As an ex-New Yorker, I have been looking forward to drawing a redistricting map the moment the partisan data became entered into the Redistricting Application. Here are the fundamentals I assumed while drawing this map, not necessarily in any particular order:
1) One Democratic seat will be sacrificed in the NYC area due to relative population loss, and one Republican seat will be sacrificed Upstate. In time honored custom, this will mean two Democrats will be paired together and two Republicans will be paired together. This is how Albany politicians have always handled bipartisan redistricting since the 1980s and I suspect that it won't change this time around, either. On the other hand, if the courts end up drawing the map, as nearly happened in 1982 and 2002, and did happen in 1992, the typical thing the court master does is pair an incumbent of each party in "fair fight districts." In such a scenario, King/Ackerman and Owen/Hanna are probably the only fair fights you could actually draw. We won't know for sure until next June-July; New York State has the latest filing deadlines of any state in the country encouraging redistricting to be dragged out the very last possible moment.
2) Although the state legislature is split, like every other time since the 1970s, the state GOP is fighting for its political life. They saw a 38-24 margin over the State Senate, which they attained in late as 2002, slowly fall away to the point by just 2006, they held 32-30, and in 2008 they lost control entirely. Now, because of a corrupt Democrat in the Buffalo area, we lost a seat that was designed to be a Democratic vote sink, and the GOP controls the State Senate 32-30.
3) This means two things I believe. On the one hand, it means that the Democrats cannot screw the GOP out of total oblivion (although demographic trends in the state might be doing that already). The GOP could decide between now and next year that they would rather blow up the negotiating process and risk a court-drawn map, which might be favorable to them congressionally (particularly in LI). That would discomfit Shelly Silver's iron-clad control over the State Assembly and it would discomfit several important Democratic members of the state congressional delegation (Hinchey and Israel, both on Appropriations, come most to mind here).
That being said, the GOP is in a position of major negotiation weakness here and we know this above all by their reticence thus far to take Cuomo up on the offer of a nonpartisan commission. They HAVE to play nice with Silver and Cuomo; otherwise no State Senate map that is stacked in their favor to have any chance at all of holding control of that body on any long-term basis, let alone through the next election cycle. New York is a state where we play hardball politics; politics isn't beanbag. The GOP is fighting for its political life, and the stench can be smelled a mile away.
4) For this very reason, I believe dismantling the Syracuse-based district currently held by Buerkle (being at D+3) would be a non-starter with the Assembly Democrats because it is patently not an even trade with Democrats being forced to give up a safe seat of theirs downstate. Furthermore, because Democrats have far less to lose by blowing up the whole negotiations and letting the courts draw all the maps, congressional as well as legislative, there are very clear limits to what the GOP can demand. This is not going to be an even-steven negotiation in the end, I believe, unless Shelly Silver is a bad negotiator. Nothing that I have observed in all my years living in NY lead me to believe that he is.
Instead it seems clear to me that either Rep. Hanna's or Rep. Gibson's districts will be dismantled - I opted to get rid of the old NY-20 because you can easily cannibalize its most Democratic parts and feed them to Tonko and Owens to shore up both seats, while placing the most Republican parts into Hanna's district. And merging these two ancestral GOP seats together is an even enough trade for the drop of a Queens-area white Democrat (either Ackerman or Wiener I believe in the end will be axed).
5) The map will be largely status quo, I believe, for the districts not eliminated, with the following exceptions:
a) The Democrats will want to do something to help out their newest member of the congressional delegation, Hochul, without endangering either the Higgins or the Slaughter seats. They might also want to help out Owens and Bishop, although it really isn't possible to help out Bishop without hurting Israel, and Israel has the far more clout of the two. Still, I remove Smithtown and substitute parts of Islip Township for Bishop, removing at a stroke the home address of Bishop's 2010 GOP challenger. This kind of thing gets done all the time in New York State redistricting time; back in 2002, the North Country seat got Madison County so that then-moderate GOP congressman Sherry Boehlert didn't have a conservative primary opponent in his district anymore.
b) The GOP, scared for its life, will insist in exchange, that at least two, perhaps three, of their new 2010 congressional members gain safe seats (safe in NY meaning McCain-carrying and by more than just one or two points). The Assembly Democrats might think three is a bridge too far, so I think in the end of the day they agree to make two safe GOP seats upstate: Reed's and the Hanna/Gibson seat while leaving Hayworth as swingy.
c) Otherwise upstate, they will agree to status quo ante: 4 solid Democratic seats (Tonko and Hinchey at 59% Obama, Higgins and Slaughter at 58%), 4 swing seats (Owens, Hochul, Buerkle, and Hayworth, ranging between 56% Obama to 51-52%), and then the 2 safe GOP seats just mentioned.
