Redrawing the Pennsylvania Congressional Districts

[RBH]

The first 14 districts have 646371 people. The last 5 have 646372.

Divided counties are bolded

District 1 (Brady):
Philadelphia County

District 2 (Fattah):
Philadelphia County

District 3 (Schwartz):
Montgomery [421563]
Philadelphia County [224808]

District 4 (Open):
Montgomery [328534]
Berks [317837]

District 5 (Holden/Dent):
Lehigh [261105]
Schuylkill [150336]
Lebanon [120327]
Carbon [58802]
Berks [55801]

District 6 (Weldon):
Delaware [550864]
Chester [95507]

District 7 (Gerlach/Pitts):
Chester [337994]
Lancaster [308377]

District 8 (Fitzpatrick):
Bucks [597632]
Northampton [48739]

District 9 (Kanjorski):
Luzerne [319250]
Lackawanna [213295]
Columbia [64151]
Monroe [49675]

District 10 (Sherwood):
Northampton [218330]
Monroe [89012]
Bradford [62791]
Lycoming [54385]
Lehigh [50985]
Wayne [47722]
Pike [46302]
Wyoming [28080]
Susquehanna [42238]
Sullivan [6556]

District 11 (Shuster):
Centre [135758]
Blair [129144]
Franklin [93761]
Mifflin [46486]
Huntingdon [45586]
Union [41624]
Bedford [41670]
Clinton [37914]
Snyder [37546]
Juniata [22821]
Fulton [14261]

District 12 (Murtha):
Westmoreland [173210]
Cambria [152598]
Fayette [148644]
Clearfield [83382]
Somerset [80023]
Bedford [8514]

District 13 (Platts):
York [381751]
Lancaster [162281]
Adams [47226]
Franklin [35552]
Dauphin [19561]

District 14 (Open):
Dauphin [232237]
Cumberland [213674]
Northumberland [94556]
Adams [44066]
Perry [43602]
Montour [18236]

District 15 (Open):
Washington [202897]
Westmoreland [196783]
Beaver [141186]
Butler [64834]
Greene [40672]

District 16 (Peterson):
Butler [98171]
Indiana [89605]
Armstrong [72392]
Lycoming [65659]
Venango [57565]
McKean [45936]
Jefferson [45932]
Clarion [41765]
Tioga [41373]
Elk [35112]
Warren [23862]
Potter [18080]
Cameron [5974]
Forest [4946]

District 17 (English):
Erie [280843]
Mercer [120293]
Lawrence [94643]
Crawford [90366]
Beaver [40226]
Warren [20001]

District 18 (Hart/Murphy):
Alleghany [635294]
Butler [11078]

District 19 (Doyle):
Alleghany

Here's a small map of what this would involve.



Divided counties have a dot. Alleghany and Philadelphia are in gray.

And I didn't divide 2/3rds of the counties, like the current map does.

Any thoughts?

[Jake]

The above is estimated of course, but shows why splitting as few counties as possible is bad. You end up with Sherwood's monstrosity stretching from the northern tier into the lower Lehigh Valley as well as other "undesirable" districts. (Yellow-Pittsburgh; Green-Pittsburgh). Democrats would win 1, 2, 3, 9, 12, and 19. Republicans would win 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, and 17. Tossups would be 4 (Lean Dem), 5 (Pure Tossup), 6 (Lean GOP), and 18 (Lean GOP).

[RBH]

Yeah, it might be possible to cut down the length of Sherwood's district, but it would require splitting some of Kanjorski's counties. Sherwood did represent Scranton until 2003. So there might be a way to flip Lackawanna county to Sherwood and flip 213K other people from Sherwood's district to Kanjorski's district.

And the map for 1993-2003 also had a lot of bizarre districts.

[muon2]

I also worked on PA last summer. I used a 0.5% maximum deviation with the census 2000 numbers.

In NE PA I avoided any county splits and kept it somewhat more compact. The Scranton CD had Bradford, Carbon, Lackawanna, Monroe, Pike, Sullivan Susquehanna, Wayne, and Wyoming with 644,443 or 0.3% low. The Wilkes-Barre CD had Columbia, Luzerne, Montour, Northumberland, and Schuylkill with 646,529 or 0.02% high.

If I would have kept Scranton and Wilkes-Barre together I would make a CD with Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne, and Wayne. This puts Pike and Monroe with Northampton and part of Lehigh, and the other counties with districts to the west.