New PA Maps In Effect

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'd love to see the exact 2012 and 2016 results for Cohn's fair districts map.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The new map could potentially be a four seat pick up for the Democrats in November.

The current map has 5 very vulnerable districts: 06, 07, 08, 15, 16.

Also, I still think that the Washington Post "nonpartisan" map is a slight Republican gerrymander; there is no reason for there to be only 1 Democratic District in the Pittsburgh area on a nonpartisan map.

The Pittsburgh area outside of Allegheny County itself (which makes up little more than one district on its own) is very Republican these days.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Fingers crossed for the SC to do the right thing.

I'd love to see the exact 2012 and 2016 results for Cohn's fair districts map.

I tried my best to recreate Cohn's map in Dave's Redistricting and got these PVI's:


1 (East Philly) - D+31.12
2 (West Philly) - D+38.97
3 (Erie) - R+5.95
4 (York) - R+14.44
5 (State College/Rural West Penn.) - R+17.06
6 (Westchester/Lancaster) - R+1
7 (Delaware County) - D+11.41
8 (Bucks County) - R+0.92
9 (Altoona/Rural West Penn.) - R+20.87
10 (Newcastle/Williamsport/Rural East Penn.) - R+16.15
11 (Harrisburg) - R+9.95
12 (Pittsburgh suburbs/Exurbs) - R+8
13 (Montgomery County) - D+6.19
14 (Pittsburgh) - D+14.86
15 (Allentown) - R+0.65
16 (Berks/Lebanon counties) - R+10.6
17 (Scranton-Wilkes Barre) - D+0.03
18 (SWPA) - R+13.23


So 4 Safe D, 1 Likely D, 4 Toss-Ups, 1 Lean R, 2 Likely R, 6 Safe R

Looks like this could easily be a 9-9 map, especially since the Allentown and Scranton districts are probably a lot more Democratic downballot than their PVI suggests, since 2016 was so anomalous in terms of WWC Republican support. I'd probably rank those two as lean-D.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Rick Hasen noted that Republicans seem to be indicating they will appeal to the US Supreme Court, even though such an appeal doesn't seem possible. He said they might try to argue that state courts don't have the authority to order new maps, which is the legislature's power. It's not out of the question that the Supreme Court would take the case.

Wasn't this issue already resolved by the Supreme Court, in favor of a loose understanding of the term "legislature"?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Rick Hasen noted that Republicans seem to be indicating they will appeal to the US Supreme Court, even though such an appeal doesn't seem possible. He said they might try to argue that state courts don't have the authority to order new maps, which is the legislature's power. It's not out of the question that the Supreme Court would take the case.

Wasn't this issue already resolved by the Supreme Court, in favor of a loose understanding of the term "legislature"?

I think the idea was that that case concerned the legislature, and now this one would concern state courts. It seems kind of stupid to me, but quite frankly, I could see them doing it. Accepting the case and thus ending the chance of fair maps for PA this year would absolutely stink to high heaven of partisanship though, and I know Roberts likes to try and manage the perception of the court, so I'd hope he would consider that before accepting some silly appeal that seems destined to conclude the way we all think (re: courts can order new maps. who knew!). I could have interpreted it wrong, but it seems like Hasen was thinking something about partisanship as well. I really don't think federal judge(s) are above that - particularly when it comes to election law, where the results always seem to break down along such predictable partisan lines. So in this case, I'm just hoping they let state courts deal with their own state matters.

I mean, Kennedy is a moronic hack, but I'd hope he's at least consistent enough to stay on the course he began to chart in the Arizona decision. Hopefully.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can someone post the current map with a reasonable map?

I see a fair map might make the state 9-9, what is it now?

A fair map would probably end up 8D-10R at best in a neutral year. Unfortunately there is a lot of Democrat self-packing in the cities.

[Antonio the Sixth]

A fair map would probably end up 8D-10R at best in a neutral year. Unfortunately there is a lot of Democrat self-packing in the cities.

I don't mean to single you out, and I understand why this term came up in the context of drawing congressional lines, but there is a lot of unintended euphemism involved in describing racial housing patterns in Philadelphia as Democrat self-packing.

Noted, but do you have a better term in mind? Because I don't think people should have to go into a lengthy dissertation about the long-term impact of systematic racism in US housing policies every time they are discussing congressional redistricting.

Unless they do what Illinois did which was to unpack the city to mitigate the Democratic self-packing disadvantage (which is what they should do).

...which would still be a gerrymander.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is truly wonderful news.

[Antonio the Sixth]

No ruling from the federal panel yet. Ugh.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The MD gerrymander is awful and should absolutely be struck down (and hopefully it will, alongside the WI one, this Summer) but can we please keep this thread on topic? We should get news of the federal court case any day now.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Should note that the filling deadline for Pennsylvania is this coming Tuesday. Really hard to see any court overturning the new maps considering there are only like 5 days left and the massive amounts of confusion it would make to go back.

I assume the State government has also finished updating its precinct files to reflect the new map?

[Antonio the Sixth]

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[Antonio the Sixth]

Who wrote the majority opinion, Roberts?

Here's the full text of the decision. Judge for yourself!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Lol

https://www.twitter.com/jjabbott/status/976146950973214720

Who is "House Republicans"? Is it just a bunch of loons, or do they have leadership backing?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Lol

https://www.twitter.com/jjabbott/status/976146950973214720

Who is "House Republicans"? Is it just a bunch of loons, or do they have leadership backing?

Define leadership backing. Nobody in leadership is a co-sponsor, and Turzai and Reed waved off questions about this with “We can’t comment on bills that haven’t been filed.”

This clearly means it doesn't have backing.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Lol

https://www.twitter.com/jjabbott/status/976146950973214720

Who is "House Republicans"? Is it just a bunch of loons, or do they have leadership backing?

Define leadership backing. Nobody in leadership is a co-sponsor, and Turzai and Reed waved off questions about this with “We can’t comment on bills that haven’t been filed.”

This clearly means it doesn't have backing.

Granted those comments are from a month ago, not today.

...oh. How is it possible they haven't been asked again recently?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Regarding the potential impeachment of those four Democratic justices, it's important to keep in mind that this is more than just the Congressional map to these Republicans. Legislative redistricting in 2021 is done by a commission of 4 people, where a tie is broken by a 5th member appointed by the state Supreme Court majority.

In other words, Republicans know that if Democrats maintain a majority on the state Supreme Court in 2021, not only will Republicans lose the ability to gerrymander the legislative maps, but will probably end up with a favorable Dem-leaning map, even if it's not a brazen gerrymander. So there is an incredible amount of pressure for these Republicans to get rid of these judges. Fortunately, their slim supermajority in the Senate makes it difficult to accomplish.

I mean sure, but how does impeachment avoid that? If a justice is impeached, aren't there just going to be new elections to fill the vacancies, right? And after such a brazen act by the GOP and in a national political climate, I'm pretty sure Democrats would just sweep the seats again. So what's the endgame? Keep impeaching over and over?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Also please FFS Democrats stop defending the Maryland map. It's a monstrosity, plain and simple, and needs to go.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Also please FFS Democrats stop defending the Maryland map. It's a monstrosity, plain and simple, and needs to go.

Of course it's a monstrosity, but it's not a gerrymander.

It's not a strictly partisan gerrymander, but it's a gerrymander nonetheless.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I completely agree. Districts should be based on communities of interests and communities of interests alone. Nothing else should come into consideration.

[Antonio the Sixth]

in many places the population distribution is such that if a party has that sort of advantage then its perfectly fair for them to retain it; since that's one of the inherent things that First Past the Post does and if you are breaking up communities and intentionally drawing seats on a partisan basis then, well, that's gerrymandering by itself.  I don't know anything about the political geography of Maryland but if its a state which is politically homogenous then this is especially the case: if you get 40% across the state and don't have that many big areas where you have concentrated support then its basically impossible for you to get significant representation no matter how you draw the map.

The thing about Maryland is that it's quite the opposite; Republicans on a fair map would probably be a bit overrepresented, even in a pretty Democratic state. They'd be guaranteed a very safe district in the Eastern shore, and likely one in the West too. Plus they'd be liable to get a district or two in southern Maryland or suburban Baltimore, depending on how the map is drawn. The possibility of a 4-4 map in a state where Trump got only a third of the vote...probably a lot of why Democrats are defending gerrymandering even though it's still unconscionable in this case.

Yes, unlike California and Massachusetts where Democratic voters are very nicely distributed (and thus Democrats over represented in the delegation), a fair Maryland would probably be about 5D-3R

Most fair MD maps I draw tend to be 5 - 2 - 1. Five D seats: 2 PG seats (1 BVAP plus tidewater rurals to prevent racial packing, and one mixed seat North of DC) 1 Montgomery seat, 1 Baltimore BVAP seat, and one Baltimore county Dem seat. Two R seats: The current 1st on the East Shore and Harford, and the 6th which is pushed out of Montgomery and into Carroll and North Baltimore. The battleground seat is based out Anne Arundel, but has to grab blue leaning areas around it, like Howard, Baltimore, or the DC suburbs. With Anne's shift left, along with the rest of the DC core though, one might not be able to call the seat competitive anymore.

^This, it's impossible to make three safe Republican seats without extreme gerrymandering. At best, a third competitive seat could be made.

To expand on the Voting Rights Act problems a Republican district based on Anne Arundel, St. Mary's, and Calvert Counties might raise: the district one would have to draw to its west based on Prince George's County and Charles County would be over 67% black, probably the highest in the country.

If the natural community of interest is 67% Black, then so should the district. To do otherwise is just another kind of gerrymandering.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Racial makeup is one of the features that defines a community of interest (although by no means the only one). So if you have a contiguous area of majority-Black precincts populous enough to make up one district, the natural choice (again, ceteris paribus) is to regroup all these precincts into one district. To split them into multiple districts is essentially a form of "cracking" and shouldn't be encouraged. The fact that this might result in fewer African-American representatives is unfortunate, but that's an indictment of the single-member-district system in and of itself, not of how districts were drawn. That's why I support PR instead.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm well aware of what VRA jurisprudence says. As I said, it's a terrible solution to a real problem. You can't improve representation by drawing districts that are a mishmash of communities with nothing in common just because this is likely to maximize the number of representatives for a given race. This is, again, simply not how single-member systems are supposed to work. Want fair racial representation? Switch to PR.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Interesting that Wolf did better in the 14th but conventional wisdom is that the 10th is more competitive and likely to flip.

The 14th is one of those areas that is still competitive in state and local elections, but at the federal level Republicans are clearly favored there. It is more Republican at the federal level than the old 18th that Lamb just barely won - Lamb only got 44% of the vote in the parts of the 18th outside of Allegheny County, and the other parts of the new 14th look just as Republican as those. It isn't 100% off the board, but it is probably 95% of the way there. The 10th, on the other hand, doesn't have a ton of divergence between federal and state elections.

I do think the 16th is an underrated target, though. Obama came within 5 points of winning it in 2012, and he may have even won it outright in 2008 (it certainly would have been close). I wouldn't say it is likely to go, but it looks like a better option than the 14th.

He did, according to DRA.