US House Redistricting: Pennsylvania

[Verily]

The solution that others seem to be missing is to put Erie in Altmire's district. Makes him safe, to be sure, but there's no way to eliminate both him and Critz and also guarantee the Republicans hold all of their current seats. Better to go after Critz and give Altmire a safe(-ish) district for now. And it wouldn't be strictly unwinnable for Republicans, maybe 55-56% Obama.

[Verily]

How can they possibly combine Schwartz and Fattah? That would be an immediate suit on intentional dilution of the black vote, and there's no way they can create just two Democratic seats in the Philly metro (so they can't do it unless they're going to throw one of their other incumbents to the wolves--in which case Schwartz would probably just move there than fight Fattah).

[Verily]

But... she would just move. And they didn't address whose seat will be eliminated.

[Verily]

Joe Pitts is really stinking up PA Redistricting. He has to give up the Chester County portion of his district but is crying about it.

He lives there.

[Verily]

That's doesn't look like it works out with keeping Lancaster and York Counties whole and separate. (Not that that should be a high priority, IMO, but it does seem to be one).

Also, WTF.

[Verily]

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.

[Verily]

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.

Cheltenham is not "heavily black". It's 57% white and 31% black. There are enormous swaths of heavily black precincts included in PA-01 on your map in SW Philly (talking 70-80%), plus some 40-60% black precincts in central-north Philly (not sure what that area is called). Sure, PA-02 is already majority black, but there's just no excuse at all for the county split but partisan motivations. (You're right on Darby/Tinicum; the airport precinct, which is in Tinicum, confused me--though it should probably be removed from PA-01 as well.)

[Verily]

There are still a few issues. I don't like that you split the obvious community of interest between Greene and Fayette Counties. Similarly, Beaver County goes well with Washington County or with points north, but not really with Pittsburgh suburbia or Butler County exurbia. In general, that area needs to be reworked.

Also, splitting up coal country is a bad idea. Schuylkill-Columbia-Montour-Northumberland is a pretty clear community of interest, while connecting Dauphin to Schuylkill is artificial and just a continuation of an old gerrymander (not that the Dems could win any nongerrymandered district containing Dauphin--this is a COI determination, not a partisan one).

Finally, I think the towns peeled off from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre district should be the really rural ones in NW Luzerne rather than the fairly developed ones in NE Lackawanna, but that's a small quibble. There might also be some unnecessarily split townships in MontCo?

[Verily]

But Monroe doesn't fit from a community of interest perspective.

Monroe doesn't fit with much of anything from a CoI perspective.  Gotta put it somewhere...

Also, splitting up coal country is a bad idea. Schuylkill-Columbia-Montour-Northumberland is a pretty clear community of interest, while connecting Dauphin to Schuylkill is artificial and just a continuation of an old gerrymander (not that the Dems could win any nongerrymandered district containing Dauphin--this is a COI determination, not a partisan one).

"Coal country" only extends really to the southern tips of Columbia and Northumberland; most of those counties are hilly farms and Susquehanna river towns, more related to (say) Union County, I would think.  

No reason not to combine that four-county grouping with the other rural areas as well. Sort of like muon's map, except with Northumberland in the NE district and Clinton and Potter in the North-Central district.

I have some other misgivings with muon's map as well (notably, again, in the SW--I'd rather split Westmoreland than separate Greene and Fayette, as eastern and western Westmoreland have not much in common but Greene and Fayette might as well be the same county), but it does fix some of Torie's problems. I like Torie's design of PA-15 and PA-11, and also his internal split of Allegheny County, better than muon's, though.

[Verily]

Maybe we're misunderstanding each other. I just don't like the Pittsburgh district going all the way to the Washington and Westmoreland County lines.

Anyway, it occurs to me that the Lehigh Valley also has a fair number of NYC commuters. Not a lot, but enough that putting Stroudsburg in PA-15 would probably be reasonable. The rest of Monroe still has to go with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (along with Carbon County), but rural Monroe is not any different from rural Carbon, really.

[Verily]

Maybe we're misunderstanding each other. I just don't like the Pittsburgh district going all the way to the Washington and Westmoreland County lines.

So I think I understand that you would prefer a three-way split of Allegheny. The southern part of Allegheny would go with Fayette, Greene, and Washington. The northern part would go with Butler and Armstrong. You didn't seem to like Beaver with Butler; is putting it with Washington, etc. OK?

Not quite. I'm fine with the two-way split of Allegheny. I just like where Torie put PA-14 within Allegheny better than where you put it. (My own map has a small bit of Allegheny in the Greene-Fayette-Washington CD, but I did a lot of unnecessary but COI-based county splits because I don't find counties holy at all.

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I understand that, I was trying to understand why you thought Torie's was better, when it seemed much the same as mine.
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It is. I just liked the way he used the split of Carbon to create highway connectivity between Monroe and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.