bring that about. Many Dems want large towns split up so they can try to focus on a small pocket to pick off one or two seats. It simply isn’t constitutionally possible.
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 18, 2009
This is an interesting discussion, so I apologize if we’re talking past each other (per your caps) or if it seemed like I was partisan (I just figured we were having a good discussion)
The problem is that even if the court demands it, the cities will never be able to get all of their districts to have the exact same number of voters, so the deviation should be pressed up to as far up to the limit as possible to avoid the need or temptation for gerrymandering. Five percent is not a big deal with the number we’re talking about here.
I’ll address your comment on Merrimack as well. That is my hometown and yes, we do have precincts instead of wards. Merrimack’s precincts are even more well delinated in terms of a “part of town” than Nashua or Manchester (north precinct= Reeds Ferry, south precinct = Thornton’s Ferry, middle precinct= Souhegan Village/Mastricola/Central Merrimack/Whatever You Want To Call It)
Although I try not to rule anything out, at this point it’s unlikely i’d run competitively in Merrimack again, and even if I didn’t disagree with gerrymandering, advocating for house district gerrymandering in Merrimack’s case wouldn’t make much sense because nearly all of the neighboring towns (Litchfield, Bedford, and Amherst) have similiar partisan makeups to Merrimack, and as you said initially, Nashua will have enough problems that its delegation and city hall will not want to share a district with Merrimack.
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 18, 2009
And also per your more than one occasion comment, I’ve run for the house three times (2004,2006,2008), the Merrimack Charter Commission (2005), the Merrimack Select Board (2005), the Merrimack Ethics Committee (2006), and the Merrimack School District Budget Committee (2007) and I won the last two.
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 18, 2009
Setting aside any gerrymandering issues though, I might be wrong, but it’s likely that Merrimack would probably not want that extra half a rep if it had to share a district, Merrimack shared a district with Litchfield for much of the 90s and it made little sense since the two towns don’t share much in common. Likewise, Amherst has stronger ties with Milford than with Merrimack, and Amherst/Milford would probably not associate itself with Merrimack. Likewise, Bedford associates itself with Manchester unlike Merrimack, which is a shatter belt* between Manchester and Nashua.
*-A shatter belt is a term in cultural geography denoting a region between two cultural hearths or nodes where the two cultures’ identities merge.
steve vaillancourt
Dec 18, 2009
It’s actually quite easy for city wards to be within a couple hundred citizens of each other. With the data bases we have today, it’s no big deal once the census numbers are in. Ten years ago, Mancheter Aldermen assigned the task to the highway department–which negated political considerations. Kathy Sullivan actually came in after the highway department did a fine impartial job and tried to gerrymander the wards to help Dems, but if you have honest people, that is to say not the Sullivans of the world, do it, then there’s no problem getting congiguous numerically equivalent wards. The only slight hitch in Manchester was that in an effort not to have lines cross the river, the three west side wards had about 8700 people while the east side ones had about 9000 each. Obviously the more the people, the more deviation that’s allowed.
However, when it comes to allowing deviations at the state level, even if you wanted to do it to make things mathematically easier in a place like Nashua, keep in mind that if some place gets 1000 voters fewer than it actually needs, some other town is going to have to stuff in a thousand more. 1000 is no big deal in a place like Nashua with 88,000 people, but it would be a big deal (deviation-wise) in some of the smaller surrounding towns.
It all starts with the counties. Hillsborough, it looks like, will lose one rep, down from 123 to 122, so you would think the deviation could be absorbed, but it all depends on where the numbers break. It’s actually somewhating like 121.94 reps which Hills deserves, no problem. But as it now stands for example, Carroll County would deservie 14.41 reps which would have to be rounded down to 14. That means you’re starting with .41 (or about 1300 people) more than you should have in your 14 districts, quite a large number to absorb in such a small county.
As I alluded to originally, the “battle” now is between Belknap which deserves 18.57 reps and Merrimack which deserves 44.62 reps. If that holds by 2011 and only one can be rounded up (we need to stay at 400, probably), one would start with a disadvantage. If it’s Belknap with only 18 reps, the average district will have to have slightly more than 3328 (or whatever number is works out to be). It’s espeically awkward in Belknap because Laconia always seems to come it at an uneven number. For example, Laconia’s current population of 17,233 would entitle it to 5.24 reps, a real problem since it has six wards. It would get five reps, presumably all chosen in one block (since presumably each ward would have approx 2872 people and thus not be entitled to one ward per rep). Then after Laconia gets its five reps, the decision would be whether to combine it with another town for the exta 0.24 reps. That wouldn’t really be fair to another town since they are all smaller than Lacnonia and would be dominated by Laconia for the sake of another 822 people (.25 times 3288). It might be fairer to use the deviation to say that Laconia gets five reps (each representing 3447 people) espcecially if the county is going to have 1700 or so too many people to absorb.
