US House Redistricting: Pennsylvania

[jimrtex]

I wonder why this housing tract, not far from Phil's pad in NE Philly, voted 2-1 for McCain, making it a Philly precinct that is way off at the end of the Pubbie side of the tail of Philly's partisan bell curve of its precincts - way at the end. It does not look that different from some other precincts in the area, which like this one are all single family houses of about this SES niche.  Is it because it is right next to a Catholic Church and school, and these folks like to go to church a lot, and send their kids to Catholic school, which tends to be a  Pubbie parameter these days?

The area across Westin to the east is duplexes, and the area to the north across Holmes is fourplexes with not enough off-street parking.  The northern boundary of the precinct is not on Holmes as one might expect, but a couple of streets south, so you get rid of the folks who want to live in the neighborhood, but could only afford to live on the main road, and not on the preferable locations that back up to Pennypack Creek.

If you zoom out some, it is pretty clear that Pennypack Creek was a traditional edge of the city.  Northeast Philadelphia Airport was built during WWII by the Army Air Corps but not completed, but it has clearly blocked residential development in Northeast Philadelphia, so that most of the development is closer to the Delaware River, or out towards Montco, which probably has some Republican precincts(?yes).

So you would have Frankford Ave (US 13) coming out of the city, and you will notice that the streets nearest to it are traditional grid.  You would have State Ave down by the river adjacent to the railroad, and probably with some industrial plants because of the trains, so that wouldn't be a desirable area.  And you would have Roosevelt Blvd (US 1).  Is it named after Theodore or Franklin?

The particular area in question is on a peninsula between Pennypack Creek and a tributary, and only accessible from the north (at least before the time when bridges were routinely built for residential streets).  For a short time in the 1940s, Northeast Philadelphia Airport was the city airport, since what is now Philadelphia International was closed due to military security reasons (because of the shipyard?) and there was later commuter service from Northeast Philadelphia.  So you have an area that was close to an airport, without real good accessibility.  But it was closer to the city than Bucks, so eventually you get some infill.

You have an I-95 exit at Academy maybe designed for the airport.  It kind of looks like the entire area south of the airport between Grant and Roosevelt may have been developed at the same time, based on the curvilinear street patterns.  Areas closer to the airport get the multiplexes, and the furthest area, down by the creek, in between the runway and traffic pattern got the largest houses.  It is also convenient to Nazareth Hospital, so doctors just starting out could live in the area before moving out to Bucks or Montco.

[jimrtex]

I don't see why the Democrats would care about keeping Lancaster and York counties together since it just results in a lot of wasted Democratic votes in the cities proper. See my map above. The Democrats could easily put those votes to use.

I think it goes back to the war.

[jimrtex]

Went a little further than that...



7 (York - Franklin) 88% White, 58.9% McCain. Platts
8 (Harrisburg) 82% White, 53.4% McCain. open
10 (Lehigh Valley) 77% White, 14% Hispanic, 55.9% Obama. Dent
11 (Wyoming Valley - Stroudsburg) 85% White, 57.5% Obama. open.
Utterly safe for the lucky sod who wins the first Democratic primary.
12 (Schuylkill - Hazleton - Williamsport) 92% White, 55.8% McCain. Barletta, Holden.
Barletta wins.
13 (North) 97% White, 58.6% McCain. Marino
Just barely in, he lives in a township (Lycoming) that I'd rather have kept with Williamsport but I had to move something from cornflower back to tan, and this and its immediate western neighbor seemed the best candidates.
14 (Altoona - Johnstown - State College) 93% White, 54.4% McCain. Thompson, Shuster, Critz.
Come at me with more innocuous-sounding change proposals that somehow affect the center of the state, and eventually I'll come up with a map where Critz beats Shuster. (Actually... not happening unless it gets taken into Fayette next.)

I would eliminate the triple split of Butler, and the quadruple split of Chester.

and also the cases where two districts split multiple counties:

Butler-Armstrong, Cumberland-York, Centre-Mifflin

The extra splits of Chester, Delaware, and Philadelphia are being caused by keeping Bucks whole.

If you force cyan and salmon out of Delaware and Chester, then bring the blue Philadelphia district further out into Delaware, while extending the Philadelphia districts out to the Montgomery County line.   You can then pull the Bucks district into north Philadelphia.  The outer part of Bucks can then be added to the cyan or salmon district.  This would give you a 3-way split of Philadelphia, and 2-way for Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester.

[jimrtex]

I would eliminate the triple split of Butler

Boundary in Beaver is the Ohio River. Obviously you could put some piece of Warren or Venango in instead, but I don't see the point.

Your claim is that your proposal is "fair".  One characteristic of fairness is that you apply rules consistently and uniformly.  It would appear that one of your rules is to not split counties, except where it is necessary for population balance.

Beaver County is not being split because the Ohio River goes down the middle of it (if it were a significant barrier, the county itself would be split).  Erie County is way short of a district and you would have to go way east in thinly populated northwestern Pennsylvania.  So instead you come south into the Beaver Valley, which becomes a major population center in itself.  If you needed some more population, you wouldn't have worried about including the whole of Beaver County.  If you come across the Ohio River on the numerous bridges, you can eliminate the 3-way split of Butler County.  Since the areas in Butler County are along the interstate, they are quite likely to be Pittsburgh suburbs and not associate with Erie or the Beaver Valley at all.

