My name is John Milem; a Washington State Resident
I am submitting one plan in this submission. I expect to submit additional plans in separate submissions.
The plan is being submitted as a shapefile .dbf. In nature, it is a block assignment file. The file is named s02.dbf and consists of 195,574 records. Each record contains two fields: geoid varchar(15) consisting of statefips(2), countyfips(3), tractfips(6), blockfips(4); district varchar(3) consisting of district identifers composed of three alpha characters.
This plan was prepared using census geography furnished by the Census Bureau in connection with the 2010 census and using the PL 94-171 data also furnished by the Census Bureau. I have also used materials available online relating to such matters as annexations, urban growth boundaries, and changes in precinct boundaries since the census. I have also used election returns for the general elections of 2006, 2008 and 2010 disaggregated by commission staff to units of census geography. Since this disaggregated data does not add to the actual totals reported by the Secretary of State, I have used the official returns for all undivided counties and I have adjusted the disaggregated data to produce totals for divided counties which match those reported by the Secretary of State. I have also used various supplementary mapping sources, both online and printed. And I have attended all eighteen of the public forums sponsored by the commission and have utilized information obtained through that attendance. And, finally, I am in my sixth decade of doing work of this sort, and I have drawn upon those decades of study and experience in preparing this plan.
The rules of the commission require that each person submitting a plan intended to be a formal one state in narrative how the plan complies with the applicable requirements of the state constitution. These requirements are as follows:
“In the redistricting plan:
“(1) Districts shall have a population as nearly equal as is practicable, excluding nonresident military personnel, based on the population reported in the federal decennial census.
“(2) To the extent consistent with subsection (1) of this section the commission plan should, insofar as practical, accomplish the following:
“(a) District lines should be drawn so as to coincide with the boundaries of local political subdivisions and areas recognized as communities of interest. The number of counties and municipalities divided among more than one district should be as small as possible;“
(b) Districts should be composed of convenient, contiguous, and compact territory. Land areas may be deemed contiguous if they share a common land border or are connected by a ferry, highway, bridge, or tunnel. Areas separated by geographical boundaries or artificial barriers that prevent transportation within a district should not be deemed contiguous; and
“(c) Whenever practicable, a precinct shall be wholly within a single legislative district. “(3) The commission's plan and any plan adopted by the supreme court under RCW 44.05.100(4) shall provide for forty-nine legislative districts.
“(4) The house of representatives shall consist of ninety-eight members, two of whom shall be elected from and run at large within each legislative district. The senate shall consist of forty-nine members, one of whom shall be elected from each legislative district.
“(5) The commission shall exercise its powers to provide fair and effective representation and to encourage electoral competition. The commission's plan shall not be drawn purposely to favor or discriminate against any political party or group.”
In my congressional plan submissions made last month, I discussed each of these requirements in the context of the ten proposed districts. I have approached preparing this plan from the same point of view regarding constitutional requirements as was discussed in those submissions.
Because there are so many more legislative districts, it seems it would be more useful for me to discuss my approach to drawing districts and my concept of each of the districts offered by this plan and then supplement to the extent it seems necessary with additional information regarding compliance with the constitutional requirements. This is not in any way to denigrate the constitutional provisions but simply to make the mass of information a bit more accessible to the reader. Hopefully.
Because incumbency is not a primary focus of my redistricting work and because I tend to view district and precinct boundaries as artifacts of past gerrymanders, I tend to take a de novo approach to drawing district boundaries.
Redistricting is about changing district boundaries to reflect changes in population distribution within the jurisdiction being redistricted. There is no need for redistricting if there are no variations in the rate of population change in the jurisdiction. Politics-as-usual in redistricting is focused on avoiding changes, or mitigating the effects of changes, which may adversely affect incumbents or, at least, certain incumbents. It tends to be focused on the interests and wants of incumbents regarding whom they want and whom they do not want as constituents. Such matters are of no concern to me. These are not districts drawn to the specifications of incumbents. They are districts drawn from the perspective of the ordinary voter who prefers to have some sense of identification with the district in which he votes.
The expression, community of interest, is not of very much use. It's similar to beauty, in the eye of the beholder. And what beholder is more able to discuss the community of interest in a district than the incumbent elected in that district. I am not concerned about one individual's view of what the community is, or the interests that individual chooses to use to define that community. My question is, what does the community think the community is?
How convenient it would be if communities came in district-sized chunks. Unfortunately, they don't. In drawing district boundaries, one is faced with balancing many factors, each of which individually might lead to a different outcome in district boundaries than any of the others.
At redistricting conferences, one often hears the comment, the last district you draw will be an ugly district because it's composed of what's left over when everyone has taken what they wanted. I won't claim to have no ugly districts, but I don't operate on a “leftover” mentality. Each community in the state is as entitled to respect of its integrity in redistricting as every other community. However, as a result of the relatively stringent population limitations on redistricting, in some situations populations must be placed in a district which is less than optimal for them. The cross-mountain districts are a good example of that in this state. In these situations, it is especially important to take into account what can be done to ameliorate the situation. So I give that attention.
Fortunately, it's not necessary to get into the subjectivity of communities of interest in order to focus on communities. They exist, and people who live in them are able to identify and describe them. (One has to be a little careful, because one occasionally encounters someone who has a particular agenda about what a community is. And it might not be a community generally recognized within the community.)
District lines matter. As John Guthrie, a Florida Senate staffer, says: “They create political communities.” Those who take an active interest in governmental and electoral affairs typically pursue that interest with others who share the same city, the same county, the same legislative or congressional district with them. The best political communities are the ones which are natural communities, communities which exist as communities apart from the drawing of district lines. It is often in the interest of those drawing district boundaries to create artificial political communities, communities where there is no community – there may be in twenty years, but not yet. In an artificial political community, it is easier for an incumbent to avoid, minimize and defeat challenge than in a natural community. So, it is important to me that district boundaries be drawn in full acknowledgment of the communities which exist. I try to draw district boundaries which will keep existing natural communities intact.
Something else I've heard at redistricting conferences is that sometimes those from the largest city in an area ask for the city to be divided among more than the minimum number of districts for the sake of enlarging the voice of the city in the legislative body. This has been done in response to such requests. To give an example, suppose that an area with a population large enough for five districts has as its central city a city with a population large enough for three districts. In this case, if the city is divided into equal fifths, it will provide the majority of the population for all five districts. What this means is that whoever would have dominated the other two districts in that area comes out on the short end, in effect, underrepresented as a result of the overrepresentation of the larger city. This is doubly unfortunate, because the larger city, simply because of its numbers, is already in a better position to accomplish its legislative goals than the remainder of the area divided, probably, between small municipalities and unincorporated areas.
