Number two in my series on redistricting is another Seattle-area LD with an open seat. Two of them, actually, thought one of these will assuredly be filled by the incumbent whose seat will be open in this election. Confused yet?  We’re talking, of course, about the 11th District.

NOTE: click on the “Show more...” link below to view the key that defines what the various colors and other symbols on the maps actually mean.

Location -- Tukwila, South Seattle, Renton, Kent
   Senate: Margarita Prentice (D), 2012, retiring
   House 1: Zack Hudgins (D)
   House 2: Bob Hasegawa (D), running for Senate

The 11th District is one of the most oddly-shaped LDs in the state, seeming to wrap around the southern shores of Lake Washington without ever actually reaching the lake itself. It’s an industrial and commercial district, thrusting into the port-oriented southwest portion of Seattle in addition to Tukwila, parts of Kent, and some of Renton. Under the 2001 Legislative District map, the bulk of its land area was in that Duwamish River portion of the 11th District. The LD reached almost to the center of Burien. Perhaps your imagination is better than mine, because I can’t think of a metaphor that describes the shape of 11th Legislative District. Its 2001 borders, at the scale of 1:80,000, are shown below:

Viewed by itself, the new version of the 11th LD doesn’t seem all that different from the 2001 map. It remains misshapen, so much so that it (like the 2001 version) might remind you of this infamous image from a Massachusetts newspaper cartoon:

Looking at the new 11th LD more carefully, though, we observe that it no longer reaches, or even approaches, Burien. Also, the district’s border has been “notched” to exclude central Renton, and the 11th extends quite a bit farther to the east than had the 2001 iteration of the Legislative District.

The bulk of the 11th District falls within the 9th Congressional District, and it contributes appreciably to the fiction that the new WA-09 is a majority-minority district. A small portion of the 11th, mostly warehouses between I-5 and SR-99, is in the 7th Congressional District. The suburban-to-rural easternmost part of the new 11th LD falls within WA-08.

When the 2001 and 2011 versions of the 11th Legislative District are superimposed on one another, the locational shift is readily apparent. Some of the changes are fairly small (a precinct here, a precinct there). The loss of Highline and Burien is easy to see, as is the large swath of suburbia, perhaps even exurbia, that is now part of the LD. Industrial grit meets tract houses and strip malls. 

Will these alterations in the boundaries of the district change its rock-solid Democratic status? In my opinion, the 11th is somewhat less liberal than it was in 2001, but that doesn’t mean a thing in terms of its representation in Olympia. The Senator and Representatives from the 11th Legislative District are guaranteed to be Democrats, in 2012 and into the foreseeable future.

While it is correct to say that Senator Prentice is retiring, I wonder whether she would have stayed on if she hadn’t been redistricted out of the 11th LD. One might almost suspect that the Renton “notch” I mentioned earlier was created so as to remove her from the district. Unlike Representative Kagi of the 32nd LD (who moved back into her district), Senator Prentice chose to retire rather than try to win office in her new LD, the 37th. Then again, the Senate seat in the 37th isn’t up in this election cycle, so unless she wanted to run for the House she would have had to sit out for a couple of years anyway. Might she unretire and take on Adam Kline in 2014? I have my doubts, as she would be 73 by then.

There’s no doubt that Bob Hasegawa will win the 11th LD Senate seat in November. Even with the addition of a lot of less-than-urban territory, this remains a solidly Democratic district. Hasegawa is well known as a leader in labor and social justice issues, fitting very well with the nature of the 11th. I would have called him a perfect fit if the 11th had retained its previous borders, but this isn’t quite the same district as before.  His opponent is a token Republican who didn’t even name the correct office on her C1 form (it says “State Representative").

Zack Hudgins briefly flirted with a run for Secretary of State this cycle, but decided against it a couple of months ago. So he’s running for reelecion to the House 1 seat. He’s opposed by a Democrat who got into the race when it looked like an open seat. Jim Flynn appears to be a serious candidate—his campaign treasurer is Phil Lloyd, whose other clients include Jim McDermott—but I don’t think Hudgins has all that much to worry about.

The big action in the 11th is in the House 2 seat, currently occupied by Hasegawa. Four Democrats are vying for the position, as well as a lone (irrelevant) Republican. All of the Dems have raised decent money so far; the one with the most name recognition, Port Commissioner Rob Holland, has taken in the least. Far ahead of the others, at nearly $250,000(!), is Bobby Virk. As I write this, only one Legislature candidate in the entire state (a self-funding Democrat running for the open Senate seat in the 27th LD) has taken in more money than Virk, who is definitely not trying to buy himself a place in Olympia. His personal contribution to his campaign is negligible.

Clearly, although there are nominally two open seats in the 11th Legislative District, one of those is already spoken for. In the House 2 position, I can’t imagine that Bobby Virk will finish third or lower in the primary. He has, after all, taken in more than three times what his opponents have ... combined. Who will join him on the general election ballot? I have no idea. Perhaps someone more familiar with the 11th Legislative District can edify my readers.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Happy 71st birthday, Bob!

