New PA Maps In Effect

[Gass3268]

Interesting enough, the League of Women voter's maps have the best compactness scores:

[Gass3268]

That ACLU map looks like the naive geographically compact maps on 538. Why would you split Huntingdon and Northumberland county unless they were trying to make some of the middle districts looks round or square?

I agree that it looks like the ACLU elevated compactness above the other criteria. The partisan maps include knowledge of incumbent residences and cores of previous districts.

The Jan 22 order specified only the following criteria, and the Feb 7 order specifically said it did not change them:
Contiguous and compact districts;
Districts as nearly equal in population as practicable;
Avoid division of any county, city, incorporated town, borough, township, or ward, except where necessary to ensure equality of population.
These criteria mirror that criteria in the PA constitution governing the creation of legislative districts. Note, that incumbent protection is not one of the criteria.

Contiguous and compact districts are a frequently used phrase, and in the Feb 7 opinion referred the Reock and Polsby-Popper tests of compactness. When these tests are applied to the entire plan one finds that individual districts may not be compact if it facilitates other districts becoming more compact. Polsby-Popper gives weight to the perimeter length and works against natural irregular boundaries such as county lines in a way that the Reock test does not. Perhaps the ACLU gave more weight to that test.

The as nearly equal as practicable standard for population was the subject of Tennant v Jefferson County (2012). The WV plan had a population range of 0.79% of the quota but survived because of the neutral criteria involved, including division of no counties. In PA it is impossible to divide no counties, but it is possible to minimize the division of counties and divide no county subdivisions. That along with contiguity and compactness should make Tennant the standard for interpreting population equality.

As noted it is impossible to avoid the division of counties. To minimize the division one has to decide is the goal to minimize fragments created by county division, or to minimize the number of counties divided. Looking at the record of plans in PA and their analysis it would seem that the latter is the key factor - the total number of divided counties should be minimized. That factor is modified by the grouping of divided counties into counties split 2 ways, 3 ways, 4 ways, etc. The size of Philadelphia makes a 3-way division inevitable, but nothing forces any greater fragmentation of a county. A reasonable way to meet this requirement would be to avoid plans that have more than 2 chops (3 districts) in a county.

With that in mind I applied those criteria to come up with the following plan, which would be my submission if the public were invited to submit plans. There are only 6 chopped counties and none are chopped more than twice. Chops within a county are drawn to maximize compactness while creating no chops to any county subdivision, including wards within Philadelphia. CD-2 meets the VRA with BVAP 52.6%. The population range is 0.58%, within the Tennant range accepted by SCOTUS. CDs 5 and 10 are arguably not compact, but their shape is largely due to the adjacent compact districts comprised of whole counties, and would not unduly hurt the average compactness of the plan.

Did you submit your map to the court?

[Gass3268]

John O'Neill, who drew Florida's current congressional and state senate maps, made a 9D-9R PA (7 safe seats for both sides and 4 that lean one way or the other, but could be won by either side) map that does better on the neutral criteria on the whole than every other plan that's been released.



He splits less counties and municipalities than any other map and ties the Senate Democrats for the fewest precinct splits. His compactness score is also better or tied than any other map in 2 of the 3 compactness score and only 0.1 off on the third. What allows his map to be more competative is he splits the City of Pittsburgh as one of his 14 municipality splits, splits Philadelphia 4 times, and Bucks as one of his county splits.  

Source

Here is the PVI data

I would not be shocked if we got a map that looked like this.

[Gass3268]

John O'Neill, who drew Florida's current congressional and state senate maps, made a 9D-9R PA (7 safe seats for both sides and 4 that lean one way or the other, but could be won by either side) map that does better on the neutral criteria on the whole than every other plan that's been released.



He splits less counties and municipalities than any other map and ties the Senate Democrats for the fewest precinct splits. His compactness score is also better or tied than any other map in 2 of the 3 compactness score and only 0.1 off on the third. What allows his map to be more competative is he splits the City of Pittsburgh as one of his 14 municipality splits, splits Philadelphia 4 times, and Bucks as one of his county splits.  