So, I'm careful to try to avoid that. When a county or a municipality must be divided to satisfy the population shortfall of a nearby area, I always prefer to find the supplementing population in the largest nearby county or municipality. Generally, I prefer to try to create as many districts entirely within any city as the population allows and then parcel out the remainder as appropriate to create satisfactory nearby districts. Of the four cities in Washington too large to be a legislative district, this plan only actually carries out that intention with respect to Seattle and Tacoma. In the cases of Spokane and Vancouver other factors come into play which result in the city being divided approximately in half. And that brings me back to saying that redistricting involves balancing many factors and considerations.
So, what are my priorities in redistricting?
First, no missing geography. There's no point in trying to evaluate a plan until all the geography has been accounted for.
Second, no discontiguities. In this usage, I'm using the narrow sense, not the functional, sense of discontiguity. As far as I'm concerned, when the legislature decided to form a county of Whidbey and Camano Islands, it settled the issue of contiguity regarding Camano Island. When it comes to point contiguity which is an issue with at least Bremerton and Mount Vernon, I prefer not to depend upon point contiguity to satisfy a contiguity test.
Third, satisfaction of applicable requirements of the voting rights act.
Fourth, satisfaction of the constitutional limitations on overall range of district populations, one percent for congressional districts and ten percent for legislative districts.
Fifth, no unnecessarily divided counties. It is often the case that, if counties which must be divided are divided judiciously, the number of other counties divided can be minimized. Whenever a county must be selected for division, my preference is to divide the largest one. It has always seemed strange to me to maximize the ability of large counties to control representation at the cost of the division of small counties which would not need to be divided if the larger counties had been divided more judiciously.
Sixth, no unnecessarily divided municipalities. The comments above apply here, too.
Seventh, careful attention to transportation routes. This goes much to the issue of a district's convenience. Here in Washington, I much prefer to divide a county through which a freeway runs than one which has no freeway. My approach is to attach non-freeway counties to a freeway county and split that freeway county in preference to splitting the non-freeway county. An example of this is Grays Harbor county. It has been split for a century. It used to be too large to be a district. With Pacific county, today and for the last couple of rounds of redistricting it has been too small to be a district. But it is still split into three parts. Thurston county is a county which has to be divided, being too large to be a district. Better to permanently attach Grays Harbor and Pacific to Thurston and leave Grays Harbor undivided. One of the most inconvenient districts presently is the 17th. If one lives near Heisson bridge on the east fork of the Lewis River, the northwest corner of the 17th in Clark county, it takes over four hours to reach Sunnyside and Moxee where two of the three 17th district legislators live, and a significant part of that trip involves travel through another state. Two-thirds of the members of the state legislature live shorter travel times away than the members who represent people living near Heisson Bridge. This certainly fails the test of convenience.
Eighth, identification of communities and efforts to avoid dividing them as much as possible. School districts, urban growth areas and census-designated places are strong indicators to me of community. As someone testified at one of the forums, the school district is as close as it gets to local government in the absence of incorporation as a municipality.
Ninth, simple boundaries. Generally speaking, counties are pretty regular in form. Municipalities and school districts are much less so. Not much can be done about simple boundaries when a government boundary is being used and it is a complex boundary. However, when it is not possible, usually for population reasons, to follow a governmental boundary, my effort is to find a major, well-known feature to use as a district boundary. For example, in the introductory legislative plan which I offered to the commission during the forums, I used I-5 in central and southern Thurston county as a boundary. I've rethought that and now use the BNSF railroad for a similar distance.
Tenth, compactness. Compactness is much compromised by attention to governmental boundaries. But within the framework of the possible and to the extent consistent with simple boundaries, I try to draw compact districts.
Eleventh, competitive districts. After all this has been done, it is my hope that the districts I have drawn will enhance rather than reduce electoral competition. However, in many places competitive districts cannot be drawn or can only be drawn by fracturing every significant community around. The example of ribbon districts has been suggested as a way to try to assure competitiveness everywhere. In this state, that would come close to totally wiping out legislative representation for the eastern two-thirds of the state.
Twelfth, fairness between the parties. As I've previously indicated to the commission, the distribution of voters preferring each of the two major parties represents a redistricting advantage to one of the parties. Fortunately, however, the electorate is dynamic, and the best laid plans often don't produce the expected results, because the voters don't turn out to be or to do as expected.
Now, I'll turn my attention to the districts I am proposing. I believe it would be helpful to share the objective I had with each of these districts and to discuss the degree of success I had in satisfying that objective.
I've shortened this statement by using some abbreviations, PLD for proposed legislative district, CDP for census-designated place, SD for school district and UGA for urban growth area.
Bellingham: unify the city in a single PLD and construct the most sensible and compact PLD around it. Fortunately, the population of the city and the area west of Guide Meridian road is almost exactly what is required for a PLD. This district includes all of the Blaine and Ferndale SDs and the parts of the Lynden and Meridian SDs west of Guide Meridian road (except for the city of Lynden and its urban growth area). It includes the part of the Bellingham SD in the city and that area outside the city and west of the Guide.
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| John Milem's Preferred Legislative Map |
Mount Vernon: place the away-from-salt-water parts of Whatcom and Skagit counties into an easily understood district without either dividing or separating Burlington and Mount Vernon. I discovered that the area east of the Guide north of Bellingham, and east of I-5 from there to the Snohomish county line was very close to what was needed. However, to have used I-5 as the boundary through Burlington and Mount Vernon would require dividing those cities. This I was not willing to do. So, I-5 is the boundary between Bellingham and Burlington. The western boundaries of Burlington and Mount Vernon are used to keep both cities whole within the PLD and the boundary moves east of I-5 south of Mount Vernon following the boundary of the Conway school district to meet the population objective. This district includes all of the Concrete, Mount Baker, Nooksack Valley and Sedro-Woolley SDs, the part of the Bellingham SD east of the city and east of I-5, the Burlington- Edison SD east of I-5 including the city of Burlington, and the part of the Mount Vernon school district in and east of the city.
Mount Vernon: place the away-from-salt-water parts of Whatcom and Skagit counties into an easily understood district without either dividing or separating Burlington and Mount Vernon. I discovered that the area east of the Guide north of Bellingham, and east of I-5 from there to the Snohomish county line was very close to what was needed. However, to have used I-5 as the boundary through Burlington and Mount Vernon would require dividing those cities. This I was not willing to do. So, I-5 is the boundary between Bellingham and Burlington. The western boundaries of Burlington and Mount Vernon are used to keep both cities whole within the PLD and the boundary moves east of I-5 south of Mount Vernon following the boundary of the Conway school district to meet the population objective. This district includes all of the Concrete, Mount Baker, Nooksack Valley and Sedro-Woolley SDs, the part of the Bellingham SD east of the city and east of I-5, the Burlington- Edison SD east of I-5 including the city of Burlington, and the part of the Mount Vernon school district in and east of the city.
Oak Harbor: combine the islands of Island, San Juan and Skagit counties in a single district. This requires the addition of some population from east of the Swinomish channel. Fortunately the population west of I-5, Burlington and Mount Vernon, together with the Conway school district is sufficient. In the divided counties in this district, it includes that part of the Bellingham SD south of the city and west of I-5, that part of Burlington-Edison SD west of I-5 and west of the city and that part of Mount Vernon SD west and south of the city. It includes all of the Anacortes, Conway and La Conner SDs.
