Blake Esselstyn, fka districks

Full-on #redistricting season has arrived. My docket is very full, and so my presence on Twitter will be very limited until at least Halloween. #FairMaps

@chriscooperwcu Pretty sure that Flynt's magazine was Hustler. Penthouse's publisher was Bob Guccione. No further comment. =)

Letter demanding that Larry Flynt stop sending him free copies of Penthouse (“your magazine”)

Fun (if nerdy) morning digging into the Jamie Clarke (former #nc11 rep) archives at @WWCasheville. A few fun finds in the following 🧵

3/3 Also, fwiw, @felt (the platform I used for the interactive map) makes it insanely easy to create a map like this.

2/3 I could only find shapefiles for the proposed State House and State Senate plans. If shapefiles for the proposed Congressional plans are online somewhere, please let me know the URL and I'll share them.

1/3 I'm on another continent and am on vacation, but I learned that the #NCGA hadn't posted interactive maps for the proposed #redistricting plans. Here's a map that will let you zoom in, pan around, etc. to inspect. #NCPol #FairMaps. felt.com/map/Proposed-N…

#FairMaps #NCPol #NCGA

@LaurenLeatherby Great visualizations!

My latest: For decades, the world’s dominant powers have benefited from large working-age populations. Those countries are now rapidly aging. Meanwhile, many low-income countries will enter a demographic sweet spot. Can they take advantage? nytimes.com/interactive/20…

@mcpli Indeed interesting. Source?

Love this very handy map of the Appalachians, with all the ranges and valleys labelled. (And you definitely why the Mohawk Valley was so strategically important to the British as the one place that cuts through the mountains & offers a clear pathway to the Great Lakes.)

@mcpli (Though F and C are indeed close to each other on the keyboard.)

@mcpli Typo in final word? Wouldn't surprise me if it was auto-correct. =)

Today’s opinion in Moore v. Harper is a huge win for democracy. A ruling the other way would have done huge damage. But not to be lost is that NC courts themselves have done damage by reversing course & saying they will no longer enforce limits on partisan gerrymandering.

🚨🚨🚨BREAKING: SCOTUS in 5-4 opinion by Chief Justice Roberts upholds ruling that Alabama must redraw congressional map to create second Black district. Opinion here: supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf…

@chriscooperwcu I might argue that this piece of the thread is substantive! 🗺️🤓

Next time I hear an academic complain that it used to be "so easy" to get published, I'm going to send them this map that Fleer made by hand, along with the correspondence he had to send to get the data behind the map.

Spent some time at @zsrspecial w/ Jack Fleer's papers yesterday and learned a lot about #ncpol & NC political history. More to follow another day on the substantive stuff. But here are some fun, frivolous finds. Buyer beware: there is nothing substantive to be learned in this🧵

A new proposal for collecting race and ethnicity data on federal surveys (including the Census) just dropped. Public comments are open for 75 days federalregister.gov/documents/2023…

@RedistrictNet One might argue that the wording of the question could lead to "no" responses from people who didn't pursue an American politics or political science degree. E.g., a math major who didn't study redistricting could have thought it was appropriate to respond in the negative.

This is alarming 😱🗺️

Redistricting fight over who is Black in Louisiana voting map : NPR npr.org/2022/10/18/112…

@amyvanessa @GovHowardDean Up my alley indeed! Thanks, Amy!

@GovHowardDean @districks up your alley?

@Chris_T_Kenny Got it. Thanks for the speedy reply (and the GitHub options)!

@districks As far as I know, the only official release is at: census.gov/programs-surve…

R package {cvap} 0.0.4 is now updated with some small changes to download, process, and load 2020 data. christophertkenny.com/cvap/ Pre-processed data to accelerate this on a state-by-state basis also updated: github.com/christopherken…

Good news: The newest version of the QGIS Redistricting Plugin is now in the QGIS plugin repository, featuring a number of bug fixes

@PlanScore NC's plan actually has 14 seats. =)

Two notably well-balanced US Congressional district plans have entered the chat. North Carolina’s court-ordered 13 seats with an efficiency gap of just 1.4%: planscore.campaignlegal.org/plan.html?2022… Pennsylvania’s 17 seats with a tiny 1.8% EG: planscore.campaignlegal.org/plan.html?2022…

Breaking-but-expected: Gov. Cooper vetoes the bill that would have moved the 2022 primary elections back from May to June Don't fill in your calendars in pen just yet, though. The Supreme Court could still change the election date (again) #ncpol #ncga newsobserver.com/news/politics-…