Source

Here is the PVI data

I would not be shocked if we got a map that looked like this.

I like this one a lot.

Of course you do. Your avatar claims you’re a Democrat. I hate this map because I”m a Republican, and this map gives Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Democrats far more power than they deserve. Geography matters.

That’s one of many reasons why if I were writing the rules, cities would not be chopped more often than necessary as a first order, except to comply with the VRA.

Sure, and I happen to think that Republicans shouldn't get more representation because of a geographic quirk. But you are a Republican, so of course you think that people living in cities should be underrepresented.

*snip* Don’t like the way your legislature drew the map? Vote them out of office in the redistricting cycle.

Because that's a thing that can realistically happen with a gerrymandered map

Speaking of, I wonder why the League of Women Voters haven't sued over the state legislature maps.

[Gass3268]

This map is terrible at least for three reasons:
1) it mixes York and Lancaster
2) it splits Bucks
3) there's a seat running from Reading to inner-ring Philadelphia suburbs.

Proportionality matters but this is overdoing it.

But it splits less counties then any of the other maps and it is more compact.

[Gass3268]

This map is terrible at least for three reasons:
1) it mixes York and Lancaster
2) it splits Bucks
3) there's a seat running from Reading to inner-ring Philadelphia suburbs.

Proportionality matters but this is overdoing it.

But it splits less counties then any of the other maps and it is more compact.

Compactness isn't the only thing that matters. I'd rather have Bucks whole and the Lehigh Valley whole rather than have a marginally more compact map.
PA has many parochial rules that have to be followed when one crafts a congressional district map.

The Supreme Court said nothing about having to follow old rules. Luckily the special master drawing the new map is a professor from Stanford and probably knows nothing of these weird rules.

Why does Bucks County get to be kept whole due to tradition, but Delaware and Montgomery can be chopped into a million different pieces. Why are some counties given preferential treatment over the other? Same for municipalities and towns. To me there is no difference is splitting Pittsburgh in two than splitting a random town in Clearfield County in two.

[Gass3268]

Many a Gerrymander has turned into a Dummymander after 10 years.

Gerrymandering is an American tradition that is even older than the person for whom it is named.

Do you keep a straight face when you make the argument that rigging elections via crafty map making is OK because ...tradition?

Jesus

Tradition matters. If the Framers were using their state legislatures to Gerrymander to try to keep Thomas Jefferson out of office, how is it unconstitutional for a state legislature to do the same thing today? The wording of constitution hasn’t changed, if I’m not mistaken.

And what is rigging elections via crafty map? Can I argue that my Congressional election is rigged because I wasn’t put in a district with enough Republicans to elect a Republican? I will never have a Republican congressman in my current district, period.

We don’t live in a proportional democracy. If Democrats aren’t able to broaden their appeal outside of the cities, that is their fault. No “crafty” map should be enacted by judicial fiat to try to create a proportional system when that’s not what we have by splitting up cities. If the state legislature wants to do that (like in Maryland and Illinois), I’m fine with it. But no court should impose such a thing by dictat in the name of “fairness”.

And let me guess, Virginia, you prefer the recent map aptly labeled Democratic Gerrymander, too, because you, like me are a partisan who wants their party to win.

The last map posted is the most fair based on the principles put forward by the PA Supreme Court.

[Gass3268]

Many a Gerrymander has turned into a Dummymander after 10 years.

Gerrymandering is an American tradition that is even older than the person for whom it is named.

Do you keep a straight face when you make the argument that rigging elections via crafty map making is OK because ...tradition?

Jesus

Tradition matters. If the Framers were using their state legislatures to Gerrymander to try to keep Thomas Jefferson out of office, how is it unconstitutional for a state legislature to do the same thing today? The wording of constitution hasn’t changed, if I’m not mistaken.

And what is rigging elections via crafty map? Can I argue that my Congressional election is rigged because I wasn’t put in a district with enough Republicans to elect a Republican? I will never have a Republican congressman in my current district, period.

We don’t live in a proportional democracy. If Democrats aren’t able to broaden their appeal outside of the cities, that is their fault. No “crafty” map should be enacted by judicial fiat to try to create a proportional system when that’s not what we have by splitting up cities. If the state legislature wants to do that (like in Maryland and Illinois), I’m fine with it. But no court should impose such a thing by dictat in the name of “fairness”.

And let me guess, Virginia, you prefer the recent map aptly labeled Democratic Gerrymander, too, because you, like me are a partisan who wants their party to win.

The last map posted is the most fair based on the principles put forward by the PA Supreme Court.

Regardless of whether or not what you said is true, it's still a dumb map.

[Gass3268]

Many a Gerrymander has turned into a Dummymander after 10 years.

Gerrymandering is an American tradition that is even older than the person for whom it is named.

Do you keep a straight face when you make the argument that rigging elections via crafty map making is OK because ...tradition?

Jesus

Tradition matters. If the Framers were using their state legislatures to Gerrymander to try to keep Thomas Jefferson out of office, how is it unconstitutional for a state legislature to do the same thing today? The wording of constitution hasn’t changed, if I’m not mistaken.

And what is rigging elections via crafty map? Can I argue that my Congressional election is rigged because I wasn’t put in a district with enough Republicans to elect a Republican? I will never have a Republican congressman in my current district, period.

We don’t live in a proportional democracy. If Democrats aren’t able to broaden their appeal outside of the cities, that is their fault. No “crafty” map should be enacted by judicial fiat to try to create a proportional system when that’s not what we have by splitting up cities. If the state legislature wants to do that (like in Maryland and Illinois), I’m fine with it. But no court should impose such a thing by dictat in the name of “fairness”.

And let me guess, Virginia, you prefer the recent map aptly labeled Democratic Gerrymander, too, because you, like me are a partisan who wants their party to win.

The last map posted is the most fair based on the principles put forward by the PA Supreme Court.

Regardless of whether or not what you said is true, it's still a dumb map.

And?

I am saying that based on the principles put forward by the PASC, Princeton D Compact is the best map that has been presented so far.

[Gass3268]

Many a Gerrymander has turned into a Dummymander after 10 years.

Gerrymandering is an American tradition that is even older than the person for whom it is named.

Do you keep a straight face when you make the argument that rigging elections via crafty map making is OK because ...tradition?

Jesus

Tradition matters. If the Framers were using their state legislatures to Gerrymander to try to keep Thomas Jefferson out of office, how is it unconstitutional for a state legislature to do the same thing today? The wording of constitution hasn’t changed, if I’m not mistaken.

And what is rigging elections via crafty map? Can I argue that my Congressional election is rigged because I wasn’t put in a district with enough Republicans to elect a Republican? I will never have a Republican congressman in my current district, period.

We don’t live in a proportional democracy. If Democrats aren’t able to broaden their appeal outside of the cities, that is their fault. No “crafty” map should be enacted by judicial fiat to try to create a proportional system when that’s not what we have by splitting up cities. If the state legislature wants to do that (like in Maryland and Illinois), I’m fine with it. But no court should impose such a thing by dictat in the name of “fairness”.

And let me guess, Virginia, you prefer the recent map aptly labeled Democratic Gerrymander, too, because you, like me are a partisan who wants their party to win.

The last map posted is the most fair based on the principles put forward by the PA Supreme Court.

Regardless of whether or not what you said is true, it's still a dumb map.

Yeah and I can draw a better map that cuts 7 counties and 0 municipalities. This map sucks not because of the number of municipalities and counties it cuts, but because which ones it does.

But I will argue from a different angle. The purpose of this map is a D-gerry light, cracking Philly and Pitt to create a equal representative map. This entire argument is bogus. Some states are simply geographically biased towards one party or another. That is how it is. Correcting is like saying  the most important thing that matters is partisanship, not geographic location, not communities of interest, not race, not the historical lines of the seat. Nope, the most important thing is how you vote. I mean when asked, people will always identify themselves as a democrat or a republican first, before identifying as a Pennsylvanian, or from Philadelphia, or from Appalacia, etc. (/s) Some states lean left in geography, some states lean right. Pennsylvania, and much of the midwest leans right. And you just have to accept that. Under a fair map across the nation, following all current rules and minimizing county cuts (I have it) these state biases even out.

