Political hacks will know what this means!

Census: the shorthand version

Gain: AZ +1 FL+2 GA+1 NV+1 SC+1 UT+1 WA+1 TX+4

Lost: IL -1 IA-1 LA-1 MA-1 MI-1 MO-1 PA-1 NY-2 OH-2

Your thoughts?


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

25 responses to “Political hacks will know what this means!”

  1. Delicate Flower Avatar
    Delicate Flower

    http://www.strategictelemetry.com/docs/maps/presidential%20results%20by%202010%20apportionment.jpg

    Of course looking at last November… Florida elected GOP supermajorities in both chambers, a tea partier senator (over a guy w/70% approval) so don’t see that staying with us, NC and IN aren’t much better and we got a shellacking in Iowa IIRC.

  2. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    I agree, 9-5 to start out. But could easily get back to 8-6 pretty soon. The trend is good!

    CD 7 is approximately 30% too large. Think of it has having 130 precincts, and needing to be trimmed to 100 (just to use round numbers). Obama got 39% in the district in 2008.

    If you sort all the precincts from most Republican to least and pick the top 100, you have a new district that Obama got 32% in – but you abort 30 precincts that Obama got 65% in. They have to be combined with 70 precincts somewhere else – if you just do it straight up Obama only has to get 43% in the other 70 precincts for it to be an Obama majority new district.

    Thought exercise, if the state was made up of 1,400 equally sized precincts and each Congressional district needed to either get rid of or add precincts to make a new Congressional district here’s what you’re looking at:

    1 – Add 1
    2 – Add 7
    3 – Shed 14
    4 – Perfect size (shed fractional precinct)
    5 – Shed 11
    6 – Shed 5
    7 – Shed 29
    8 – Shed 3
    9 – Shed 15
    10 – Shed 4
    11 – Shed 14
    12 – Add 2
    13 – Shed 14

    As you can see, 4, 5 and 13 (the metro Dem core) need to collectively shed about 25 precincts. District 7 needs to shed 29. That’s 54% of a new district that is heavily Democratic and needs to be absorbed somewhere. Eventually you’ll get back to 6 Dems. If they screw up, 7 or 8 is possible by decade’s end.

  3. JMPrince Avatar

    Dr Doom, Nouriel Roubini, (yes google it!), has been a fav of mine for years. Probably a decade by now. Is & was the about only person making much sense throughout too. At least as seen on TV. Quite the rich & in demand guy now. Just bought a several million dollar modernistic townhouse in Manhattan. So significant an indicator that the FT reported on it on page 2-3 too. Means despite himself? He’s actually thinking a bit more positively about the middle range future. Which is about as good as it gets I imagine… But the estimates depend on the sector, neither is unknown, and of course the DoD were the most lucrative. JMP

  4. Brian Todd Avatar
    Brian Todd

    Thanks Jason, I was just ball parking the figure, but I had no idea.

    By the way, I just watched Dr. Doom on Rachel Maddow. He’s dead on, and it was great television.

  5. Jason Avatar
    Jason

    The Census Director said that NC was 15,000 residents away from having an extra seat and Minnesota losing one.

  6. Jason Avatar
    Jason

    And to be fair, the Constitution says in Article I, Section II: “The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.” I think a very strong case could be made that “actual enumeration” requires a head count, even if there are more reliable methods of sampling, etc. But an argument can also be made that “in such Manner as they shall by law direct” means if Congress wants to allow sampling by law, they could. Would be an interesting Supreme Court case 🙂

  7. Jason Avatar
    Jason

    20% is low, Brian… I work for the federal govt, and the “overhead” for contracts is closer to 40% on average.

  8. Delicate Flower Avatar
    Delicate Flower

    Of course we decided a long time ago that we shouldn’t increase the size of the House of Representatives so this is all pretty stupid really.

  9. Steve Golden Avatar
    Steve Golden

    I know Charlie had been talking about it. It seems likely, but there will have to be a huge shift in order for that to occur. Really, there will have to be a shift anywhere.

  10. David Avatar
    David

    Charlie Harper was on the Kudzu Vine last Sunday and Tim asked him about this and I think he is right that Hall County will be in a district without an incumbent. Of course that district will be no better than the current 9th for Democrats. However it could cause the 7th or 11th or 10th to become more blue. To me the biggest question is what do Republicans do about 2nd, 8th and 12th?
    I would think they would try to make the 8th safe for Austin Scott, but they might get greedy and try for all 3? That could impact the 3rd and 1st making them more blue?

  11. Steve Golden Avatar
    Steve Golden

    Can’t take N. Fulton, though. That would thwart the whole plan of adding a Hall/Cherokee County (read: Cagle? Rogers?) rep, since that would dig into Tom Price territory.