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Easily possible. Just gonna look damn ugly.[/quote]

Not really.  You use the northern boundary of Westmoreland further east, and it doesn't look ugly.  It looks like a stream boundary.   You could include all of Armstrong in the Northern district, and extend the Pittsburgh suburban district further out into Butler County.

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No. Just no. That was done for two very good reasons. The northernmost township of York is a fast growing suburb of Harrisburg, and the Cumberland-Franklin line splits Shippensburg in two. [/quote]

Almost all of the population in Shippensburg is in Cumberland County, so you have come across the county line to put the town in a district dominated by York County.  I'd guess that the university gets a relatively large part of its student body from Harrisburg.

I suspect that Newberry has had more population growth than Fairview as both lie along the interstate south of Harrisburg.  So you have split the high growth areas.

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Easily possible and not affecting many people. Just gonna look damn ugly.[/quote]
That is saying that Centre County has an odd eastern extension where Clinton County includes areas along the West Branch of the Susquehanna.   What if you included all of Clearfield in the northern district, put all of Centre in the brown district and pushed the blue district a bit more north?

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To deny effective representation to voters in the northern parts of the two counties?

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Not the ones in Delaware - one keeps very heavily Black areas just outside the town limits (and bordering just as Black areas of Philly) in with the Philly Black seat, and the other is caused by following the instruction to move the Main Line towns in with Lower MontCo (and by the desire to split no towns except Philly and Upper Darby.) They could theoretically be removed without much change elsewhere. And cyan could also be gotten out of Chester without serious remap - it just forces a less sensible split of MontCo (and/or a split town there). It's still the most reasonable one of your suggestions. [/quote]
The others are quite reasonable.  This one is just eminently so.

I didn't object to the split of Delaware and Chester counties, just the three and four way splits.  It is the Montco seat lapping into those counties that is the extraneous district.   I was suggesting extending the Philadelphia district further into Delaware county.  Can you get to the city of Chester?

The Bucks plus a bit of Philadelphia district makes sense in isolation.  I have seen similar situations where a district would have almost an ideal population, but it ends up forcing all kinds of other compromises.

A Berks plus outer Montco and Bucks would make a lot of sense.

So you would have:

York 435, Chester 259

Chester 240, Delaware 454

Delaware 106, Philadelphia 588

Philadelphia 694

Philadelphia 244, Bucks 449

Bucks 176, Berks 411, Montgomery 106

Montgomery 694

So you keep the two Philadelphia seats; 3 suburban districts, one each for Bucks, Montgomery, and Delaware-Chester; and two exurban districts which are dominated by an smaller city, York and Reading (3 exurban if you include the Lehigh Valley). 

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The northern district is not going to look pretty no matter what you do, because it doesn't have any cities.  You aren't doing any favors by chopping up lots of counties.

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What if you bring the green district into Carbon (or maybe Northampton), pushing the blue district out of Carbon, but further north in Lycoming, and then moving part of Wayne into the northern district.

[jimrtex]

Somebody get me out of Chaka freakin' Fattah's district -____-

...

You live in the Philly area?

Byron Dorgan adopted Chaka Fattah?

[jimrtex]

Who controlled PA's redistricting in 2000? Did either party have a trifecta or was it divided?

Vieth v Jubelirer was a redistricting case from Pennsylvania, in which 4 justices said that political gerrymandering was not justiciable because there was no standard that could be applied; Justice Kennedy said that it didn't apply to that particular case, but there must somehow somewhere be a case where it applies; and 4 justices said that it might apply.

An earlier plan had been found by a lower court to be a political gerrymander because in their haste to add strange fingers, the legislature had drawn slightly unequal districts (a bizarre conclusion that have a handful difference would reveal a partisan motive).  The legislature passed a remedial plan shifting a few voters, and this was upheld.

[jimrtex]

Pitts is a cook and if anything I'd be looking to protect him and take him out of Reading if I were the GOP.

What's wrong with cooks?

[jimrtex]

Pitts is a cook and if anything I'd be looking to protect him and take him out of Reading if I were the GOP.

What's wrong with cooks?

I meant he's a RW whackjob in a now marginal GOP district.

I remember eating at a Japanese steakhouse in Huntsville, Alabama, where the chef cooks at your table, and is supposed to put on a show juggling cleavers and knives, and whacking the meat with elan.   The dinner was fine, but as we were leaving, the manager profusely apologized, explaining that the chef had just been promoted from the branch in Anniston, and wasn't ready for the move up.

So if you remove this cook from Reading, where does he go?  Pottsville?

[jimrtex]

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

The legislature does the redistricting in Florida.  This is so that they can get sued and have the Florida Supreme Court draw it.

[jimrtex]

LOL there's a town in Lycoming County called "Loyalsockville". That has a lot of possible interpretations in relation to this forum.

It is a corruption of Lawi-sahquick which means "middle creek", the township was named after the creek and the town (-ville) after the township.

[jimrtex]

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Thank you Mrs Earll!

If you split Erie, wouldn't that result in one district heading east to the Poconos and the other south to Pittsburgh?