I still support your map the best. I'm just saying that this map is the best of all those that were presented to the Special Master. If anything it shows how little effort the partisans put into the maps they gave the court.

[Gass3268]

Many a Gerrymander has turned into a Dummymander after 10 years.

Gerrymandering is an American tradition that is even older than the person for whom it is named.

Do you keep a straight face when you make the argument that rigging elections via crafty map making is OK because ...tradition?

Jesus

Tradition matters. If the Framers were using their state legislatures to Gerrymander to try to keep Thomas Jefferson out of office, how is it unconstitutional for a state legislature to do the same thing today? The wording of constitution hasn’t changed, if I’m not mistaken.

And what is rigging elections via crafty map? Can I argue that my Congressional election is rigged because I wasn’t put in a district with enough Republicans to elect a Republican? I will never have a Republican congressman in my current district, period.

We don’t live in a proportional democracy. If Democrats aren’t able to broaden their appeal outside of the cities, that is their fault. No “crafty” map should be enacted by judicial fiat to try to create a proportional system when that’s not what we have by splitting up cities. If the state legislature wants to do that (like in Maryland and Illinois), I’m fine with it. But no court should impose such a thing by dictat in the name of “fairness”.

And let me guess, Virginia, you prefer the recent map aptly labeled Democratic Gerrymander, too, because you, like me are a partisan who wants their party to win.

The last map posted is the most fair based on the principles put forward by the PA Supreme Court.

Regardless of whether or not what you said is true, it's still a dumb map.

Yeah and I can draw a better map that cuts 7 counties and 0 municipalities. This map sucks not because of the number of municipalities and counties it cuts, but because which ones it does.

But I will argue from a different angle. The purpose of this map is a D-gerry light, cracking Philly and Pitt to create a equal representative map. This entire argument is bogus. Some states are simply geographically biased towards one party or another. That is how it is. Correcting is like saying  the most important thing that matters is partisanship, not geographic location, not communities of interest, not race, not the historical lines of the seat. Nope, the most important thing is how you vote. I mean when asked, people will always identify themselves as a democrat or a republican first, before identifying as a Pennsylvanian, or from Philadelphia, or from Appalacia, etc. (/s) Some states lean left in geography, some states lean right. Pennsylvania, and much of the midwest leans right. And you just have to accept that. Under a fair map across the nation, following all current rules and minimizing county cuts (I have it) these state biases even out.

I still support your map the best. I'm just saying that this map is the best of all those that were presented to the Special Master. If anything it shows how little effort the partisans put into the maps they gave the court.

In this we are at agreement. The fact a D-Gerry-lite is more compact in every way than the partisan drawn maps shows how little effort they put into their plans.

I think the difference is that Princeton map gave no thought to incumbents, while for every single partisan map it was their first consideration.

[Gass3268]

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has issued a new map:

 

The files/pictures have not been posted yet, but when they are it will be posted here:

http://www.pacourts.us/news-and-statistics/cases-of-public-interest/league-of-women-voters-et-al-v-the-commonwealth-of-pennsylvania-et-al-159-mm-2017

[Gass3268]

Lamb (if he gets elected) looks totally screwed, and so does Cartwright. The only improvements for Dems are in Costello/Meehan/and possibly Dent's.

Looks to me that Cartwright got a less Republican District.

This is still better than his current district. Schuylkill is that much of a drag on his current district.

[Gass3268]

Congrats Phil

[Gass3268]

Oh sh*t. That's an amazing map for Dems.


\


https://twitter.com/timelywriter/status/965673336251518976

This tweet says that the GOP will challenge the map.  How, exactly?

They'll sue again in court and try to delay the implementation of this map. Won't go anywhere, if Alito wasn't going to step in before, he won't now.

[Gass3268]

Philadelphia still gets three seats essentially. Boyle will get to run in PA-02.

[Gass3268]

I'm most interested to see who wins the new 17th. It's a narrow Trump district but ancestrally Dem.

Safe Cartwright, at least for the this cycle.

