New PA Maps In Effect

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

United States Supreme Court told the PA GOP to F Off!

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The sweet taste of justice!

Praise the Lord!

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

And failed to persuade Justice Alito?

To be fair, I'm sure Justice Alito would have gone along with any justification (dissenting opinion, Scottish law, Klingon precedent) that preserved 13 Republican butts in seats for 2018, but if he couldn't get 4 of his colleagues to go along there was no point in looking like a loser on the stay.

Another possibility is that Alito knows that SCOTUS has the votes to rule against political gerrymandering and will do so later this year. That means PASC would likely be upheld. Therefore a stay serves no good purpose from SCOTUS' perspective.

One can dream....

Well clearly Alito knows the outcome in Gill v Whitford (WI). Like the legislative case in WI, the PA case is based in part on the requirements of the state constitution. That differentiates PA from the gerrymandering cases for MD and NC which are federal questions only. It seems to me that if Gill was going in favor of the state, Alito would almost certainly have gone for a stay for the PA map. But if Gill was going against the state, and the argument in conference was something that would also apply to PA, then then the fate of the PA case is already sealed. In late Mar SCOTUS hears Benisek v. Lamone (MD) and the questions there may shed even more light as to the direction of SCOTUS' thinking on the subject.

A complication is that the PA Supreme Court finally explained their decision, and endorsed the efficiency theory, meaning the map needs to be gerrymandered to help the Dems get more proportionality (one map somebody drew at RRH had a seat going from Lackawanna to Centre county, excluding Luzerne in a long erose snake with hideous bridge chops as an example of this concept). It is highly unlikely Justice Kennedy will adopt that concept, so to that extent PA law and federal law will substantially diverge. Things are really a mess now because the efficiency theory and minimizing chops and maximizing compactness, don't go together very well at all in states such as PA.

That map doesn't appear to be a complete set of Congressional Districts though, the yellow district is certainly quite overpopulated.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Splitting Allegheny three ways might not get past the court. But it does look a lot cleaner than the current map.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Nate Cohn just sent out a tweet saying he miscalculated the congressional districts and that Clinton actually won PA-08 by .7, he also shows that Clinton won PA-07 by 10 points instead of 14 points, and most of the other margins are different but not by significant margins (less then 2-3 points at most). Basically, the map preserves the 12-6 split of Trump to Clinton districts, but strengthens the Democratic lean of PA-07, and exchanges PA-06 for PA-08. Taking all this into consideration, I don’t get why Democrats shouldn’t adopt this map, it gives them a free seat in PA-07, and significantly improves their outlook in PA-08 and PA-15, if they thought they where going to get a map that gives them 9 seats, they should know that’s basically impossible due to Urban Clustering.

Actually, No. While it's conceviable that the court wouldn't accept this depending on how it defines compact, here's a pretty clean map I drew up that can easily go 10-8 D:

1. 90-10 Obama, 89-11 DRA Average, D+40, 55% Black Population, 51% Black VAP (Safe D)
2. 80-20 Obama, 79-21 DRA Average, D+31, Plurality White (Safe D)
3. 54-45 Obama, 53-47 DRA Average, EVEN (Leans D)
4. 58-41 Obama, 54-46 DRA Average, D+5 (Safe D)
5. 61-38 Obama, 58-42 DRA Average, D+11 (Safe D)
6. 53-46 Obama, 52-48 Republican DRA Average, EVEN (Toss-Up)
7. 52-47 McCain, 57-43 DRA Average, R+10 (Safe R)
8. 56-43 Obama, 54-46 DRA Average, R+1 (Leans D)
9. 53-45 McCain, 58-42 DRA Average, R+12 (Safe R)
10. 57-42 McCain, 62-38 DRA Average, R+14 (Safe R)
11. 56-43 McCain, 59-41 DRA Average, R+15 (Safe R)
12. 56-43 Obama, 55-45 DRA Average, R+2 (Leans D with Cartwright, otherwise Lean R based on how this area is trending)
13. 54-45 McCain, 57-43 DRA Average, R+16 (Safe R)
14. 51-48 Obama, 51-49 DRA Average, R+7 (Likely R)
15. 58-41 Obama, 61-39 DRA Average, D+7 (Safe D)
16. 51-48 Obama, 53-47 DRA Average, R+1 (Toss-Up)
17. 54-45 McCain, 51-49 Democratic DRA Average, R+13 (Safe R)
18. 57-42 McCain, 53-47 DRA Average, R+20 (Safe R)

Aside from the 6th and the 17th, the DRA Average winner was the same party as the 2008 presidential winner. All County splits done for population reasons.

Overall: 8 Seats Advantage D (Assuming Cartwright runs again),  8 seats Advantage R, 2 Toss-Ups. Seems pretty fair.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Thanks for the date Gass3268!

Of course the a***ole vetoed it.  Now the horrific SC can kiss Wolf's behind and draw it his way.  #ImpeachThem.

Of course he would. Why would he approve another Republican gerrymander?

I have to admit, I don't usually see strongly worded posts from you. I'm a bit surprised to see it over a Republican gerrymander being overturned. This is all part of the game, right? Republicans rigged the maps for most of the decade, and they are finally getting their due. Who cares if the court's decision was partisan or not. It's pretty clear at this point that politics is just a game, with each player vying to obtain power via any means necessary

Oh, you think the PA Supreme Court will draw a fair map......

If it improves from 13R 5D.....would you consider that "more" fair?

I'm assuming the answer is no.

It doesn't?

He asked whether YOU agree that a map more democratic than the current 13-5 map is fair....

-------------


A fair map should be designed to result in a 9-9 tie in a neutral climate, and that's the sort of map the court will hopefully draw.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I really hope the court doesn't actually allow the splitting of Allegheny three ways. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Also, I'm loling at the capitulation to the Philly Machine here.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I imagine the 2016 race was at least close in that 11th district, Clinton did well in Dauphin County.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Appears to be 12 D seats. Six Seats Look R - the light blue in the NE, the olive green next to it, the gray next to that, the Turquoise-ish thing in the SW, the black seat next to that, and the brown seat next to that.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Glad the court took up my idea to renumber the map, rather than stick with the old, stupid system that had no clear n-s or e-w basis. Also, it's hard to tell exactly, but it looks like the Bucks County seat may now have a tad of east Philly, Nice! Also that Dauphin seat is genius, and the 16th, 17th, and 18th all look winnable for Ds. The new Cartwright seat is a bit worrying though, someone needs to check that on DRA.

This map would be 12-6 in a wave, and it doesn't even look gerrymandered to the untrained eye. Condolences to Krazen.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Now why didn't a Democratic Supreme Court draw a Democratic-favored map here? What a wasted opportunity.

This is a Democratic favored map.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Trump v. Hillary numbers for each district, via Nate Cohn:



8-10 split.

With Cartwright, effectively 9-9. Could easily be an 11-7 map in a wave.

So much for Dems having to settle for 6-12 or 7-11 because of MUH GEOGRAPHY, LOL @ King Lear