US House Redistricting: Pennsylvania

[Torie]

I still don't understand this fixation of keeping Bucks all in one CD. Whatever.

[Torie]

It's best for Fitzpatrick. He won Bucks even in 2006.

OK, but it is just so convenient to put some of the heavily Dem lower Bucks precincts into PA-13.

[Torie]

Well, in general, the maps drawn this year, have not been driven by individual egos that much. But you know the local culture and I don't. If Bucks is split however, I will avoid tweaking you about it. Yes I will. When is the f'ing CD map going to come out, so that we can find out? 

[Torie]

New reports that the GOP is gunning for Schwartz again by putting her in a heavily black district and putting Brady in a (mostly) white district.

http://www.politicspa.com/redistricting-watch-schwartz-v-fattah/29153/

Makes sense as Schwartz is a dynamite fundraiser and has some statewide appeal.

Yes, but as the article says, the other CD will be Dem, and Schwartz will probably just move there. There need to be 3, not 2, Dem sink CD's in the Philly area, if all the Pubbie incumbents are to be made reasonably safe, and even then it is a close call. So they are just toying with her by excising  heavily Jewish Abbington from her CD and dumping it into the black Fatah CD is all. Kind of spiteful really.

[Torie]

The GOP has another reason to want to keep Bucks together: Fitzpatrick has enough of a personal vote to thereotically neutralize Lower Bucks, if it was put into PA-13 it'd also be neutralized yes, but this would free some other territory in PA-13 that the GOP would probably prefer going there. PA-13 alone isn't enough to take in all the Democratic parts of Montco so they'd get shed elsewhere.

And that makes me wonder why they'd want to remove the Philly portion of PA-08, it only voted for Obama by a point (50-49) and really isn't the type of area you'd want to put into a Dem pack seat. Similarly moving into the Lehigh Valley means taking away some of the more conservative parts of PA-15, not sure what they're planning but it looks like another potential dummymander if all of this is true. The GOP clearly didn't know what they were doing in some areas in 2002 as evidenced by the fact that Montco sliver was put into PA-08 at all (seriously, what the hell is the point of that?)

Excellent analysis BRTD, particularly if Gerlach is not going to hang around in the House for another decade. The only thing is that only by appending to PA-08 the most GOP parts of Montco, or some of that and about just 5 or 6 selected precincts in Philly, can a PA-08 which takes in all of Bucks be moved to an even PVI.  Just doing Philly as is will move PA-08 to about a +1% Dem PVI.

The existing Montco sliver in PA-08 is heavily Dem, and was put there, to try to make PA-13 within reach of the Pubbies. Yes, it was a dummymander.

[Torie]

I have already read it Phil.

[Torie]

Yup, Reading was cut into three or so pieces in 2000. Since they might create part of a D-leaning district if they were made whole, they're cut up and only serve to make Republican districts slightly less Republican.

We really need a nonpartisan redistricting commission a la Arizona or Florida.

AZ isn't looking so nonpartisan this year.

Yes, but AZ is a hell of a lot of fun this year isn't it? 

[Torie]

Rumors of a leaked map showing Holden getting Scranton but not Wilkes-Barre (!)

http://citizensvoice.com/news/reapportionment-effort-favors-barletta-marino-1.1234491

Hardly surprising what they did with the Holden district. It is the only way to keep all the Pubbie incumbents reasonably secure. Wilkes-Barre is far less toxic than Scranton to a Pubbie. It can rather easily be neutralized. My map does not put WB in Holden's CD either. His CD had more pressing Dem nodes to suck up. 

[Torie]

Holden's CD if drawn that way will be safe Dem by design, and he will need to tack left or run the risk of being primaried.  It would be a pity if the Pubs didn't chop Schuylkill.  It has some prime GOP territory in it outside the Dem zone Holden lives in. It just begs to be chopped.

[Torie]

It's just the kind of thing redistricters shy away from for no really good reason unless there's no alternative, somehow.

True, but the partisan numbers are tight up there in NE PA. Pubs need to be imported in from the west as it were, to get out of the danger zone.

[Torie]

NePa Fajita!

Ah, they did split Schuylkill County. Good job boys. PA-10 seems short 90,000 folks, nowhere to be found, since other than in Cumberland, the perimeter of the 3 CD's is just county lines (maybe PA-10 goes farther west and the map is just in error on that), but here are the partisan data.