  12. sndeak Avatar
    sndeak

    The population is there for this new district to be squeezed in between Cherokee and Hall county taking parts of N. Fulton, S Forsyth. Some of it could bleed into the deep red area around Johns creek on the border with Gwinnett. No issue with VRA if you put it there.

  13. griftdrift Avatar

    Current breakdown is 8-5. Most likely future breakdown is 9-5. There’s no way the 14th is a Dem pick up unless the DOJ gets dog nasty. But as much as y’all don’t like the yahoos in control under the Gold Dome, I guarantee they’ve got a way to figure out how to keep the VRA from getting in the twist too much.

  14. griftdrift Avatar

    You do realize the Census is actually very specifically delineated in the Constitution, right?

  15. JMPrince Avatar

    Yep. Where this mythology comes from & how it’s maintained despite all evidence to the contrary, is the remarkable strength of ‘Zombie Economics’, but obvious for decades too:
    http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9270.html

    JMP

  16. Julianal Avatar
    Julianal

    I think it’s going to be very hard for the GA GOP to pick up a seat-GA’s redistricting will be heavily scrutinized by the Dem Justice Dept.

    I’m actually less concerned than I was. Not sure why.

    NY loosing 2 seats however is really interesting. Can’t wait to see what the punditry comes up with in the next couple days to say about this.

  17. Drew Avatar
    Drew

    Oh, look. A know-nothing.

    Your faith in the private sector, even after the recent disasters it has caused, is adorable. Like a child who believes in Santa Claus.

    That said, in this case, it’s probably not misplaced. The private sector probably wouldn’t use a headcount to determine population; it would probably use less-costly measures and nevertheless achieve a more accurate result.

    But dear, do you know who opposes that? Your fellow idiots, the Republicans. Do you know why? Because the headcount is biased, and biased in favor of wealthier – read: more Republican – Americans; it undercounts the poor. As usual, for Republicans, money is no object when spent to secure their power.

    And they know they can get away with it, because they can count on suckers like you to support them regardless of how much they spend, so long as they repeat your ignorant, hateful rhetoric about the spendthrift poor back to you.

  18. Tim Cairl Avatar
    Tim Cairl

    I’m more shocked that we got one and NC didn’t

  19. Drew Avatar
    Drew

    I must not be a political hack, because I’m not certain what this means.

    At the presidential level, it’s a small gain for Republicans. Unless the national popular vote comes to pass, in which case it’s meaningless.

    At the Congressional level, it’s another win for Republicans. Although given the size of their 2010 victory, I don’t see how they can redistrict themselves any further into power without running afoul of the Voting Rights Act or drawing districts so marginal that a strong wind would flip them. Of course, that does assume that the Roberts Court doesn’t use the inevitable litigation under the Voting Rights Act as a pretext to destroy the federal government’s power to protect the voting rights of minorities.

  20. Zach Avatar
    Zach

    Something to think about… just because congressional seats are being added in southern states doesn’t automatically mean that these populations will be persuaded by Republicans. Check out the demographics… the white population has remained steady or on par for growth. So, which demographic is making waves in the electoral map? I guess the real question is do Republicans have a DREAM?

  21. Brian Todd Avatar
    Brian Todd

    Horseshit! The business is effieient/government is bureaucratic meme is a myth. I work for a large corporation, and it’s the biggest bureacratic morass I’ve ever been involved with. God help the poor soul who needs anything from the HR department where I work. And how are you going to save money by adding a layer of 20% additional cost in profits to the contractor. I promise you, they will not do the work at cost. We don’t need anymore of this market fundamentalist ideological nonsense, it’s what’s sinking this nation. If the government doesn’t invest and invest big in the national infrastructure, without which corporations can not exist, then the rest of the world WILL pass us by. The best national economic strategy is to actually have a national economic strategy to compete in the first place. And yes, part of that strategy and investment will be about investing in people. Their health care, and yes, even money for food and shelter if it comes to it.

  22. TonyG Avatar
    TonyG

    The govt spends too much on collecting the census data. A business would use the 80/20 Rule and get almost the same data at a savings of 20%.
    Also the data will be misused by public and private special interests to re-allowcate or add taxpayer-funded resources to help resolve perceived differences between haves and have-lesses. This will be done without addressing root causes for any actual differences. Have all the babies you want by as many guys as you want. Make sure they are counted in the next census. Your govt will provide if you, the guys and grandma can’t.

  23. Jen B. Avatar
    Jen B.

    I volunteer to move to LA because all the other states are cold. Coincidence? I think not.

  24. JMPrince Avatar

    A retirement in BC?

  25. Zach Avatar
    Zach

    We should have all moved to one of the losing states before the Census. I guess there’s always 2022…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *