Is America A Natural GOP Gerrymander?

[angus]

As an aside, I wish you Americans would name your districts. Do you know how bloody annoying it is to hear TX-3 or whatever and have to look it up on a map every time? Just call it Dallas-East or something

Why in the world would anyone do that?  That's just silly, and it certainly isn't an improvement.

A two-letter abbreviation with a hyphen and a number is perfectly sensible, and it's so little to type in the search engine when you want to look it up. 

[angus]

Angus that's precisely the problem. I have to look up a district every time it's referenced and it does take time. I just don't have to do that when discussing Canadian or British districts.

Really, you don't have to look up stuff when you hear "Clackmannanshire:  16560 yes votes, 19036 no votes" and the like?  I think most of us do.

As an experiment I just typed in Clackmannanshire in the Google search field.  The first hit was a Wikipedia article.  The second was the Clackmannanshire Council web page.  The third was some sort of archival stuff.  Etc., etc.  Then I clicked on the news tab, leaving the search field alone.  The first hit was "Scottish independence: Clackmannanshire first to declare."  Linking to that article gave me some numbers, but no other information.

Now, let's type TX-3 in the search bar.  Not much better.  Here the first hit is a pair of shoes made by Puma.  The second is a cooling fan for a central processing unit, the Cooler Master Hyper TX3.  If I instead type "house district TX-3" I get a Wikipedia article as the first hit, but the second is a direct link to Sam Johnson's web page. 

Yeah, okay, I'm convinced that TX-3 is no better than Clackmannanshire, but it seems no worse.  I guess it's whatever you're used to, and I'm used to the XX-nn notation, so it seems normal.   

[angus]

When I type "PA-6" in the google search engine, I become very educated about DuPont's Zytel High-Performance Nylon, a polycaprolactam otherwise known as Zytel PA6^®.

"PA-16" teaches me about the Piper PA-16 Clipper, an extended fuselage propeller airplane, modeled more or less after the PA-15 Vagabond.  (Of course, a quick search using "PA-15" will teach you all about that model.)

In honor of this turn of events, I propose that we rename my congressional district, formerly known as PA-16, to the more user-friendly "Lancsterberks" after the three counties it passes through (Lancaster, Chester, and Berks).  Note that it does not contain all of these three counties, but only part of them.  However, it is the only congressional district in pennsylvania that contains at least part of these three counties and no others, so the name will be unabiguous.  (For example PA-7, or should I say, the district formerly known as PA-7, contains parts of these three counties, but also contains parts of Delaware and Montgomery counties, so it might be known as "Lancsterberks Delmont."  Ah, this is easy.

Alternatively, we could rename them from the more offensive XX-nn system to the less offensive Representative Name system.  Mine would be called Pitts, after congressman Joe Pitts.  Given that incumbents are so safe in these districts, they would not have to be renamed often.  Certainly Pitts could have kept its name for 20 years, although given that the old boy is 75 years old, we might have to come up with a new name soon.

As another alternative, we could use the shape system.  PA-16 is shaped like this:



I'd call that district "Screaming Man with Bird Perched on his Lip and Firecracker on his Forehead"

Of course, that is only easy with regularly-shaped, not terribly Gerried districts like this one.  What could we come up with for the name of the neighboring district, formerly known as PA-7?

[angus]

Not bad.  Now that you mention it, I see a guy (philly west) putting a foot against a person in front of her, a Geisha, presumably to tighten her corset.   Philly west has the hands behind the back and is about to grab the strings of the corset, and is screaming at the Geisha, "Suck in stomacho.  Tomodachi San not accept you in this condition.  Hai!"  Philly west also has some weird pony tails flying up in the air, like Pluto ears.  (I mean Pluto the dog, not the planet.)

[angus]

PA-16 should be "Reading & Lower Susquehanna Valley East".  

I think you have made the point very well with that post.  Let's just stick with PA16.  

Man, what a gerried set of districts.  I'm assuming that Reading was attached to PA16 because it absorbs the 'hood but not so much that it makes Pitts vulnerable.  The Horse'n'Buggy country in Eastern LanCo is detached from the rest because it is reliably Republican and can attached to Bullwinkle (suburban Philly) in order to make PA7 safe GOP.  (Old Order Amish are apolitical and don't vote, but the goyyim who live among them have been reliably Republican since at least 1860.)  As for PA6, it incorporates quite a bit of Horse'n'Buggy country as well as the White Flight areas outside Reading proper so it is naturally Republican.  It might not be if Reading were included, so that's probably why Reading was put in PA16 instead.

One big clusterfuck guaranteeing at least three safe R seats for congress.  That's what I call progress.

[angus]

Getting back to the original thread question, a "fair" map is an impossibility...

Isn't it?

http://www.vox.com/2014/5/8/5695350/this-is-what-america-would-look-like-without-gerrymandering

[angus]

I noticed that the spline ignored populated areas.  I think there are advantages and disadvantages in doing that, but I liked the commission route as well.  muon's suggestion about crowdsourcing is intriguing, but it has the disadvantage of potentially making itself for sale to the highest bidder, whereas a commission of highly-vetted, thoughtful people might be less susceptible to marketing.

[angus]

Ha.  Ye of goode faith.  I hope that it would work out so well, owing to netizens and bored scientists.

Of course the state lege would have to go for it.  What would be the odds of getting your colleagues in the state assembly to go along with such a plan?

[angus]

This is my district and I had absolutely no clue how gerrymandered this was. What an utter embarrassment. I would've figured at least everything south of the Main Line would be part of this district (namely Paoli/Malvern) and probably expected up northward to the PA Turnpike. Here I was complaining for months about how my state assembly district was gerrymandered because Freshman year I was one of three dorms put in a Solid Democratic district before finally switching into the Solid Republican district this year. Didn't even think the US reps from PA were this bad. Should've known since there are never any tight races in this state. This and Fitzpatrick's district up near Bucks County are two of the most competitive in the state!! Should've realized the gerrymander wasn't completely natural, but I figured it was reasonable to have slightly Republican districts just outside of 99% D Philly (especially in Delaware County moreso than Montgomery and Bucks). Boy, this is disheartening.

I'm glad you're feeling it.  You're tomorrow's state senator, or at least tomorrow's voter.  Make it change.