[Gass3268]

[Gass3268]

I'm most interested to see who wins the new 17th. It's a narrow Trump district but ancestrally Dem.

Safe Cartwright, at least for the this cycle.

Don't get confused. OLD PA-17 was the Scranton - Wilkes-Barre district that Cartwright held. The NEW one is the western Pittsburgh suburbs. Pretty sure Horus was referring to the new one.

Oh man, you are right, I'm going to get so confused.

[Gass3268]

Supposedly Saccone and Lamb were both drawn out of the district+

Yup, both were drawn into Doyle's Pittsburgh district.

[Gass3268]

Josh Kraushaar and other Republican pundits throwing a fit on twitter whining about how it's a "partisan map drawn by a Democratic court". lol

Yeah, there are a lot of Republican tears on Twitter right now.

[Gass3268]

PA-01: Brian Fitzpatrick (R)
PA-02: Dwight Evans (D)
PA-03 (Bob Brady's district): TBD
PA-04: Brendan Boyle (D)
PA-05 (Pat Meehan's district): TBD
PA-06: Ryan Costello (R)
PA-07 (Charlie Dent's district): TBD
PA-08: Matt Cartwright (D)
PA-09 (Lou Barletta's district): TBD
PA-10 (unknown Harrisburg district): TBD
PA-11: Scott Perry (R)
PA-12: Tom Marino (R)
PA-13: Bill Shuster (R)
PA-14: TBD
PA-15: Glenn Thompson (R)
PA-16: Mike Kelly (R)
PA-17: Keith Rothfus (R)
PA-18: Michael Doyle (D)

While this might be the closest to matching the current seats, it does not match where these folks live.

[Gass3268]

Were the current incumbents/special election candidates live:

PA-01: Brian Fitzpatrick (R)
PA-02: Brendan Boyle (D)
PA-03: Bob Brady (D) (retiring), Dwight Evans (D)
PA-04:
PA-05: Pat Meehan (R) (Retiring)
PA-06: Ryan Costello (R)
PA-07: Charlie Dent (R) (Retiring)
PA-08: Lou Barletta (R) (Running for Senate), Matthew Cartwright (D)
PA-09:
PA-10: Scott Perry (R)
PA-11: Lloyd Smucker (R)
PA-12: Tom Marino (R)
PA-13: Bill Shuster (R) (Retiring)
PA-14:
PA-15: Glenn Thompson (R)
PA-16: Mike Kelly (R)
PA-17: Keith Rothfus (R), Connor Lamb (D) (Not 100% certain on this one as it's close)
PA-18: Mike Doyle (D), Rick Saccone (R)

[Gass3268]

Were the current incumbents/special election candidates live:

PA-01: Brian Fitzpatrick (R)
PA-02: Brendan Boyle (D)
PA-03: Bob Brady (D) (retiring), Dwight Evans (D)
PA-04:
PA-05: Pat Meehan (R) (Retiring)
PA-06: Ryan Costello (R)
PA-07: Charlie Dent (R) (Retiring)
PA-08: Lou Barletta (R) (Running for Senate), Matthew Cartwright (D)
PA-09:
PA-10: Scott Perry (R)
PA-11: Lloyd Smucker (R)
PA-12: Tom Marino (R)
PA-13: Bill Shuster (R) (Retiring)
PA-14:
PA-15: Glenn Thompson (R)
PA-16: Mike Kelly (R)
PA-17: Keith Rothfus (R), Connor Lamb (D) (Not 100% certain on this one as it's close)
PA-18: Mike Doyle (D), Rick Saccone (R)

Lamb Lives in Mt. Lebanon according to the Sec of State, which is in PA-17. He is an easy pick for November if he wins.

He's an easy pick even if he loses in a close race.

That 17th is a pretty great however. It combines the area of Allegheny County that swung the hardest to Clinton with Beaver County, which while swung hard to Trump, is still the friendliest of the suburban Pittsburgh counties to Democrats.

[Gass3268]

wait the new PA-17 is the current what?

I know 14 is the current 18...

The new 17th is Beaver County + Northern Allegheny.