2020 Redistricting in Pennsylvania

[Sol]

Pretty easy overrule even from a non partisan perspective. The GOP was greedy, they can't go after Wild and try to give Meuser a better seat against Cartwright.

Even a district like the current one leaves Wild very vulnerable.

Of course, but I meant they wanted to give her a tossup instead of a Lean D while at the same time moving Cartwright drastically to the right. I wonder what the PA court will do. Probably safer to give her a tossup and give Cartwright a Trump +3 instead of 8 seat and then they have more cover to shore up Lamb's seat as the map is still relatively proportional while not really hurting Democrats in the short run atleast as Democrats overall are split on what to do with Cartwright/Wild.

Wouldn’t Dems be better off giving Wild a lean D seat while sacrificing Cartwright (make his seat something like Trump + 12 or so)?

Democrats are clearly split on what to do based on all the Democratic plaintiff maps so the PASC . I would say they would be better off protecting Wild but it isn't certain and the overall penalty wouldn't be too great.

It's also hard to clearly shore up one or the other without kind of getting ugly.

[palandio]

Exactly. If you want to go for clean maps, then there are essentially two possibilities:

1) Wild gets Stroudsburg. Then the 2020 numbers are:
Wild: ca. Biden +5
Cartwright: Trump +7.5 (up to Trump +10 with more R-friendly lines)

2) Cartwright gets Stroudsburg. Then the 2020 number are:
Wild: ca. Biden +1
Cartwright: Trump +3 (up to Trump +5 with more R-friendly lines)

Somewhere in the range of Biden +5 to Biden +6 is the reasonable maximum for Wild. Any attempt to shift more democrats from Cartwright to Wild (making Cartwright's seat Trump +12 or so) would involve very ugly gerrymandering.

[wbrocks67]

Based PA Supreme Court.

Sucks that it could've been 6-1 if McLaughlin didn't lose by <1% in November

[lfromnj]

Exactly. If you want to go for clean maps, then there are essentially two possibilities:

1) Wild gets Stroudsburg. Then the 2020 numbers are:
Wild: ca. Biden +5
Cartwright: Trump +7.5 (up to Trump +10 with more R-friendly lines)

2) Cartwright gets Stroudsburg. Then the 2020 number are:
Wild: ca. Biden +1
Cartwright: Trump +3 (up to Trump +5 with more R-friendly lines)

Somewhere in the range of Biden +5 to Biden +6 is the reasonable maximum for Wild. Any attempt to shift more democrats from Cartwright to Wild (making Cartwright's seat Trump +12 or so) would involve very ugly gerrymandering.

Yeah it seems like the base GOP map without the Luzerne gerrymander. is probably the best fair map one could create for Democrats in the region. Wild has like a Biden +1.5 district instead of biden +0.8 if she took Carbon and Cartwright would get his best district possible if it was kept compact.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

What will Houlahan get from a court map, lfromnj? My guess is around Biden +10 or so

[lfromnj]

What will Houlahan get from a court map, lfromnj? My guess is around Biden +10 or so

Depends if they keep the tri chop of Berks to keep Chester whole.  I would say they do although not 100% certain.

[BoiseBoy]

A lawsuit in PA has been filed, claiming that courts have no authority to draw maps and that PA should hold at-large district elections in 2022. That would be... something.

https://twitter.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1493334673988243468?s=20&t=r-Kh-m...

[lfromnj]

Doesn't federal law literally prohibit that?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Doesn't federal law literally prohibit that?

It does based on passed SC rulings

[GALeftist]

lel

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

"Tell me you don't understand constitutional law without telling me you don't understand constitutional law"

[It’s so Joever]

Ngl, I kind of don't want there to be a swing district in the Harrisburg area because the last thing our country needs is a certain COVID alarmist doctor in Congress.

?
Who’s in Harrisburg?

[Roll Roons]

Ngl, I kind of don't want there to be a swing district in the Harrisburg area because the last thing our country needs is a certain COVID alarmist doctor in Congress.

?
Who’s in Harrisburg?

Eric Feigl-Ding ran for PA-10 in 2018 but placed third in the Dem primary.

[It’s so Joever]

Ngl, I kind of don't want there to be a swing district in the Harrisburg area because the last thing our country needs is a certain COVID alarmist doctor in Congress.

?
Who’s in Harrisburg?

Huh, I thought he lived in DC.
Eric Feigl-Ding ran for PA-10 in 2018 but placed third in the Dem primary.

[MaxQue]

Ngl, I kind of don't want there to be a swing district in the Harrisburg area because the last thing our country needs is a certain COVID alarmist doctor in Congress.

?
Who’s in Harrisburg?

Huh, I thought he lived in DC.
Eric Feigl-Ding ran for PA-10 in 2018 but placed third in the Dem primary.

He lives in DC, but he grew up there.

[BoiseBoy]

PA GOP House Leader has filed a challenge against the recently passed house and senate maps, asking the PA Supreme Court to use the 2012 lines for the 2022 election.

[Antonio the Sixth]

PA GOP House Leader has filed a challenge against the recently passed house and senate maps, asking the PA Supreme Court to use the 2012 lines for the 2022 election.

lmao, on what basis??

[lfromnj]

PA GOP House Leader has filed a challenge against the recently passed house and senate maps, asking the PA Supreme Court to use the 2012 lines for the 2022 election.

lmao, on what basis??

