2020 Redistricting in Pennsylvania

[Antonio the Sixth]

Holy sh*t. PA Democrats are gonna be spineless morons once again aren't they

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://twitter.com/StephenJ_Caruso/status/1469079921066708995

lol

This is what happens when you tunnel-vision on one particular metric and forget to just. like. take a look at what your map looks like at the end of the day. Redistricting is an art as much as a science, and even a technically impressive map like Holt's can be utter trash in practice.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I believe the GOP congressman for Western PA, Mike Kelly, is from Butler so I doubt they would draw him out of his district. I was able to make two Dem districts in the Pittsburgh area through Beaver, parts of Washington including the city of Washington, the geographical Northwestern half of Allegheny then stretching into the Black eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. Mt. Lebanon and all of Southern Allegheny would be in the Pittsburgh seat in this scenario.

If Democrats are proposing maps to the courts, I don't think they should be trying especially hard to protect Mike Kelly.

I drew the Washington County district the way I did for compactness reasons (in order to make it more appealing to the courts).

That's true, but Kelly's district remaining intact allows for least change to be argued. Even a Dem leaning court will show some deference to Republican incumbent legislators. All of these people know each other and won't want to anger a colleague even on the other side of the aisle.

The Persily map from 2018 had no qualms messing with incumbents. I don't see why it should be different this time.

And honestly, it shouldn't. Drawing districts to favor incumbents is a disgusting subversion of the democratic process.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I believe the GOP congressman for Western PA, Mike Kelly, is from Butler so I doubt they would draw him out of his district. I was able to make two Dem districts in the Pittsburgh area through Beaver, parts of Washington including the city of Washington, the geographical Northwestern half of Allegheny then stretching into the Black eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. Mt. Lebanon and all of Southern Allegheny would be in the Pittsburgh seat in this scenario.

If Democrats are proposing maps to the courts, I don't think they should be trying especially hard to protect Mike Kelly.

I drew the Washington County district the way I did for compactness reasons (in order to make it more appealing to the courts).

That's true, but Kelly's district remaining intact allows for least change to be argued. Even a Dem leaning court will show some deference to Republican incumbent legislators. All of these people know each other and won't want to anger a colleague even on the other side of the aisle.

The Persily map from 2018 had no qualms messing with incumbents. I don't see why it should be different this time.

And honestly, it shouldn't. Drawing districts to favor incumbents is a disgusting subversion of the democratic process.

Except the Conor Lamb mander who had a decent amount of name rec at that point.

This seat was definitely drawn to be a Dem opportunity seat but I'm not sure if it was for Lamb as such? Most of the seat Lamb originally won ended up in the solid-R Southwest district instead.

[Antonio the Sixth]

When is the court picking a map?

Yesterday

Great job, I love it when deadlines are missed.

https://twitter.com/adambonin/status/1488218438854184960?s=20&t=t7Buoe5iPcYR...

It was intentional. As was expected for months, Persily is probably gonna be coming back.

All hail the Mapmaker in Chief!

[Antonio the Sixth]

When is the court picking a map?

Yesterday

Great job, I love it when deadlines are missed.

https://twitter.com/adambonin/status/1488218438854184960?s=20&t=t7Buoe5iPcYR...

It was intentional. As was expected for months, Persily is probably gonna be coming back.

All hail the Mapmaker in Chief!

The guy who drew ny 10 as it is right now and cracked southern Brooklyn into 3 CD s?

Persily had a hand in that? I had no idea.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Excellent news! Partisanship aside, a Persily-drawn court-mandated map will almost certainly be a lot fairer than a bipartisan deal, which usually means incumbent protection monstrosities.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wait, I thought Persily was the special master??

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wait, I thought Persily was the special master??

This is the result of the now-sidelined lower state courts. Parties will file objections and recommend plans like last time. The court will then toss aside the GOP map. Now the court could pick a map that was submitted or, like last time after they collected maps from the parties, ignore them all and call in a special master.

It has just been a very likely assumption that Persily or a disciple would end up with the pen, cause the court has experience with him, and the maps the parties submitted to the lower courts all undid the courts past efforts in one way or another.

Ah, I see. Hopefully the charade doesn't last too long and we'll get the real map-drawing process started swiftly.

[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??

[Antonio the Sixth]

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

[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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Why would the Court limit itself to the options plaintiffs presented, instead of letting Persily draw his own map like in 2018? That seems like it would be better than picking from a bunch of maps drawn by partisan actors NJ-style.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Carter map is reasonable. It makes some D-friendly decisions on the margins, just like the Persily map, but not at the expense of CoIs. I agree that it's as good as any Persily redraw would likely be.

The Gressman map definitely veers into soft D gerrymander territory, though.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Good choice. The only drawing choice that's unfavorable to Dems is the Wild seat, which I get is frustrating, but given the pretty D-friendly choices elsewhere it's hard to complain. Overall, a pretty good COI map in the vein of the Persily one.

And besides, there might be some upside in keeping PA-8 competitive. It's still a winnable seat for Dems even if it's obviously an uphill battle.