Date of birth:  May 24, 1941
Place of birth:  Duluth, Minnesota
Name at birth:  Robert Allen Zimmerman

In case you somehow don’t know anything about the man born 71 years ago today, here’s an eight-minute profile:

For your listening pleasure, a few more videos (please excuse the brief ads on some of them).

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Better know the 46th Legislative District

In the first of many(?) posts in this series, I present pretty pictures and semi-informed analysis of the effects of redistricting on Washington’s 46th Legislative District.  You may be asking why I chose to start there, since I don’t live in the 46th.  My answer is in two parts:  1) there’s an open House seat to be won, and 2) the borders of the 46th are appreciably different from the previous version of the LD.

(Yes, of course the title is borrowed from Stephen Colbert)

Location -- North Seattle
   Senate: David Frockt (D), 2012 (special election for the remainder of the late Scott White’s term)
   House 1: Gerry Pollet (D)
   House 2: Phyllis Gutierrez-Kenney (D), retiring

Under the 2001 Legislative District map, the northern border of the 46th was the entire northern city line of Seattle, Puget Sound to Lake Washington.  It was one of three LDs completely contained within the city, joining the 36th and the 43rd.  Unlike those other Seattle-only LDs, which were also entirely within the 7th Congressional District, a small portion of the 46th was in the 2001 version of the 1st CD.  The 2001 borders of the 46th LD, at a 1:60,000 scale, are shown below:

For reference, the 2001 boundaries of LDs are the pink/purple region.  Major bodies of water are blue, major roads (state or federal highways, for the most part) are red lines, counties are named in ALL-CAPS ITALICS and delineated with heavy black lines, precincts are lighter black lines, and cities are displayed as blue “dot in square” symbols and name labels.  These color conventions will be used throughout this series, and additional conventions will be described as we display them on maps.

The 2001 version of the 46th LD, then, consisted of northern and northeastern Seattle.  In the new 2011 map, the 46th breaks out of Seattle, generally moving to the northeast of its previous location.  It loses its former western portion to the 36th and 32nd Districts; the latter LD regains some of the Seattle precincts it had had in 1991.  The 46th’s border with the 43rd is slightly changed, and it takes its new non-Seattle section largely from the old 32nd.  In the following map of the new 46th, the LD is shaded in green.  This map also shows the boundaries of the 2011 Congressional Districts, marked in thick dashed blue lines and labeled as “WA-x“. 

Note also that all maps in this post cover exactly the same area, at the same scale (1:60,000 for the 46th LD).  The only differences are in the “layers” placed on the map.

As in the 2001 map, the 46th is mostly in the 7th CD, with a portion in the 1st (though of course it’s an appreciably different CD than the old 1st Congressional District).  The 46th now extends up and around the northern end of Lake Washington.  The King-Snohomish county boundary now defines the northern border of the LD and the southern border of the 2nd CD.  None of the new 46th Legislative District is in the new 2nd Congressional District.

Now that we’ve seen the old and new borders of the 46th, let’s superimpose them on one another.  That will more clearly display where and how the boundaries of the LD have changed.  In the map below, the colors of the earlier maps are retained where there is no overlap.  Territory that is no longer in the 46th Legislative District remains pink/purple, and areas newly encompassed by the 46th remain green.  Areas within both the 2001 and 2011 versions of the LD are displayed as a brown region.

So how will these changes affect this year’s elections in the 46th?  Let’s make it clear from the start—there’s no chance whatsoever that a Republican will win any of the LD’s seats in the Legislature.  Lake Forest Park and Kenmore are just as Democratic as Broadview and the northwest corner of Seattle.  Although two of the three seats have incumbents, neither Frockt nor Pollet was elected to his current position.  Frockt did stand for election to the House 1 seat before being elevated to the Senate after Scott White’s untimely death, but Pollet is in the House based only on the votes of PCOs (in the old 46th).  The principal factor to be considered by the candidates, then, is making themselves known to their new non-Seattle constituents.  I would suggest that those candidates whose political bases are rooted primarily in the 46th District Democrats organization might be at something of a disadvantage against those who are better known “publicly”.

In the race for the open House 2 seat, the action will likely unfold in both the primary and the general election.  It’s possible, however, that the crowd of Democratic candidates might divide the primary vote so evenly that the Republican (yes, there is one) could sneak into one of the two November slots.  That would make it less bloody in the general, as the surviving Dem would be a sure thing if facing a Republican, but I doubt that any of the Democrats are working under that assumption.

What might have been a wildcard thrown into the mix—a candidate living in the new non-Seattle portion of the 46th—appears to have been circumvented.  The Lake Forest Park home of Representative Ruth Kagi (D-32) was redistricted into the 46th, but she has already stated that she will move into the reconfigured 32nd LD and run for re-election there.