Marysville: unify Marysville, presently divided among four legislative districts into a single district with Arlington and Stanwood. This district is composed of the Arlington, Darrington, Lakewood and Marysville (except the part in the city of Everett) SDs, all of Stanwood-Camano SD in Snohomish county, that part of Lake Stevens SD in the city of Marysville and the westernmost part of the Granite Falls SD.
Everett: create as compact a district as municipal boundaries allow including all of Everett and Mukilteo and supplement with populations from the Everett and Mukilteo SDs. This district includes all of both cities and is formed entirely within the two SDs, except for inclusion of small parts of the Marysville and Snohomish SDs within the city of Everett.
Edmonds: create as compact a district as possible which included Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace. This district also includes Brier and Woodway. The only areas in this PLD outside the Edmonds SD are areas in the Mukilteo SD south of the city of Mukilteo and a small area of the Northshore SD in the city of Brier and one unincorporated precinct adjacent to it.
Mill Creek: create a district which did not include any of Everett, Lynnwood or Mountlake Terrace and which was compact and composed to the greatest extent possible of unincorporated but urban areas. As a result of some decisions I made about eastern Washington districts, it proved impossible to place all of Bothell into a single district, so the portion of Bothell in Snohomish county ended up in this district. However, Mill Creek and Bothell are the only municipalities in this district and they provide only 20% of the population. Most of the Northshore SD in Snohomish county is in this PLD. It also includes parts of the Edmonds, Everett and Mukilteo SDs.
Lake Stevens: create an urban district east of the Snohomish river, seeking to maximize the inclusion of the Monroe, Snohomish and Lake Stevens SDs within it. This PLD includes all of the Monroe, Lake Stevens (except the part in the city of Marysville) and Snohomish (except the parts in the city of Everett and in and east of Lake Roesiger CDP) SDs. It includes small parts of the Everett and Northshore SDs.
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| Puget Sound Legislative Districts |
Wenatchee: create a district which did not require the division of Grant county. I decided that it could be done by creating a Stevens Pass legislative district as a complement to the Stevens Pass congressional district which I have recommended to the commission. In addition to Chelan and Douglas counties, this district is composed of five mountain area SDs on the west side, Skykomish, Index, Sultan, Granite Falls and Darrington. All are completely within the PLD except for the most western part of the Granite Falls SD. I would like to mention that the travel time from Darrington to Wenatchee is about three hours, an hour less than from Heisson Bridge to Sunnyside in the current cross-mountain 17th district. One additional, interesting attribute of this district is that it would provide an entree for legislators from Wenatchee to establish themselves in the context of Snohomish county politics, since they would be representing part of the county. Should a North Cascades congressional district be created, legislators from Wenatchee who take advantage of this opportunity would face a reduced difficulty in attracting attention of voters on the west side. And it seems appropriate, since 150,000 people from east of the mountains must be in a western congressional district to balance the indignity by placing some of the same voters from the west side into an eastern legislative district. In King county, this district is the Skykomish SD. In Snohomish county, this PLD includes the Darrington, Index and Sultan SDs, almost all of the Granite Falls SD, and a small part of the Snohomish SD.
Snoqualmie: create as rural a district in eastern King county as possible while absorbing those urban populations which are in excess of what the urban districts can accommodate and prefer unincorporated populations rather than the cities of Sammamish and Issaquah in the process. This district includes all of the Riverview and Snoqualmie Valley (except the part in the city of Sammamish) SDs and all of the Tahoma SD, except for the city of Maple Valley. It also includes the part of the Bellevue SD in the city of Issaquah, the south-southeastern, more rural half of the Issaquah SD, the most rural parts of the Northshore (east of Bear Creek) and Lake Washington (east of Avondale and Redmond) SDs, the northeastern extension of the Kent SD, mostly in Fairwood, the most southeastern part of the Renton SD, and the northwestern extension of the Enumclaw SD. Its cities are Snoqualmie, Duvall, North Bend, Black Diamond and Carnation. It also includes about 5,000 people from Renton. It includes all of East Renton Highlands and all of Fairwood north of Petrovitsky Road, both of which include parts of the Renton SD.
Sammamish: create a district distinct from the eastside districts centered on Sammamish and Issaquah and minimizing the inclusion of populations to the east. This district consists of these two cities, Newcastle, the southeastern part of Bellevue and the northern part of Renton, Eastgate and Klahanie CDPs and the Cougar Mountain, Coalfields and Duthie Hill areas. An easy majority of the population of the PLD is in the Issaquah SD, with the remainder of the population spread among the Lake Washington (city of Sammamish), Bellevue, Renton and Snoqualmie Valley (again, city of Sammamish) SDs.
Bellevue: create a district including the city of Bellevue without excluding Mercer Island or the municipalities between Bellevue and Lake Washington. The population is too great to allow this and the best balance I could find was to shift the population of Bellevue south of Eastgate into the Sammamish PLD. This leaves a district which includes all of the Mercer Island SD and nearly all of the Bellevue PLD. It includes only those parts of the Issaquah, Lake Washington and Renton SDs which are in the city of Bellevue.
Kirkland: create a district of Kirkland and Redmond. These two cities have nearly enough population (including the Finn Hill, North Juanita and Kingsgate annexation) to constitute a district. This PLD includes 75% of the population of the Lake Washington SD, and this SD provides all but about 5,000 of the population of this PLD, the other populations coming from the parts of the Bellevue and Northshore SDs which are in the cities of Kirkland and Redmond.
Shoreline: create a district of the Shoreline and Northshore SDs, preferably including the entire city of Bothell. As mentioned above, this turned out not to be possible because of the decision not to split Grant county. So the part of Bothell in Snohomish county was placed in the Mill Creek PLD. That population was replaced in this PLD by including Woodinville and Cottage Lake west of Bear Creek. This PLD includes all of Shoreline SD and about 60% of Northshore. By a narrow margin, Northshore provides the larger population. Small parts of the cities of Kenmore and Woodinville are in the Lake Washington SD, so that is the third SD in this PLD.
Seattle Northwest: create a district entirely within the city of Seattle which absorbs the balance of the population north of the ship channel and as much of Magnolia as possible. It turned out to be possible to include everything west of 15th Avenue W and north of the Magnolia bridge in this district. This PLD is entirely within the Seattle SD.
Seattle Central: create a district south of the ship channel and between Magnolia and Lake Washington, going as far south as necessary to collect the needed population. That turned out to be Cherry Street with some additional people between Cherry and Yesler west of Broadway and east of 30th Avenue. This PLD is entirely within the Seattle SD.
Seattle South: create a district entirely within the city of Seattle south of the Seattle Central district. This required going as far west as 35th Avenue SW and then trending east to Delridge. This PLD is entirely within the Seattle SD, except for a few people in the Highline SD who are also with the city of Seattle.