d) Downstate, it is now possible to create a compact VRA Hispanic-majority seat out of the NY-7. Such a district will likely have to be drawn for the map to gain preclearance (I believe Queens is one of the counties in NY that must gain preclearance by the DOJ). Conversely, it is still not possible to get higher than 49% Hispanic for the Velasquez seat, and it is barely possible to maintain two African-American seats in Brooklyn (mine are just barely over 50% A-A each). The Meeks's district is no longer African-American majority - 46% African-American was the most I was able to accomplish without sneaking over the LI/Queens line to grab African-Americans. Likewise, the Harlem-based district represented for a very long time by Charlie Rangel is no longer even close to being an African-American VRA seat; following the trend in mapmaking over the past two decades, I have simply snaked the district further south on the West Side (the current district covers a lot of this area already) and simply embraced its eclectic minority-majority nature. Maloney then slides a bit further into Queens and Nadler a bit further into Brooklyn. Otherwise, status-quo ante.
Although Ackerman lives out on the North Shore of LI and, thus, has technically been merged into the NY-4 with McCarthy, in reality the two districts I merged together were Ackerman's old NY-5 and Wiener's old NY-9 by crafting instead an Eastern Queens district pairing Weiner's home and base with Ackerman's former base. Interestingly, the moment I decided that a Hispanic-majority NY-7 could meet the Gingles criterion, and thus was probably necessary now, that led to an interesting "Asian opportunity" district being created in my new NY-6. This district is now only about 38% white and 39% Asian, with the remainder Hispanic and other ethnic/racial groups. I know Strickland doesn't protect such districts, but what a wonderful thing to draw for Queens, NY - the most diverse county in the United States. And I believe it even looks neat.
6) Oh, and in New York custom whenever we lose congressional seats, I simply renumbered the districts starting in LI, then going through NYC, then finally upstate before ending in the Buffalo area. I don't know why other states cannot simply do something similar, instead of having district numbers jumping all over the place!
Thank you for reading through this extensive background. Follow me over the jump when I discuss the map with nice pictures.
Statewide Map
Long Island (Districts 1-4) In this part of the map, I aimed above all for status-quo, and largely followed the lines hammered out in 2002 (designed at that time to make a 2-2 map, then Felix Grucci lost to Tim Bishop and it has been 3-1 since). Some minor changes to benefit each of the four members of Congress: Bishop loses all of Smithtown Township and gains less-Republican eastern Islip Township instead - this removes the home of his 2010 GOP challenger. Israel compensates for taking on board Smithtown by trading more aggressively with King really GOP turf for better Democratic precincts out of King's district. King's 3rd, likewise, extends to encompass now the Five Towns of SW Nassau County, a very GOP area. As a result, the 4th is left about a point or so more Democratic than currently is the case. Although technically this district merges the homes of Ackerman and McCarthy, I believe Ackerman will seek to run in my new Queens-based 6th instead.
District 1 (Bishop-D), blue: Obama 51.9%-McCain 47.0% Stays at about R+1
District 2 (Israel-D), green: Obama 55.9% - McCain 43.9% Stays roughly the same at about D+3
District 3 (King-R), purple: Obama 45.8% - McCain 53.4% I believe King gets a district about a point or two more GOP than currently. Cannot be helped. He is an asset to NYC politicians sitting on top of the Homeland Security Committee.
District 4 (McCarthy-D), red: Obama 60.7%, McCain 38.7% Becomes about a point more Democratic than the current version by removing the Five Towns area.
New York City (Districts 5-15) Ackerman and Wiener become combined together in a new Eastern Queens district. Otherwise, an additional VRA Hispanic seat is created out of Joe Crowley's NY-7, while the other districts struggle to maintain their VRA statuses because of relative population loss. With the exception of combining effectively the old NY-5 and the old NY-9, I attempted to keep the lines largely the same as currently, unlike other mappers. I believe the NYC lines are done this way largely to follow the VRA and, where the VRA is not operative, to maintain as best as possible communities of interest (thus Bay Ridge and SW Brooklyn gets attached to Staten Island while Nadler gains Jews in Brighton Beach and Borough Park plus the Upper West Side. Because NYC is losing a seat, some of the numbers got renumbered.
District 5 (Meeks-D), yellow. 17.4% W, 45.5% B, 16.9% H, 12.9% A, 6.8% O VAP, Obama 84.5% - McCain 15.1%
District 6 (Ackerman-D vs. Wiener-D), teal. "Asian opportunity district." 38.7% W, 3.2% B, 17.3% H, 38.7% A, 1.9% O by VAP, 37.4% W and 38.7% A by population at large. I know the VRA doesn't require the creation of such districts but the transformation of the nearby NY-7 into a Hispanic-majority district led to this interesting effect, so I went with it. Obama 62.8% - McCain 36.4%. Interestingly this is the weakest NYC district after the Staten Island one for Obama, probably because of all the orthodox Jews in Kew Gardens.
