What districts would have Dems won back if not for gerrymandering?

[Gass3268]

What is everyone's thought on my version of Wisconsin?



Milwaukee

[barfbag]

Gerrymandering adds to the fun of politics.

[Torie]

What is everyone's thought on my version of Wisconsin?



Milwaukee

Given my erosity phobia, your map is way, way too erose for me. You might try again, trying to make things more compact if you are so inclined. That takes a lot of time, unless you put all the county population numbers on a spreadsheet, and move them around from CD column to CD column (you actually do most of your work on a spreadsheet rather than using the DRA utility, as if you did an outline of a painting in pencil before you started slapping paint on (that is what my boyfriend does)), as opposed to trial and error with your mouse clicks. It might be worth the effort, if you want to make a commitment to becoming Mr. Wisconsin in this effort. Just a thought.

[Gass3268]

Anyone get a chance to see my Wisconsin map?

[Torie]

Anyone get a chance to see my Wisconsin map?

I responded FWIW to your map in a post above.

[traininthedistance]

Hm.  What do people think of this proposal as a way to lessen, if not entirely neutralize, the partisan effects of line-drawing (both from gerrymandering, and "natural packing")?

Districts should be drawn in each state so that half of them have a PVI more D than the state as a whole, and half of them have a PVI that is more R than the state as a whole.  Maybe allow wiggle room of a point or two in either direction.  So, in the case of Michigan, you'd need seven districts D+4 or more Dem, and seven districts that were D+4 or more Pub.  Conversely, a state like North Carolina would be mandated to have six districts that are at least R+3, and a seventh right around that number.

This should safeguard against the worst abuses, in both directions. 

[Torie]

Hm.  What do people think of this proposal as a way to lessen, if not entirely neutralize, the partisan effects of line-drawing (both from gerrymandering, and "natural packing")?

Districts should be drawn in each state so that half of them have a PVI more D than the state as a whole, and half of them have a PVI that is more R than the state as a whole.  Maybe allow wiggle room of a point or two in either direction.  So, in the case of Michigan, you'd need seven districts D+4 or more Dem, and seven districts that were D+4 or more Pub.  Conversely, a state like North Carolina would be mandated to have six districts that are at least R+3, and a seventh right around that number.

This should safeguard against the worst abuses, in both directions. 

I know you want to move towards House representation that more closely reflects the popular vote, but the Pubs are never go to agree to that. In fact, I suspect I, and Muon2 too for that matter, are too partisan to agree to that. What I am willing to do however, if need be, is skew a bit towards an excessive number of swing districts. What the Dems would really want, at a minimum, and I understand that, is to offset the screwing that they get from the VRA. That isn't going to happen either. So we need to do the best we can with what reasonable folks on both sides are willing to do.

[traininthedistance]

Hm.  What do people think of this proposal as a way to lessen, if not entirely neutralize, the partisan effects of line-drawing (both from gerrymandering, and "natural packing")?

Districts should be drawn in each state so that half of them have a PVI more D than the state as a whole, and half of them have a PVI that is more R than the state as a whole.  Maybe allow wiggle room of a point or two in either direction.  So, in the case of Michigan, you'd need seven districts D+4 or more Dem, and seven districts that were D+4 or more Pub.  Conversely, a state like North Carolina would be mandated to have six districts that are at least R+3, and a seventh right around that number.

This should safeguard against the worst abuses, in both directions. 

I know you want to move towards House representation that more closely reflects the popular vote, but the Pubs are never go to agree to that. In fact, I suspect I, and Muon2 too for that matter, are too partisan to agree to that. What I am willing to do however, if need be, is skew a bit towards an excessive number of swing districts. What the Dems would really want, at a minimum, and I understand that, is to offset the screwing that they get from the VRA. That isn't going to happen either. So we need to do the best we can with what reasonable folks on both sides are willing to do.

I would contend that opposing the idea that House representation should closely represent the popular vote just is, well, unreasonable.

But yes, in the practical world where we live (in which you have apparently indicated there is no such thing as a reasonable Pub ) I would be willing to accept more limited measures to counteract VRA screwage, embedded within an independent, non-partisan framework. 