Seattle West: create a district for what's left of West Seattle, without dividing any other municipality. This proved possible by adding Burien, Normandy Park, White Center and Vashon Island. As Seattle's share of the state population continues to decline, districts progressively move out of the city. Because of the simplicity of the boundary between Seattle and Shoreline and the historically tremendous opposition within Shoreline to being divided up among Seattle districts, which it was for decades, and still is for congressional district purposes, it seems more appropriate to find the Seattle population adjustment valve to the south of West Seattle. The boundary between Seattle and its southern neighboring municipalities is contorted and there are still some unincorporated populations which help to balance populations without dividing municipalities. Fortunately, I was also able to create this district without dividing any CDP. This is also the area where the boundary of the city of Seattle and the Seattle SD do not run concurrently. The Seattle SD includes parts of the city of Tukwila and part of Boulevard Park CDP. The Highline SD provides about half of the population of this district with the balance coming from the Seattle and Vashon SDs.
Renton: create a district including the entire city of Renton without having to divide any nearby municipality. I didn't find a way to do this. The combination of municipality populations and a desire for a more rather than less compact district led to combining the cities of Tukwila and SeaTac with Renton. This district also had to absorb the population of the Boulevard Park and Bryn Mawr-Skyway CDPs because of their geographical locations. Renton still provides a majority of the population, 70,000 of its 92,000 people being in this PLD. This PLD includes parts of four SDs, almost all of Tukwila SD, the great majority of the Renton SD, those parts of the Highline SD in SeaTac, Tukwila and Boulevard Park, and the part of the Kent SD in the city of Renton. It excludes the part of the city of Renton in the Issaquah SD.
Kent: create a district including the entire city of Kent and as much as possible of the Kent SD. This PLD does include all of the population of the city although Kent has several non-contiguous, unpopulated areas which are in another district. The Kent SD is too large to be in a single district and parts of the city of Kent are in the Highline, Federal Way and Renton SDs. In addition, the Kent SD also includes the city of Covington and parts of several other cities for which there is no room in the Kent PLD. The result of all of this is that the Kent PLD has about 20,000 people from other SDs and a little over 40,000 people in the Kent SD are not in the Kent PLD.
Federal Way: create a district around Federal Way without dividing any neighboring municipality with the exception of Tacoma. Northeast Tacoma is a good fit with Federal Way, but a district needed to be found for the city of Des Moines and it fit best here along with Lakeland South CDP and Lakeland North CDP south of 288th. This district includes the great majority of the Federal Way SD with most of the rest of the population coming from the Highline SD which includes most of the city of Des Moines. This PLD also includes small parts of the Auburn and Fife SDs.
Auburn: create as compact a district as possible including all of Auburn, Pacific and Algona, including the parts of Auburn and Pacific in Pierce county and include as much of the Auburn SD as possible. As commissioners may have noted, in the introductory plan I presented during the forums, I had created a district two or three times as long as wide by going south to include Sumner and Bonney Lake in an Auburn PLD. The PLD as I offer it here goes east and northeast to include virtually all of the Auburn SD and includes the southeastern part of the Kent SD, including the city of Covington, and also includes the city of Maple Valley from the Tahoma SD. It also includes small parts of the Dieringer, Enumclaw, Federal Way, Fife and Sumner SDs. Except for Enumclaw and Sumner SDs, the inclusion of a part of the SDs is to avoid dividing the city of Auburn. Part of the Sumner SD is included to avoid dividing the city of Pacific. The part of the Enumclaw SD in this district is a small area west of the city of Black Diamond, the boundary of which is part of the boundary of this PLD.
Bonney Lake: create as compact a rural district as possible in southeastern King county and eastern Pierce county. Except for small numbers of people in cities outside this PLD, the following SDs are entirely within this district : White River, Dieringer, Sumner, Orting, Carbonado and Eatonville (except the small part in Lewis county). In addition most the Enumclaw SD is in this district. To provide the necessary additional population, and to improve compactness, the eastern end of the Bethel SD was added. This PLD also includes slivers of the Puyallup SD. The municipalities in this PLD are Bonney Lake, Enumclaw, Sumner, Orting, Buckley, Eatonville, Carbonado and Wilkeson.
Puyallup: create a district including the city of Puyallup and as much of South Hill and the Puyallup SD as possible. Unfortunately, the situation to the west caused a need to place Northeast Tacoma in the district with Puyallup. This reduced its capacity to include the entire Puyallup SD. Interestingly, the recent county council redistricting in Pierce county made this same decision. This district includes the cities of Puyallup, Edgewood, Fife and Milton and about 16,000 people in northeast Tacoma. It also includes Dash Point, Browns Point, most of South Hill and Waller and parts of Summit and Summit View. The district could accommodate all of the Puyallup SD except for a little under 20,000 people in the southwest quadrant of South Hill. It includes all of the Fife SD in Pierce county, the Tacoma SD east of the Puyallup river, and the part of the Federal Way SD in the part of Milton in King county.
Pierce Central: create a district with no municipal population and no remainder population (the term the census bureau uses for populations not identified to either a municipality or a CDP) and include as much of the Franklin Pierce and Bethel SDs as possible. This district is unique. It has no remainder population and no municipality. Its only unit of local, general government is the county. All of the population is in CDPs. It runs from Parkland and Spanaway on the west to South Hill and
Graham on the east and from Midland and Summit on the north to Elk Plain on the south, including also Frederickson, Clover Creek and part of Summit View. It includes all of the Franklin Pierce SD but for a few people in the city of Tacoma. It includes about one-fifth of the area of the Bethel SD but it is the more densely populated area, having 70% of the SD's population. It was necessary as mentioned above to add about 18,000 people from the Puyallup SD and a small number from the Tacoma SD which includes a small part of Midland CDP. This district does not meet the expressed desire for the Bethel SD not to be divided, but with 70% of its population in this PLD and with Bethel SD providing a majority of the population of the district, this comes close.
Lakewood: create a district with the cities of Lakewood, Steilacoom and DuPont and including all of the Clover Park and Steilacoom SDs and all of Joint Base Lewis-McChord. All accomplished except for those parts of both SDs in the city of University Place which is in a different PLD. The population lost as a result of this was 2 persons. These two SDs do not have enough population for a PLD so populations from Tacoma and the Tacoma SD, from the JBLM and Roy areas of the Bethel SD, from the portion of the Yelm SD in Pierce county, and from the North Thurston SD in Thurston county were added.
Tacoma Central: create a district entirely within the city of Tacoma and do so in as compact a manner possible. South of 19th street, it includes all of the city except for the area south of 66th and west of I-5. North of 19th street, it includes all of the city between Stevens street and the Puyallup river All of the population is from the Tacoma SD, except for the 114 people who live in the city and in the Franklin Pierce SD.