The candidate filing deadline is coming up fast (May 18), and at the moment Senator Frockt is running unopposed.  Representative Pollet has drawn one well-funded Democratic opponent thus far, though the choice of which seat a candidate might run for is still fluid.  Also, there’s nominally still time for a non-Seattle candidate to throw his/her hat in the ring, though it doesn’t seem likely.

Open seats in Legislative Districts almost always draw large packs of aspiring candidates.  Significant alterations in district boundaries, as in the 46th (and the 11th, but not 36th), add even more spice to the competition.

Monday, April 30, 2012

State-level redistricting (a new series...)

Over the last few months, I’ve written at length—some might say ad nauseum—about Washington’s redistricting process based on the 2010 Census, here and/or at HorsesAss.org:

• A report on minority-majority Congressional Districts and why it’s absurd to try to construct one here.  (The Redistricting Commission didn’t listen to me.)
• On the mechanics and mathematics of Congressional reapportionment and how Washington earned its 10th Congressional District.
• A “breaking” story just before the release of the nearly-final CD maps.
• A few days after the last of those, upon further review of the newly-drawn map, a more reflective piece on the outcome of Congressional redistricting in Washington.

My conclusion in the last of those posts: Skeletor won the battle with Tim Ceis, and it wasn’t even close. 

Nearly everything in the above-referenced posts concerned Congressional redistricting.  Which makes sense, I suppose.  Changing the number of districts is always exciting, though of course it’s even more exciting (and much, much bloodier) in states that lose Congressional Districts.  You can check with Dennis Kucinich on that.  For the record, Washington has never experienced CD subtraction.

But redistricting affects far more than Congress.  Many other jurisdictional boundaries have to be changed to account for changing demographics, from school board districts to County Council and beyond.  If Seattle elected City Council by district (as it should, IMHO), those borders would have to be redrawn too.  With one exception, those lower-level maps are drawn by lower-level governments.

The exception, of course, is the map of Legislative Districts, also drawn by the Redistricting Commission.  While the number of LDs in Washington is constitutionally set at 49, their boundaries must be redrawn to take into account population trends over the 10 years since the last Census.  LDs that had nearly identical populations in 2000 are no longer equal, and the Commission is mandated to reconstruct the legislative map to reflect those demographic trends.

The Commission had to account for more than just the statewide 14.1% increase.  Had every LD added 16,948 residents (average LD population was 120,288 after the 2000 Census and would be 137,236 under this redistricting), we could have kept the old boundaries.  But of course, that isn’t what happened.  The population of the old 2nd LD increased by 43,337 (36.0%), while the 28th actually lost 754 residents (-0.6%).

I won’t go into the extended process by which the Commission eventually settled on the new map, except to note that it took them until 10:35pm (85 minutes before their deadline) on January 1, 2012 to convey their agreed-upon map to the Legislature.  Instead, I thought it might be interesting to examine the changes in LD boundaries.  Data geek, and map geek, that I am, I’ve done exactly that—creating maps showing each LD’s old boundaries, its new boundaries, and the two superimposed on each other.

The results of (some of?) my handiwork has already appeared on HA, and is being cross-posted here.  The questions I pose to myself—and to my colleagues at HA, and to the very few readers of Peace Tree Farm—are:

1. Do I report on the LDs one-by-one or in groups?
2. Can I report on every single one of the 49 LDs without boring y’all to death?
3. How ever we decide to do the reports, in what order should they be revealed?

So, if you haven’t nodded off in boredom are drooling in breathless anticipation, stay tuned.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Winds for Hope

Yesterday marked the passage of exactly one year since the horrific earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  Billions of dollars of destruction, tens of thousands dead or vanished ... to say nothing of a slow-motion Chernobyl-esque nuclear disaster that remains unresolved.

The disaster was felt deeply here in Seattle.  Our Japanese community is large and active.  On top of that, we live in a region—the Cascadia subduction zone—that is highly susceptible to the same sort of devastating geological calamity that befell Japan.

To honor the anniversary, I attended last night’s Winds for Hope benefit at Benaroya Hall.  The primary purpose of the event was raising money to replace musical instruments lost, damaged, or destroyed on that day.  We were treated to well over three hours of exciting classical and jazz performances by a wide variety of local and national artists.

As part of the event, we were treated to the video of A Song for Japan, a composition for the trombone that has been recorded by virtuosos around the world.  The project is very much in the tradition of Playing for Change, which brought smiles to many a face with their multi-artist international recording of Ben E. King’s 1961 masterpiece Stand By Me. 

For your viewing pleasure, here’s a version of the video that I found on YouTube:

Last night’s concert was sponsored by the Japan-America Society of the State of WA.  Although the benefit concert is now in the past, the need for assistance in the wake of the disaster remains.  So I’m certain the JASSW would be more than happy to accept whatever you can contribute to their efforts.  I’ve made a donation myself, and so too can my readers by clicking here.