District 7 (Vacant - too cumbersome to draw Crowley, who already lives at the fringes of the district, into the district without compromising its new VRA status, but this would probably still be Crowley's seat for a while), gray. NEW HISPANIC VRA SEAT. 20.2% W, 15.4% B, 52.8% H, 9.7% A, 1.8% O by VAP, 55.2% H if going by population at large. Obama 79.8% - McCain 19.7%
District 8 (Velasquez-D, Crowley-D possibly also lives here technically although he would surely move to the 7th), blue-purple. 26.2% W, 11.6% B, 47.1% H, 12.1% A, 2.7% O by VAP, 50.0% H if going by population at large. Not really possible to make any better than this without endangering the VRA-protected status of the Brooklyn Towns's seat. The courts in the 1990s struck down a tendril going into Jackson Heights so I didn't try that in drawing this map. Obama 86.4% - McCain 12.8%
District 9 (Towns-D), sky blue. 29.4% W, 50.1% B, 13.2% H, 5.2% A, 1.9% O by VAP. Within a decade, if current trends continue, both the Brooklyn seats will no longer be technically protected under the VRA, like the SE Queens seat now. Obama 84.9% - McCain 14.6%
District 10 (Clarke-D), pink. 29.1% W, 50.2% B, 12.6% H, 5.7% A, 2.1% O by VAP. Obama 87.8% - McCain 11.7%
District 11 (Grimm-R), light green. Minimal changes, just added Bensonhurst to bring the district up to the population required. Obama 48.6% - McCain 50.6%
District 12 (Nadler-D), steel blue. Takes a bit more of Brooklyn to complete the dismemberment of the old NY-9, while pulling out of a bit more of the Upper West Side. Otherwise no major changes; Nadler should still be fine. Obama 70.4% - McCain 28.7%
District 13 (Maloney-D), salmon. Takes a slight bit more of Queens and Chinatown in the Lower East Side (to help maintain Valasquez's district at optimal Hispanics). Asians are now almost 19% of the district's VAP. Obama 77.6% - McCain 21.5%. I would never have thought that a district centered on the Upper East Side, and until 1992 - Ed Koch aside - represented solely by Republicans for all of its existence, would now be the most Democratic non-VRA NYC district. Boy times have changed!
District 14 (Rangel-D), khaki green. Continues the custom of NY mapmakers the past two decades by adding population to this district by going south along the West Side. District also is close, within a decade or two, of becoming majority Hispanic. But for now: 28.6% W, 24.2% B, 40.2% H, 5.1% A, 1.8% O by VAP. Obama 92.1% - McCain 7.2%
District 15 (Serrano-D), orange. Goes north a bit more, and cedes a few precincts here and there to the NY-7 to help make it majority-Hispanic. 6.3% W, 26.7% B, 62.6% H, 2.8% A, 1.3% O. Like now, this district is one of the most Democratic in the entire country with Obama 93.0% - McCain 6.7%
Metro-North (AKA the Northern NYC Suburbs) but I figured I would make a plug for the very good commuter rail we have (Districts 16-18). Lowey gets an entirely Westchester-based seat, Engel gets all of Rockland County now, and Hayworth extends into all of Dutchess County and most of Orange, which keeps the PVI roughly the same as now. I could carve more carefully and take the Democratic areas of Dutchess County and give them to Hinchey instead, but as I stated in the introduction, I don't believe Silver will accede to the turning of more than two seats captured in 2010 into safe GOP seats, so I believe Hayworth's district will remain swingy.