Here’s another problem in Belknap County. Right now, Titlon is paired with Sanbornton, and both reps happen to be from Sanbornton. However, Tilton has more people, enough in fact to entitle it to its own rep (3654) while Sanbornton does not have enough to entitle it to a rep (2881) even being generous with deviation. So is the solution to give Tilton a rep and then combine the two towns for the second rep, or do you look elsewhere and try to find new combinations.
Those problems exist literally everywhere when you try to solve the redistricting puzzle, and they are only exacerbated when hacks (from either party) try to play political games like Peter Burling did ten years ago.
What do you do in Carroll County for example when the only border Harts Location (populaton 33 including one current rep) shares is with Bartlett (population 2937 including one current rep). Together, they don’t even merit a single rep, so they’ll have to be combined with another town, but if you start figuring out whom to salvage, you could run ito deviation and “one man one vote” problems.
I’ve got about two dozen similar problems, but hopefully by 2011, the population will break perfectly. The chances of that happening are…well fill in your favorite Tiger Woods analogy here.
The Litchfield-Merrimack pairing was a terrible thing, forced upon us by the Court due to Peter Burling’s game playing. I was in fact in the forefront of getting that changed after it existed for only one election cycle.
However, don’t think that Merrimack gets to say we don’t want to extra half rep–if it comes to that. The court doesn’t allow you to say you want to invalidate the one man, one vote principle. As I look at Merrimack now, it’s the least of our problems. With 26,139 people, it’s almost exactly the right size for eight reps. But let’s say it had 28,000 people…it couldn’t simply decide to discount the extra 1800 people. That’s not how it works. Honest people who know the area can arrive at reasonable districts. The problem with the court solution is that they brought in a so-called numbers expert from out of state, someone who knew numbers (not very well as it turned out), but knew nothing about the lay of the land.
Isn’t it great how Democrats like Andrew and Tim are allowed here while I (and other Republicans) are banned by the blueblogbigots, says something about the two party’s dedications to free speech!!
Not that I’d ever go back there, even for a quick look, if they begged me.
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 18, 2009
A couple of hundred citizens is perfectly ok. The exact same number (say every district having exactly 3,800) wouldn’t be possible though. Still, I think keeping proper district shapes in mind along with the sizes should be a consideration to avoid future hassles.
I also agree in that political games should not be played with the districts (thus all the comments against gerrymandering)
For those other quandries, it’s probably better to wait for the census since they’ll be much harder than the larger towns and cities.
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 18, 2009
And on your second comment, we can start a side conversation on that (I’m having trouble keeping up with the comments being edited!)
I’m a guest on Blue Hampshire and Red Hampshire just like you are or any other website neither of us own.
The internet shouldn’t be seen any different than the real world. If someone came to your house and graffitotagged your outside walls or decided to have a protest rally on your lawn, and you called the cops, would that be censorship? Would you be entitled to do it? And why is a private website any different?
If you or I or anybody breaks the “posting/comment rules” at the top of this page, it’s more than likely they’ll be blocked, and rightly so. We’re just guests in this house.
Likewise, people are just guests over there in that house.
I’ll take off my shoes if you want, but you’re still welcome to tell me to leave at any time.
erniegore
Dec 18, 2009
Hey, Andy where have you been. It wasn’t a question of editing. Steve was banned from Bluehamphire, because as Jack Nicholson said, “You can’t handle the truth.”
Kind of like the Nazis shipping opponents off to you know where.
Give up on this partisan hack, Steve.
steve vaillancourt
Dec 18, 2009
As always, you know best Ernie. By the way, when are you starting your show on MCAM? You ganna have me on or am I limited to Mosca?
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 18, 2009
I’ve been around, Ernie.
I don’t really care what happened to Steve at Blue Hampshire, like I said above, it’s not my house, but it’s unfortunate you can’t think of any better despotic regimes than the usual cliche.
TimothyHorrigan
Dec 19, 2009
Another interesting issue with the upcoming redistricting would be the two Congressional Districts. (We are unlikely to get a 3rd in 2011.) For decades, we have one district with Manchester and the eastern part of the state and another with Nashiua & Concord and the western part of the state. Coos County, which looks big on the map, gets swapped around every decade or two from one district to the other, but it has about the same population as Derry (which is not a major metropolis.) And, Derry happens to be in the Merrimack valley, which brings up the issue of how to divide up the Merrimack valley.
It might make more sense to put Manchester in with Nashua, swapping Manchester’s population with people from Concord and points north and west. You could even leave Concord in CD-2.
Manchester’s suburbs are mostly in CD-2 already. Even if we don’t want to change the basis shape of the Congressional map, it should be relatively simple to put Salem, Windham and Atkinson into CD-1, thus unting Rockingham County.
Although it shouldn’t matter, it is unlikely that two incumbents will be thrown into the same district.
In cvase anyone is wondering, I believe these are the applicable home towns:
CD-1:
Carol Shea-Porter: Rochester (current incumbent)
Bob Bestiani: Newmarket
Peter Bearse: Fremont
Frank Guinta: Manchester
CD 2:
Richard Ashooh: Nashua
Charlie Bass: New London
Andrew Hemingway: Plymouth
Jennifer Horn: Nashua
Ann Kuster: Concord
John DeJoie: Concord
Katrina Swett: Bow
hampy2010
Dec 19, 2009
Tim –
Rich Ashooh lives in Bedford, CD 1.
Matt Suermann
Dec 19, 2009
Charlie Bass is from Peterborough, not New London.
And also, not sure which Manchester suburbs you’re talking about but, Bedford, Londonderry, Hooksett, and Goffstown are all considered pretty major Manchester suburbs and are all in CD-1. And I highly doubt that the district makers will want to put the state’s 2 major cities in the same district.
It also seems from what I’ve read, the basic east-west divide of the districts has been in place for sometime now and CD-1 has had towns peeled off, a town or two in Merrimack and Belknap seem to come to mind. I would think they would keep the basic towns the same and fight over which one or two towns move around to even out the districts if needed. I would bet that no one wants a major reorganization of the districts.
TimothyHorrigan
Dec 20, 2009
Sorry about the errors. I based the Ashooh residency on his recorded campaign donations, which are all from Nashua (and which is where he worked for many years.) I don’t have any excuse for the Bass mixup.
erniegore
Dec 21, 2009
Of course Andrew is correct. A much better cliche would be Stalin since he killed more people than Hitler ever could and since his despotism comes from the left like Andrew. The very reason things become cliches is because they are true. The fact that the blueblogbigots are what they are simply tells us that the level of fascism and despotism is greater from the Dems than Republicans, at least on these two web sites. It also tells us about confidence in one’s beliefs. Only the cowardly, timid, and uncertain would ban opposing view such as the blueblogbigots do.
steve vaillancourt
Dec 21, 2009
My analysis didn’t deal with federal level, but simple math would tell you that with only two districts, you’re not going to add or lose one unless there’s an unreal pop shift. The only changes across the country will help Republicans–increases in places like Utah and Nevada (is it still Republican) and loss of pop in rust belt Dem areas. As for NH, there should be virtually no need to change the district lines except maybe one or two towns if there’s any switch at all. The one thing we might try to do is get Sanborton and Tilton into first cd since the rest of Belknap County is there, but this is an easy task.
I actually spent much of the weekend working on counties for state reps, finished a plan for seven counties. If you put politics and personalities aside, it’s tough but doable. All you need is three things–a map, a calculator, and a population chart. Most interesting thing I noted so far–Lancaster, which deserves exactly one Rep, has four now thanks to the Court redistrcing folly.
Andrew Sylvia
Dec 21, 2009
Now there’s the holiday spirit, Ernie!
I swear, you take out the nouns, and it’s difficult to tell the left wing blogs apart from the right wing ones, partisan blogs put on blinders to anyone’s opinion other than their own.
Steve, good luck on the state rep ideas. I think that the two congressional districts (we’re not going to add or lose one before the next census, guaranteed) should be along county lines: the 1st CD being Rockingham, Strafford, Carroll, Belknap, Grafton, and Coos, and the 2nd CD being Merrimack, Hillsborough, Cheshire, and Sullivan.
The populations of both districts is roughly the same (it’s about 30,000 difference, well within the differential across the country), and it’s far easier to tell for voters which district their in through that method.
Bob
Dec 22, 2009
If Bedford moves to CD2 I’m running for congress.
steve vaillancourt
Dec 22, 2009
I would be very surprised if Bedford (with nearly 21,000 people) is moved. I suspect we might need to move some people out of first into second c.d., but not nearly that many. Cheshire and Coos County populations(in second c.d.) are declining while Belknap and Strafford are increasing (both in first c.d.), so a realignment might be necessary, but nothing of the magnitude of 21,000 plus if you look at the map, moving Bedford in second c.d. (while leaving Goffstown and Merrimack in first c.d.) would creat a very strange configuration. My guess–Bedford will stay in first c.d.
It would make much more sense to move Hooksett (13,500 people) into second c.d. It’s currently the only Merrimack County town in first c.d. So that might work well. You might even combine that with a move of Litchfield (8500 people) from second to first c.d. That would be a net move of 5000 people, probably about what we need.
It’s easy to keep smaller counties all in the same c.d., but with a population of nearly 400,000, it really doesn’t make sense to have all of Hillsborough in the same c.d. There’s also the problem of both Manchestrer and Nashua being in Hillsborough County but with such large populations, they probably should not be in the same c.d.
Most people don’t know it, but legally speaking you do not have to live in the c.d. you run it, strange but true.
Bob
Dec 22, 2009
Yea i’m just saying. Anyway it would be nice for Hillsborough to be in one CD.