Tacoma West: create a district more or less balanced at the Narrows and without including any Kitsap county population. This PLD includes all of the Peninsula SD, 62,000 people, north Tacoma west of Stevens, and the cities of University Place and Fircrest and the town of Ruston. As usual, the school district boundaries do not match the municipal boundaries, but the Tacoma SD provides 46,000 people and the University Place SD about 29,000. It also includes the part of the Clover Park SD in the city of University Place.
Port Orchard: create a district combining Mason county with neighboring areas of Kitsap county, making an effort to minimize division of the South Kitsap SD. Of the 68,000 people in the South Kitsap SD, all but 233 are in this PLD. The others are in the city of Bremerton or its UGA. The additional necessary population for this PLD is provided from the southwestern part of the Central Kitsap SD.
Bremerton: create a district, if possible, including both Bremerton and Bainbridge Island, and leaving sufficient population in north Kitsap county to make a district with Clallam and Jefferson counties. This is made somewhat difficult by the broken nature of the topography of Kitsap county. And the attenuated nature of the municipal boundaries of the city of Bremerton contributes to a less than ideally compact district to its southwest. The only land route between the two cities is through the city of Poulsbo. Functional contiguity requires that Poulsbo, then, be in this PLD also. If Silverdale were incorporated, some city would have to be split to allow this all to work, but by splitting Silverdale CDP and bringing the adjoining district to the north down on the west side of SR 3 to Chico, it is made to work. This district includes all of the Bremerton and Bainbridge Island SDs, about two-thirds of Central Kitsap SD, and a little less than half of North Kitsap SD.
Port Angeles: create a district for Clallam and Jefferson counties without having to split Grays Harbor county. North Kitsap is much more proximate to Port Angeles and Port Townsend than are
Hoquiam and Montesano. Finding the necessary population in Kitsap is not a problem. The four counties are almost exactly the right population for three PLDs. The problem is finding that population in the right places. Poulsbo and Suquamish would be great candidates, but for the fact that that would require Bremerton to Bainbridge travel to go through a different district. As a result, this PLD's Kitsap county area consists of everything north of Poulsbo and Suquamish, plus an area to the south between Hood Canal and SR 3 running down as far as Chico. In Kitsap county, this PLD includes parts of the North Kitsap and Central Kitsap SDs.
Tumwater: create a district that does not divide Grays Harbor county and that combines it with Pacific county. The only adjoining county which is too large to be a district is Thurston county and the fastest road in Grays Harbor county is the one to Olympia. So, it is a reasonable fit. Not as good as one might like, but much better than putting part of Grays Harbor with Port Townsend, part with Bremerton and part with Longview. In Thurston county, this PLD includes all of the Griffin SD, and almost all of the Tumwater SD. It also includes small parts of the Olympia and Tenino SDs.
Olympia: create a metropolitan district of the three cities. Had to give that up. It was my original proposal to the commission, but with some other changes sparked in eastern Washington, I had to look for a better solution. Moving Tumwater to the district with Grays Harbor made more sense than creating awkward tentacles for the Grays Harbor district encircling Tumwater. Constructed as it is in this plan, it includes about 80% of the population of the North Thurston SD and around 95% of the Olympia SD. It also includes bits of the Tumwater SD in the city of Olympia and its UGA.
Centralia: create a district of Lewis county and part of only one other county. My original proposal was for a district with parts of three counties, Lewis, Thurston and Pierce. One of the beneficial results of the change in eastern Washington is that it is no longer necessary to divide Lewis county. In Thurston county, this district includes all of the Rochester, Rainier and Yelm SDs and almost all of the Tenino SD.
Longview: create a district in which Cowlitz county is undivided. Both my introductory proposal and the plan offered here accommodate this, but in slightly different ways. In the earlier proposal, part of southern Lewis county was added to the district along with some of northern Clark county. Again, as a result of the different handling of eastern Washington, Skamania county no longer has to be in an eastern district and by adding some additional population from northern Clark county to Skamania, it is no longer necessary to divide Lewis county. In Clark county this PLD includes all of Green Mountain SD, and the northern parts of La Center and Battle Ground SDs.
Battle Ground: create a district which skirts Vancouver but preserves the most rural parts of Clark county for the district based in Cowlitz county. This district contains all of the Ridgefield and Hockinson SDs, all but the most remote one-seventh of the Battle Ground SD, that part of the La Center SD south of the city of La Center, and populations of several CDPs in the Vancouver and Evergreen SDs.
Vancouver West: create a district which allows for a more compact district to the north than the current 18th, and, hopefully, one which is a bit more competitive. This district's northern boundary shows the effect of past efforts to ease matters for incumbents when the senator for the more southern district lived north of the senator for the more northern district. This had the fortunate result, from the perspective of the politicians, of putting more Democrats in the Democratic district and more Republicans in the Republican district. Creating a more compact district and including Felida in it will redress the balance slightly. This PLD includes most of the Vancouver SD and that part of the
Evergreen SD west of I-205.
Vancouver East: create a district which is not half encircled by the district to the north and which maintains the competitive character of the current 17th. This district is a model of simplicity. It includes all of the Camas SD, all of the Washougal and Mount Pleasant SDs in Clark county, and all of the Evergreen SD, except the part west of I-205 and the part west of 163rd Avenue and north of the Vancouver city boundary.
Yakima: create as competitive as possible a district in Yakima county without dividing the city of Yakima in the process. This PLD as offered lacks a little in compactness in that two-thirds of its population is in a little hook-shaped peninsula on the north side, the city of Yakima. The rest of the district is the reservation of the Yakama Nation and some areas to the north of the Yakima river in the area from Zillah to just the boundaries of Sunnyside and Grandview. This is the area in which minority spokespersons have asked for a majority minority district. Such a district cannot be created absent a showing that the Gingles tests are satisfied. I searched the evidence offered and saw no evidence of such a showing. Unfortunately, this does not prove to be a more competitive district than the current 15th district. However, given the direction of demographic change in Yakima county, before the end of the decade it may be. Constructed as it was, this PLD manages to not include all of any SD. It includes all of the Mabton, Mount Adams and Wapato SDs except for the parts outside the Yakama Nation. It includes those parts of the West Valley and Toppenish SDs in the Yakama Nation and in the cities, respectively, of Yakima and Zillah. It includes all of the East Valley, Naches Valley, Union Gap and Yakima SDs inside the municipal boundaries of the two cities. It includes that part of the Zillah SD south of the northern boundary of the city of Zillah. And it includes parts of the Grandview, Granger and Sunnyside SDs.
Ellensburg: create a district which removes from Yakima county those areas which do not contribute to the objective mentioned for the Yakima district. Unfortunately, the population situation does not allow the addition of Sunnyside and Grandview to the Yakima district. To the extent that their votes could contribute to that objective, they will instead be swamped in this district. This PLD includes, in Yakima county, the Highland and Selah SDs and the remaining parts in Yakima county of the various SDs mentioned in the paragraph on the Yakima PLD.