The state house has a pretty strong D bias according to the same tests the PA supreme used to strike down the congressional maps in 2018.  State senate is more mixed, Dems getting that Monroe /Scranton split probably makes up for the GOP getting to split Lancaster. I guess its probably over city split stuff though. I highly doubt that works because I think it does have a bit fewer splits. The partisan unfairness test should work by the court's own logic but they are probably too hackish.

[lfromnj]

PA GOP House Leader has filed a challenge against the recently passed house and senate maps, asking the PA Supreme Court to use the 2012 lines for the 2022 election.

lmao, on what basis??

The state house has a pretty strong D bias according to the same tests the PA supreme used to strike down the congressional maps in 2018.  State senate is more mixed, Dems getting that Monroe /Scranton split probably makes up for the GOP getting to split Lancaster. I guess its probably over city split stuff though. I highly doubt that works because I think it does have a bit fewer splits.

https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/redistricting-report-card/?planId=rec5Vr4cdGc0rt375

Perhaps the most compelling evidence concerning the 2011 Plan derives from
Dr. Chen’s expert testimony. As detailed above, Dr. Chen created two sets of 500
[J-1-2018] - 126
computer-simulated Pennsylvania redistricting plans, the first of which – Simulated Set
1 – employed the traditional redistricting criteria of population equality, compactness,
contiguousness, and political-subdivision integrity – i.e., a simulation of the potential
range of redistricting plans attempting to apply the traditional redistricting criteria. Dr.
Chen’s Simulated Set 1 plans achieved population equality and contiguity; had a range
of Reock Compactness Scores from approximately .31 to .46, which was significantly
more compact than the 2011 Plan’s score of .278; and had a range of Popper-Polsby
Compactness Scores from approximately .29 to .35, which was significantly more
compact than the 2011 Plan’s score of .164. Further, his simulated plans generally split
between 12-14 counties and 40-58 municipalities, in sharp contrast to the 2011 Plan’s
far greater 28 county splits and 68 municipality splits. In other words, all of Dr. Chen’s
Simulated Set 1 plans, which were, again, a simulation of the potential range of
redistricting plans attempting to apply the traditional redistricting criteria, were more
compact and split fewer political subdivisions than the 2011 Plan, establishing that a
process satisfying these traditional criteria would not lead to the 2011 Plan’s adoption.
Thus, Dr. Chen unsurprisingly opined that the 2011 Plan subordinated the goals of
compactness and political-subdivision integrity to other considerations.74
 Dr. Chen’s
testimony in this regard establishes that the 2011 Plan did not primarily consider, much
less endeavor to satisfy, the traditional redistricting criteria.75

The state house legislative maps absolutely did a Democratic gerrymander, see splitting state college or Democrats getting a bunch of Safe seats by splitting Harrisburg.

As you can see in the PGP  basically none of the maps have such an outcome.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If the map is so biased toward Democrats why did the GOP vote for it?

[lfromnj]

If the map is so biased toward Democrats why did the GOP vote for it?

The senate leader voted for it because they seemed satisfied with the senate map, keeping that Lancaster split is a pretty big W although Democrats  had other wins like in Scranton.

Also didn't Democrats vote for the 2011 PA gerrymander ? Didn't stop the PASC from striking it down.  Overall the case very much isn't baseless at least going by logic of the court but I remain highly skeptical the map will be struck down.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If the map is so biased toward Democrats why did the GOP vote for it?

The senate leader voted for it because they seemed satisfied with the senate map, keeping that Lancaster split is a pretty big W although Democrats  had other wins like in Scranton.

Also didn't Democrats vote for the 2011 PA gerrymander ? Didn't stop the PASC from striking it down.

A few Dems did but I thought most of the party was against it. And they were in the minority so it's not like they had much leverage.

Anyway, we'll see how the suit goes. Based on past precedent, I trust the PASC to deal with the issue fairly.

[Boss_Rahm]

PA GOP House Leader has filed a challenge against the recently passed house and senate maps, asking the PA Supreme Court to use the 2012 lines for the 2022 election.

lmao, on what basis??

The state house has a pretty strong D bias according to the same tests the PA supreme used to strike down the congressional maps in 2018.  State senate is more mixed, Dems getting that Monroe /Scranton split probably makes up for the GOP getting to split Lancaster. I guess its probably over city split stuff though. I highly doubt that works because I think it does have a bit fewer splits. The partisan unfairness test should work by the court's own logic but they are probably too hackish.

This claim was refuted during the hearings on the map. The GOP relied on a single person's simulation results which were not found to be reproducible, and in fact when minority representation was taken into account (which the GOP's simulation did not do), the map was not at all biased. IMO there's a much more valid claim to be made that the map splits municipalities excessively in order to avoid incumbent pairings, but of course the House GOP leadership doesn't want to touch that aspect of the map.

[Nyvin]

Those Centre County districts are weak sauce,  that's not a D gerrymander, the eastern district is only Biden+7.   I made Biden+14 and a Biden+20 districts while only cutting three precincts out from State College.   It also makes a lot more sense if the geography of the county is taken into account (the valleys go east-west, not north-south).

https://davesredistricting.org/join/74775877-e588-4698-848b-11fe74ed5cc4

Clinton+Centre counties are almost exactly three state house districts.

[Boss_Rahm]

Oral arguments were held on Congressional maps today. The Court very clearly has no interest in drawing its own map, leaving it to pick from among the 15 maps submitted by the various petitioners.