[Torie]

Schuylkill is mostly lucrative for the GOP except for the north central portion.




The county is nicely suited for a trichop, which is exactly what I did in my map. Heck, it could even be a quad chop, as neighboring CD's bite off Pubbie portions from all directions, leaving Holden in his little Dem lair all by himself.

[Torie]

What's so terrible with a compact map which more accurately represents counties and regions, and doesn't split major cities in between large GOP strongholds?

Oh yeah, that would show off PA's Democratic lean. Let's not be fair.

Like this?  

[Torie]

You live on the Bucks County border now Phil?  I know your precinct (maybe previous precinct now), remember?  

You know all this gerrymandering business does not get the GOP a lot surprisingly. In this meticulously non partisan map, the GOP will drop PA-07 and PA-11 (probably), but Dent will easily hold PA-15 with a Dem PVI of about 2.5%, Holden's PA-17 CD has a GOP PVI of about 4%, so that is a pickup someday probably, and Atmire's PA-04 goes up about 30 basis points in its GOP PVI.  Gerlach in PA-06 has a Dem PVI of about 3%, which he would hold. PA-08 is dead even in its PVI.

[Torie]

Some parts of your map are not that clever, Torie. There's no excuse but gerrymandering for putting Cheltenham in PA-02, for example, as to put more of Philly in PA-02, more of NE Philly in PA-01 and Cheltenham in PA-13 (1) increases the black % in PA-02 (2) avoids an unnecessary county split and (3) looks visually neater.

I don't see any reason for Darby and Tinicum to be in PA-01 instead of more of NE Philly, either; not sure how that affects county-splitting, though.

Yes, but that is the existing line, and Cheltenham is heavily black, and I think a court would leave it as is. If it is a gerrymander, it serves no partisan purpose whatsoever, so it would be an odd one. PA-02 is 58.5% black VAP by the way, which is plenty.  Your suggestion would actually reduce its black percentage in all probability. Darby and Tinicum are in PA-07.  PA-01 has none of Delaware County now except for the airport precinct. The rest of it is entirely in the city of Philly.

[Torie]

Great map Muon2.

[Torie]

Based on the maps of Muon2 and sbane in part, here is another iteration of a non partisan plan which I suspect will be hard to criticize much.  And just as the Philly metro CD's PA 01, 02, 06, 07, 08 and 16 all almost perfectly fit within a cohort of counties, so too, PA-03, 04, 14 and 18 similarly fit in a series of counties on the western side of the state as it happens, in both instances with less than a one precinct error.

[Torie]

You guys seem now to be going for county splits to give the Dems a few odd extra basis points. The alternative to the way I drew PA-17 are worse. Dauphin has to go somewhere. I thought about it. So, I don't find any of it compelling. The split in Lackawanna by the way involves next to no people. It's irrelevant, and done for compactness reasons. Three precincts are involved. Whatever.  

What will actually come down will make my map seem like a wet dream to you anyway. I think this is the map God would draw. So that is that. Cheers.

The thing is, is that it seems absent a Dem gerry, the natural flow is not all that different from a GOP gerry. Interesting.

Finally, I might add, that this redistricting process is so emotional, so much is at stake, it's so partisan, and based on my experience on this very site, and the comments, objectivity is almost impossible to achieve. There are just too many semi plausible cover stories to doing anything, that one one has a lot of plausible deniability to just being a partisan hack, so one is just so tempted.  Very few have the personal discipline to just say no. Sobering. It has actually influenced me in how I might structure a redistricting mechanism. Finding an objective panel is laughable. There is no such thing. Even here, we seem to mostly revert to matter how hard we try, to partisan games, sometimes disingenuously.

[Torie]

Well the point is to get the cities of York and Lancaster together along with Reading and the Democratic territory around it, and I tacked on Pottstown and the area just south of it for also nearby Democratic votes. It's a 56% Obama district drawn entirely out of areas currently represented by Republicans.

[Torie]

Word is the idea of combining Fattah and Schwartz (or Brady and Fattah which seemed to be dismissed awhile ago anyway) is off the table. Schwartz will pick up Lower Merion and I guess keep her parts of NE Philly (though probably giving up a few areas to Brady and/or Fattah). As expected, Fitz is going to lose his parts of the Northeast. Gone are my very slim hopes of somehow being drawn into the district that is only across the street from me.  


http://www.politicspa.com/insider-redistricting-nirvana-via-capitolwire/29808/

Combining the prior leaked map of PA-17, something like this perhaps for SE PA?   The partisan numbers of this map reasonably "work" for the Pubbies, and the PA-17 box car shape in turn boxes in the shape of PA-16; thus the map.