Kennewick: create a district in Benton county that facilitates keeping all of Franklin county in a single district. This was another benefit of going west rather than east for the additional population necessary for the Wenatchee district. Pasco and Kennewick with their enclosed unincorporated areas are too large to be a district. However, by separating them and creating a district which includes Klickitat county and a small part of southeastern Yakima county and all of Benton county except for the Richland SD, this objective is met. This PLD includes all of the Benton county portions of SDs other than Richland SD, except for the area of Kiona-Benton SD in the city of West Richland and the portion of the Kennewick SD in the city of Richland. It also includes the part of the Richland SD in the city of Kennewick and the unincorporated area of the Richland SD southwest of the cities of Richland and West Richland.
Pasco: create a district which includes all of Franklin county. By adding nearly all of the Richland SD in Benton county, including the cities of Richland and West Richland, this is accomplished. A small part of the population of the Richland SD southwest of the two cities is excluded from this district for population reasons, as is the part in the city of Kennewick. This PLD also includes the part of the Kiona-Benton SD in the city of West Richland and the part of the Kennewick SD in the city of Richland.
Moses Lake: create a district in which Grant county is undivided. Again, by going west for the population for the Wenatchee district, it is possible to form a district of Adams, Grant and Lincoln counties, with the addition of the areas of Cheney and Medical Lake in Spokane county. In Spokane county, this PLD includes parts of Cheney, Medical Lake and Reardan-Edwall SDs.
Omak: create a district as rural as possible with as much distance from urban populations as can reasonably be accomplished, and avoid dividing Okanogan county. This district does that, although it does butt up against the Spokane UGA, but it doesn't include any of it. In Spokane county, it includes all of the Newport, Riverside and Deer Park school districts, all of Nine Mile Falls school district except the portion in the Spokane UGA, all of the Reardan-Edwall and Medical Lake school districts north of Thorpe road, and part of the Mead school district.
Spokane North: create a district which avoids the encircling character of the present relationship between the 3rd and the 6th and together with the district to the south includes as much as reasonably possible of the Spokane UGA. The boundary line in the city of Spokane is basically Euclid avenue, although because precinct boundaries are followed, some areas south of Euclid are also included. All but about 6,000 people in this PLD are in the Spokane UGA. Its population comes almost entirely from the Spokane and Mead SDs, with a few people in the city but in the Nine Mile Falls and West Valley SDs.
Spokane South: create the counterpart district including the southern part of the Spokane UGA. Although this PLD includes a little more than half of the population of the city and more than half of the population of the Spokane SD, it is much larger in area than the Spokane North PLD. It includes another city, Airway Heights, and it includes Fairchild Air Force Base. It includes all of the Great Northern SD and a majority of the Cheney SD. It includes smaller parts of the Medical Lake and Liberty SDs. And it includes the entire area of the anticipated West Plains annexation.
Walla Walla: create a district which is not dependent upon the splitting of Tri Cities populations for its viability. This district combines all of the trans-Snake counties with Whitman county and the Palouse of Spokane county. In Spokane county, this PLD includes all of the Rosalia, St John and Tekoa SDs, most of Liberty SD and parts of Cheney and Freeman SDs.
Now to make some comments specifically directed to the constitutional provisions.
Paragraph 1.
The populations of the districts proposed by this plan are as follows:
Centralia Longview Battle Ground Vancouver W Vancouver E Yakima Ellensburg Kennewick Richland Moses Lake Wenatchee Omak Spokane N Spokane S Spokane Valley Walla Walla.
The requirement regarding population equality is that populations be as nearly equal as is practicable. These are the words the United States Supreme Court began to use in the early redistricting cases in the 1960s. Over the decades, the Court has fleshed out its meaning of these words by indicating that for “legitimate state purposes” an overall range of ten percent is allowed in variations from exact equality in populations of legislative districts. This range based on 2010 census results for Washington would allow an overall range of 13,723 persons between the districts largest and smallest in population. The plan which I am proposing has an overall range of 4,787 persons, from 134,934 in the proposed Lakewood district to 139,721 in the proposed Pasco district.
These variations are permissible because they are utilized for the “legitimate state purposes” enumerated in the provisions of the state constitution which appear above and further discussed below.
Paragraph 2(a).
The constitution specifies that the number of counties divided in forming districts shall be “as small as possible.” Ten counties in the state, King, Pierce, Snohomish, Spokane, Clark, Thurston, Kitsap, Yakima, Whatcom and Benton, are each too large in population to be a single district. Therefore, they must be divided. Because of the location and population of Whatcom county, I do not believe that it is possible to avoid dividing Skagit county. However, it is unnecesary to split any other county in order to meet the ten percent overall range allowed within the expression “as nearly equal as is practicable.” By going west to supplement the population of Chelan and Douglas counties, it proved possible to avoid dividing Grant, Franklin and Lewis counties, all of which were divided in the introductory plan I offered to the commission during the forums. It also allowed for Skamania county to be included in a western Washington district rather than an eastern Washington district. And it allowed for the creation of a PLD entirely within southern Yakima county without the Yakima-diluting effects of Klickitat and Skamania counties.
The constitution specifies that the number of municipalities divided in forming districts shall be “as small as possible.” Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver must be split because each is too large
in population to be a single district. The town of Coulee Dam is divided because it is located in three counties which are in three different districts in this plan. The city of Bothell is located in two counties and is divided in this plan along the county boundary that runs through the city. As mentioned in the discussion of the Bellevue and Renton PLDs, those two cities are divided because the populations of neighboring cities are such that something has to be split. These are the largest cities available. There are four people who live in a discontiguous part of the city of Bremerton. To combine these people with the rest of the city of Bremerton requires taking several hundred people who live in the South Kitsap school district and putting them into a different legislative district from everyone else in the South Kitsap school district, except those who live in the Bremerton UGA. It seems better to me to split the city of Bremerton under these circumstances and leave those people in unincorporated territory in the district which contains nearly all of the population of their school district. The cities of Bonney Lake, Everett, Grandview, Kent, Mount Vernon, Poulsbo, and Redmond have discontiguous, unpopulated parts which are in different districts from the cities to avoid having to divide other populations and create less compact districts. In summary, in this plan, the population of eight municipalities is divided among districts, and the area, but not the population, of an additional seven municipalities is so divided.
In addition, after the cutoff date for census geography, Richland, Sammamish and Yakima annexed areas which included parts of census blocks. Unless a decision is made to divide census blocks in such situations, it seems better to me to leave the post-census annexed area in its census-time precinct rather than to move the entire precinct affected by the annexation, causing potential population and compactness issues. Were it possible to split census blocks along post-census precinct boundaries, I would do it that way. So, although this plan does not divide the cities of Richland, Sammamish and Yakima according to census geography, they are divided in this plan as a result of the post-census annexations.
The constitution provides that district boundaries shall follow boundaries of political subdivisions and communities of interest to the extent otherwise possible given population limitations. I believe these matters have been sufficiently discussed in my discussion of the individual PLDs.