District 16 (Engel-D), green: 42.1% W, 31.6% B, 19.6% H, 4.7% A, 1.9% O. Largely the same as now, except extends a bit further out into the NYC suburbs, taking all of Rockland County now. I think this is a good fit for Engel. Obama 69.6% - McCain 29.8%
District 17 (Lowey-D), dark purple: Lowey gets an entirely Westchester-based district, just like she had in the 1980s way back when when she wrested this ancestrally GOP district away from the GOP for good. Obama 60.8% - McCain 38.3%
District 18 (Hayworth-R), yellow: becomes a true Hudson Valley district and is the district I grew up in. I reunited all of Dutchess County together and decided that the more geographically appropriate split up of Orange County was to place the Port Jervis and Middletown areas into the neighboring NY-19, now represented by Maurice Hinchey. By reintegrating Newburgh into this seat, it has the effect of keeping it swingy, which is exactly what I think Shelly Silver will insist on. Obama 51.8% - McCain 47.0%
Upstate New York - Catskills, Capitol District, North Country, and Central New York (Districts 19-23)
District 19 (Hinchey-D), grey-green: keeps an Ithaca-to-Hudson Valley district intact for Hinchey, a powerful member of the Appropriations Committee and a long-time ally of Shelly Silver's. It still is narrow at points, but I attempted to neaten it (and strengthen it politically at the same time) by connecting to Ithaca through Cortland and by including all of Tompkins County now. Obama 57.9% - McCain 40.4%
District 20 (Tonko-D), pink: by dismantling the old NY-20 four ways (the Dutchess parts going to the NY-18, the Saratoga Springs/Warren/Washington are going to the new NY-21 for Owens, and the really GOP areas going into the seat where I am pitting Hanna vs. Gibson), I am able to solidify the Albany-area district by going east and south to grab the rest of Rensselaer County and most of Columbia County (except for Gibson's home). As a result, the district pulls out of comparatively more Republican Schoharie, Fulton, and parts of Montgomery Counties. Although it is about 120k new residents, Tonko should be happy with the partisan change: Obama 58.3% - McCain 39.8%
District 21 (Owens-D), maroon: cut out the most GOP areas of the district (which get added to the new NY-22, which is merging Gibson and Hanna together) and substituted those for Saratoga Springs and more swingy Washington and Warren Counties. Not a major change to the district - I don't think the Democrats can force the GOP to go along with any more than modest changes here - but still makes it a bit more comfortable for Owens. Obama 53.4% - McCain 45.0%
District 22 (Gibson-R vs. Hanna-R), chocolate brown: merged the more GOP areas of both the old NY-20 and the old NY-24. It seems reasonable to me - and compatible with Democratic goals of firming up both Tonko and Owens - that the GOP would insist on the district where they are merging two of their incumbents to be made safer for them. Obama 46.7% - McCain 51.5% Territorially this is stacked in Hanna's favor; on the other hand, while it is possible to build a district that is more even or even in Gibson's favor, you would not be able to help out Tonko as much nor would the merger district be as safe as this district now is.
District 23 (Buerkle-R), light blue: There seems no way that the Assembly Democrats would concede to dismantle the easiest district to flip back their way of the five that the GOP captured in 2010. I understand that Buerkle is not loved by many in the state GOP; it really doesn't matter. Dismantling it is not an even trade with the district the Democrats have to lose downstate. So, I leave it alone, swinging east for additional population instead of west, but keeping its partisan profile largely status-quo ante. Obama 56.3% - McCain 41.8%
Western New York (Districts 24-27): Here the election of Hochul really overturned a whole lot of conventional wisdom about both Higgins and Slaughter condensing into Buffalo and Rochester-area districts, respectively, while leaving the remaining territory in the region to be carved into two GOP seats. Ten years ago, this region was excessively gerrymandered to try to achieve a 1-3 split, now the reverse is the goal.
Slaughter is going to probably want to retire soon, so she won't consent to her district becoming any more Republican than where I left it, which is about 58% Obama. Higgins, likewise, is probably going to insist on a similar district. The wishes of powerful incumbents often sways redistricting decisions, especially when Dean Skelos is probably not going to consent to anything that majorly changes the Hochul seat. In the end, I think an equitable compromise can be reached: Reed gets the second really safe GOP seat in the state, while Hochul gets a swing seat that effectively resurrects the old Lafalce seat.
District 24 (Reed-R), dark purple: as a result of the grand compromise on the Western NY map, Reed gets the safest GOP seat in the state now. Although it is no longer just a Southern Tier seat - and thus former Congressman Houghton's campaign to save the old 31st (now the 29th) is all in vain, this district carefully bypasses all the major cities and towns in the region to become NY State's most rural district. Obama 43.6% - McCain 54.8%
District 25 (Slaughter-D), pink: Although Slaughter would probably prefer just a Monroe-only district, there are some good Democratic areas in Livingston and Ontario County that need to be added to her district for Hochul's to be swingy. Besides, she once represented these counties in the 1980s, so they are not totally unfamiliar territory for her. Obama 57.8% - McCain 40.9%
District 26 (Hochul-D), slate gray: effectively the old Lafalce district, takes a tiny bit of Rochester proper then the western townships of Monroe, all of Orleans and Niagara, then the northern townships of Erie, before finishing off with a bit of northern Buffalo. It is by no means a sure thing for Democrats, but a lot more favorable than her current seat. Obama 53.5% - McCain 45.0%
District 27 (Higgins-D), green: largely the same as his current seat although a bit more of Buffalo now. This raises the Democratic performance a bit from currently, something that I think he will insist upon. Obama 57.2% - McCain 41.2%