[Torie]

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Wow.  Just wow.  I guess that's what it takes to keep the 7th securely Republican.  I wonder what Pitts will think?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I still don't think this is as much as what Flyers' likes to make out of the 16th but it sure makes things more interesting.

Should be an awesome map if they keep Kennett Square in the 16th and move the 17th into Lancaster.

I can't believe that will happen. Pitts will have to relocate. Otherwise the map will be a series of ludicrous snakes. Rumor had it that Pitts was bitching about the map from day one anyway. Maybe this has something to do with it. He should retire actually. He's a aging back bencher nebbish.

[Torie]

We shall see how close the Monday map is to the one below.

[Torie]

Lewis  my man, what you suggest makes PA-16 and PA-05 way too marginal. I don't get the Erie split at all. PA-05 can't take that hit and keep Centre County (Thompson's home county) as well. The way I drew PA-03 moots the need to split Erie.  It is 50.2% McCain, with a GOP PVI of 4.4%. Even though PA-04 continues to hold those Dem precincts at its northern end to help out PA-03 (I actually added 3 more Dem precincts to it up there), it is 55.5% McCain. There are no juicy Dem precincts for PA-14 to pick up farther south, so why should it go there?  I scrubbed the area thoroughly. PA-14 goes where the Dems are, and it would be a sin if any of its precincts were less than 55% Obama, absent some good reason.

PA-16 needs to suck up all of Reading, and that means it needs to lose some toxic precincts in Lancaster City. The rumor of the shape of PA-17 really cuts down the options, for a map that makes any partisan sense. Its shape forces PA-09 in "those two western counties."  So yes, I followed some rumors, and dumped others. One of the rumors had PA-10 90,000 short in population for example.

The Pubbie incumbents all live in their districts except for Pitts in PA-16. To accommodate him would make the map horrific looking - just awful. Can you imagine PA-16 going from Kennett Square in Chester all the way to Reading, avoiding some of Lancaster City, with PA-07 taking a chunk of central Lancaster County? PA-16 would end up with a one precinct wide corridor to get from south Lancaster to north Lancaster in-between Lancaster City and the PA-07 prong into Lancaster.  Oh dear! It is time to just say no to that.

[Torie]

Lewis, I followed the rumor that all of Greene and Fayette would be placed in PA-12, and it actually makes some partisan sense to do so. As it is, PA-14 has very few sub 55% Obama precincts. The rumor is that it is going up the river into Beaver County, rather than south. That is what I did.

PA-03 is currently at 3.7% GOP PVI, and is now at a 4.6% GOP PVI, so it went up almost a full point. It is pretty close to being out of reach of the Dems now. Erie County trended Dem in 2008, unlike most of Western PA by the way.

I put up my partisan matrix chart for my Pubbie guesstimate map above, in case anyone is interested. It will be interesting to compare the numbers with the actual Pubbie map. Are the Pubbies going to get more aggressive than the rumors and the amount of jurisdictional boundary respect that I hewed to get more of an advantage or not? Will PA-17 crack into Northhampton County to grab Easton per one of the rumors to get the Pubbie numbers up in PA-15 (with PA-16 in turn having to crack into suburban Dauphin County), which per my map may be a bit of a challenge for any Pubbie  other than Dent to hold?  (That is an obvious fix if the rumor map is false, and the Pubs are willing to trash jurisdictional boundaries some more.) Or will ego based politics cause a Pubbie erosion of the numbers? We shall see.

[Torie]

Here is the Easton "fix," which moves 1.6 Pubbie points from PA-17 to PA-15.  One would think the GOP would be sorely tempted to do this. We shall see.





And here is the Erie split overlay on top of the Easton excision. PA-03 adds 90 Pubbie basis points, PA-18 loses 30 Pubbie basis points, PA-05 10 basis points, and PA-10 40 basis points. PA-04 (by design) stays the same (actually it goes more Pubbie by 10 basis points because I found a 56% McCain precinct in a town already split in PA-14, and "corrected" that in exchange for a 56% Obama precinct in PA-04 in Mt. Lebanon, a town that I had already chopped the heck out of since its partisan variations are so relatively extreme).