Paragraph 2(b).
The PLDs proposed in this plan are composed of contiguous territory. Evidence of their compactness and their convenience is contained in the discussion of the individual districts. I conclude that these proposed districts are reasonably compact and as convenient as the topography and population distribution within the state allow.
Paragraph 2(c).
Precincts are to be retained whole to the extent possible.
In this plan, precincts are divided in only eleven of 39 counties.
In Whatcom county, two precincts are divided. Precinct 108 is divided along a UGA boundary. Precinct 156 is divided along Samish Way and I-5 to simplify the district boundary
. In Skagit county, two precincts, McMurray East and McMurray West are divided along the boundary between the Conway and Sedro-Woolley school districts. Mount Vernon 26 is a non- contiguous precinct and is divided for contiguity reasons.
In Snohomish county, ten precincts are divided. Sauk and Whaleback are divided on school district boundaries. Admiralty, Bostian, Cypress, Haven and Stone Gate are divided to simplify district boundaries. Field is divided to avoid dividing Picnic Point CDP. Lake and Outlook are divided for the sake of compactness.
In King County, sixty precincts are divided. Some precincts are divided along municipal boundaries as a result of post-census annexations: Briar, Connaught, Eagle, Glendale, Jutland, Kingswood, NorwayHill, Shangri-La and Woodlands. Some precincts are divided along SD boundaries: Brinn, Cleveland, Falcon, Farley, Lake Youngs, Little Soos, Meander, Neuwaukum, Pipeline, Provan, Renton 2583, 3287, 3404, 3564, Salal, Sno Pass, Stevens and White River. Marymoor and Phoebe are discontiguous precincts with parts on opposite sides of municipal boundaries which are PLD boundaries in this plan. The remaining divided precincts in King county are divided to meet population requirements while satisfying compactness and boundary simplicity goals: Bellevue 0102, 2719, Hill, Renton 0980, 1004, 3162, Seattle 1264, 1275, 1277, 1278, 1413, 1455, 1484, 1486, 1488, 1862, 1879, 1880, 1883, 1899, 1901, 1902, 1906, 2361, 2363, 2364, 2366, 2685, 3175, 3573, and Wintergreen.
In Pierce county, twenty-one precincts are divided. Two (referred to by their last three unique digits, 517 and 520) are divided because a municipal boundary runs through them (a violation of state law); three (042, 043, 059) are divided because a school district boundary runs through them; four (181, 638, 643, 644) are divided because a UGA boundary runs through them, one (621) is divided because a non-contiguous part of it is entirely enclosed within another city, and the other eleven (011, 012, 044, 162, 163, 167, 305-07, 329, 564) are divided for reasons of population equality and boundary simplicity.
In Kitsap county, thirteen precincts are divided. Big Valley and Vinland are divided to accommodate a post-census annexation by Poulsbo. Sherman Heights and Sinclair are divided along the Bremerton UGA boundary. Clear Creek, Luoto, Olympic View, Scandia and Silverdale, as well as Vinland, are divided to allow for the use of SR 3 as a district boundary. Augusta and Miller Bay are divided for compactness and population reasons east of Poulsbo Poulsbo 401 is divided because it includes unpopulated, non-contiguous parts. Apex is divided among the three districts for population equality and compactness reasons.
In Thurston county, sixteen precincts are divided. Eight of these are divided to allow the use of the BNSF Railroad as a district boundary. These are Chambers, Hartwood, Marvin, Nisqually, Plumb, Rich, St Clair and Stedman. Delridge, East Olympia and Hewitt Lake are divided along the boundary of the Olympia urban growth area. Black River is divided along a school district boundary and along 128th Ave SW. Little Rock is divided along Maytown Road, McIntosh and Rocky Prairie are divided along the extension of Maytown Road. Plainview is divided along US 101 and the Olympia UGA boundary.
In Clark county, six precincts are divided. Precincts 090 and 930 are divided along a school district boundary. Precincts 520 and 525 in the La Center area are divided for population, compactness and boundary simplicity purposes. Precincts 452 and 453 are divided in connection with the division of Salmon Creek for population reasons.
In Yakima county, six precincts are divided. Of these three, Belma, East Zillah and Gleed, are formed of non-contiguous parts which are on different sides of proposed PLD boundaries. Glade and
Mabton Rural are divided on the boundary of the Yakama Nation. Belma and North Sunnyside are divided for population and compactness reasons in the area where the three districts meet.
In Benton county, four precincts are divided. Columbia, Legion and Yakima are divided along a school district boundary. Griffin is a non-contiguous precinct.
In Spokane county, 23 precincts are divided. Fifteen of these (4009, 4014, 6000, 6001, 6005, 6009, 6010, 6011, 6014, 6016, 6027, 6028, 9000, 9001, 9019) are divided by the boundary of the Spokane urban growth area. Two (6026, 9003) are divided by a school district boundary and one (4006) along a CDP boundary. Five are divided for population and compactness reasons, two along a railroad (9004, 9011) and three along roads (9004, 9005, 9013).
Paragraph 5.
The constitution requires that there be no purposeful bias toward or against any political party or group.
First of all, I should say that my work is generally done without taking the political aspects into account. There are enough requirements to be satisfied that I believe it is essential to give attention to those first. Which I have done. When a plan is finished, I then make an evaluation of it to understand what the political effects are. Often it is the case that, even if one wished to adjust the partisan leanings or other political effects of a plan, the applicable requirements prevent that from being done.
To evaluate the political effect of a redistricting plan, I create a descriptor for each district based upon its votes cast in recent two-party statewide elections. Data presently available in form suitable for this processing includes only the eleven statewide partisan contests from 2006 through 2010. I don't consider this to be very much data, but it's all we have available now.
The descriptor is similar in concept to the well-known CPVI , the Cook Partisan Voting Index. Here's part of the Wikipedia entry on CPVI as of July 22, 2011.
“The Cook Partisan Voting Index (CPVI), sometimes referred to as simply the Partisan Voting Index (PVI), is a measurement of how strongly an American congressional district or state leans toward one political party compared to the nation as a whole. . . .
The index for each congressional district is derived by averaging its results from the prior two presidential elections and comparing them to national results. The index indicates which party's candidate was more successful in that district, as well as the number of percentage points by which its results exceeded the national average. The index is formatted as a letter followed by a plus sign and then a number; in a district whose CPVI score is R+2, a generic Republican presidential candidates would be expected to receive 2 percentage points more votes than the national average. Likewise, a CPVI score of D+3 shows that a generic Democratic candidate would be expected to receive 3 percentage points more votes than the national average.
The descriptor is formatted as a numeral(s), a letter, the +/- signs and a numeral. The first numeral(s) reflects the typical difference between the state and district in party preference, the letter indicates which party, and the numeral following the +/- indicates a range which captures at least two- thirds of the cases in the data set, which on this data means eight out of eleven contests. Certain districts are less predictable in party preference than others. For example, because of the tendency of Thurston county voters to vote for incumbents in state offices regardless of party, the range for any
district containing Thurston county is likely to be wider than for the same district if Thurston county were excluded from it. In addition, there is a certain compression at the extremes. When a Democratic candidate runs extremely well in the state, his ability to perform as much better than usual in Seattle, for example, is limited by the fact that there is a much smaller pool of voters there for him among whom to experience that better performance. As a result, districts which always vote for the candidate of one party usually show the poorest performances compared to the state for the strongest candidates of the party they usually favor. The result is that the range of expected results is wider for such districts.
If the vote in the state is divided 54% for the Democratic candidate and 46% for the Republican candidate, and in the particular district being evaluated the vote was 57% for the Democratic candidate and 43% for the Republican candidate, the district, based on that single contest, would be described as 3D, or three percentage points more Democratic than the state. As additional contests are examined, the descriptor is adjusted and a range is added. The final descriptor might be 2D+/-2. This would mean that the central tendency of the district is to be two percentage points more Democratic than the state, and that in at least two-thirds of the cases the outcome will fall within two points of that, or within a range from 0 to 4 points more Democratic than the state.
On this basis, the descriptors for the current legislative districts (listed from estimated most Democratic to estimated most Republican), based upon the eleven statewide contests, are the following:
I have previously spoken to the commission about the bias toward the Republicans in that Democratic voters are more concentrated in certain parts of the state and, comparatively, Republicans are somewhat more evenly distributed. The results of this disparity in distribution of voters also shows up in the descriptor table above. Twenty-six districts are more Republican than the state, and 21 districts are more Democratic than the state. The other two districts vote about the same as the state. So, when the voters of the state are equally divided in terms of which party they want in control of the legislature, the districts appear to bias the outcome toward the Republicans to the extent of several
seats.
Within the framework of the constitutional disciplines on construction of districts, not much can be done about this.
The average 2010 population of districts represented by Democrat is about 133,000 while the average population of district represented by Republicans is about 143,000. This suggests that in redistricting, the rebalancing of populations in essence will involve adding populations from Republican districts to Democratic districts. This will presumably cause Republican districts to be at least as Republican as they are now, whereas Democratic districts on balance can be expected to be less Democratic.
And this brings us to the political tendencies of the legislative districts proposed in this plan.
It is interesting to compare the two tables, the descriptors of the current districts descriptors for the proposed districts. Most of the overall change occurs within the first columns of the two tables. On balance the sixteen most Democratic districts in the proposed plan are about one and a third points less Democratic than the sixteen most Democratic current districts. There is an almost imperceptible shift toward the Republicans in the second columns. Not surprisingly, the two districts which were neither more Republican nor more Democratic than the state are replaced by two districts more Republican than the state. But aside from this change, the shift in this column is actually in the Democratic direction. The most interesting thing about the districts in the two second columns is that the range is reduced from seven points in the current districts to five points in the proposed districts. In the third column, there is a shift of about a third of a point in the Republican direction. So this proposed plan accomplishes the necessary shift of Republican voters to Democratic districts largely in districts which are likely to be safely Democratic anyway. This largely dilutes the anticipated Republican advantage in legislative redistricting this time around.
In the eleven statewide partisan contests mentioned above, here is the number of victories for
with the the Democratic candidates in current and proposed districts.
Using the descriptors mentioned above, if one assumes, as I do, that the state's general tendency is to vote 54% for Democrats and 46% for Republicans, then the current plan has 29 districts more likely to vote Democratic, 19 more likely to vote Republican, and one district even (that is, 4R which when the assumed 8 point advantage for the Democrats is applied, the 4R resolves to 0). Under the proposed plan, the number of even districts rises from one to six, one of them coming from the Democrats and four of them from the Republicans.
Based on all of this, I believe that it is fair to conclude that any bias toward the Republican party in this plan is a function of the differential concentration of Democrats and Republicans in the state. In this respect, it does not differ from the current districts.
Now, to encouraging electoral competition.
This is less straightforward. There is not general agreement on the target of competitiveness. To me, the underlying issue is whether districts are composed in such a way that when a majority of the people want to change the control of a legislative body, evidenced by how they vote, such a change actually occurs.
I believe that electoral competition is always a good thing, regardless of how lopsided the outcomes may be, because it is through elections that legislators are held accountable. However, I am unwilling to switch the focus of competitieness away from the desirability of legislative control switching when the voters indicate that they want it to switch.
On the basis of my assumption on the state's Democratic tendency, as mentioned above, the number of even districts in the state rises from one under the current plan to six under the proposed plan. And to recall the earlier point about the narrowing of the range of entries in the second columns of the two descriptor tables, the narrowing of that range suggests that on balance the one third of the districts which fall between the two extremes, which are the districts in which legislative control will be decided, are more competitive on balance in the proposed plan than in the current one.
Another matter about which there is not agreement is what should be considered a competitive district. Some people use a range as narrow as 48%-52%. Others use a range as wide as 45%-55%. Using the narrow range and the 54% Democratic assumption, twelve of the current districts are competitive,. Under the proposed plan, this number would increase to fifteen. Using the wider range, 23 current districts would be considered competitive. And under the plan proposed in this submission, 24 districts would be considered competitive.
I am satisfied that the proposed plan does nothing to diminish the overall electoral competitiveness of Washington's legislative districts. If anything, it increases it slightly.
Another clause in the constitution requires that the plan adopted provide for fair and effective representation. This is a rather amorphous, subjective standard. How does one prove that one's plan satisfies it?
I believe that fair and effective representation is enhanced by providing districts which the average voter can recognize and relate to, can understand the commonality of. As I made clear in my discussion of the individual districts, each district is built around some easily understood objective, generally focused on a municipality and its school districts(s).
Supplementary comments.
This plan is similar to the introductory plan which I offered to the commissioners during the series of public forums, but it does have some significant differences. It has been informed by the comments made by participants in the forums and by questions and comments by commissioners.
Most of the world uses names rather than numbers for parliamentary constituencies. I believe it would be a move in a voter-friendly direction to use names for legislative districts rather than numbers. This would anchor each district to a recognizable place rather than to an anonymous number which few other than the highly politically aware can keep track of.
The district names I have used are in each case the name of the municipality providing the largest population within the proposed district. In the case of the one district which has no municipality, I used the name of the county and an indicator of its location within the county. In my electronic submission I have used three letter abbreviations for these names. A table is attached showing these codes.
This submission is compliant with the commission rule that census geography be used. However, in some situations using census geography will require the division of presently-existing precincts which would not otherwise have to be split. This is the result of post-census annexations. The new precinct boundaries resulting from the annexation do not match the precincts in the census geography. It would be better to split census blocks which are now split by a municipal boundary than to split the new precincts to exclude part of the municipality from the municipality's district for no
better reason than the timing of the annexation.
I am including with this submission tables which provide detailed population information for the proposed districts.
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