[muon2]

Hm.  What do people think of this proposal as a way to lessen, if not entirely neutralize, the partisan effects of line-drawing (both from gerrymandering, and "natural packing")?

Districts should be drawn in each state so that half of them have a PVI more D than the state as a whole, and half of them have a PVI that is more R than the state as a whole.  Maybe allow wiggle room of a point or two in either direction.  So, in the case of Michigan, you'd need seven districts D+4 or more Dem, and seven districts that were D+4 or more Pub.  Conversely, a state like North Carolina would be mandated to have six districts that are at least R+3, and a seventh right around that number.

This should safeguard against the worst abuses, in both directions. 

I know you want to move towards House representation that more closely reflects the popular vote, but the Pubs are never go to agree to that. In fact, I suspect I, and Muon2 too for that matter, are too partisan to agree to that. What I am willing to do however, if need be, is skew a bit towards an excessive number of swing districts. What the Dems would really want, at a minimum, and I understand that, is to offset the screwing that they get from the VRA. That isn't going to happen either. So we need to do the best we can with what reasonable folks on both sides are willing to do.

My sense is that the best method is to design a plan based on demographic and geographic criteria. I use a bilevel approach that starts with apportionment regions then moves to districts. The criteria are limited to population inequality, chops, and erosity, all of which should be minimized.

After a map is drawn one should test the plan for partisan biases. There are two independent metrics to use. One is polarization which judges how many districts are uncompetitive. Statistically districts with a PVI of 0 or 1 have an equal chance of going to either party so they exhibit no polarization. CDs with a PVI of 2 through 5 are favored to go for the indicated party about 3 to 1 and could be scored with one unit of polarization. PVIs beyond 5 are over 95% likely to go for the indicated party and can be counted with double polarization.

The other political metric is the skew. Skew measures the deviation of a plan from the expected result based on the statewide vote. The district plan is expected to have a distribution that is about twice the PVI of the state. Take the state PVI percent, double it, add 50% and multiply by the number of CDs for the expected partisan lean. The raw skew takes the difference between CDs for the party with the preferred statewide PVI minus those for the other party and divides the difference by two. The difference between the raw skew and the partisan lean is the skew for the plan.

A strong system to judge plans should show off its biceps.

[politicallefty]

Muon2 and I have thrown the  communities of interest thing (other than the VRA), into the dustbin. It is just always gamed by partisans - here, there and everywhere. We focus on chops and erosity, although I do bear in mind keeping metro areas together, and I did that. The Columbus burbs are almost all in one CD, and most of the city in another, and the choice involved not splitting the black community where it was contiguous, and trying to keep most of the city together.

On second thought, I don't really have any problems with the Columbus suburbs. I should also clarify that I tend to use community of interest and metro area somewhat interchangeably. I only have two problems with that map, which is otherwise excellent in my view. I'd much rather see the line between your CD-10 and CD-12 transect vertically instead of horizontally. The districts won't be quite as compact, but I think they make more sense that way so you have a rural interior district and an outer SE river district. In other words, a more compact and reasonable version of the old OH-06 and OH-18. The only other change I could see making would be your CD-09. I'd rather see that start from Lucas County and take up the remaining lakeshore west of Lorain County and move inland to grab enough population.

On a related note, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on my Pennsylvania map on page 2 (and considering the defense I already made of CD-10).

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would much rather that Lackawanna be placed in the 10th like it was for decades until 2001 when it was removed to protect Sherwood from Junior making another attempt at him. When I drew the map like this the 10th came out as 51% McCain and the 11th as 53% Obama. A Casey Dem with a whole Lackawanna as a base could toss Marino in all but the most GOP of years and then produce a series of competative elections until some Republican managed to reign in Lackawanna or some Democrat likewise with Lycoming and thus hold it for a good length of time. Barletta would be able to win such an 11th in all but the most Dem of years. Might sacrifice a bit on the district quality, but Congressman quality would benefit as incumbents in both would be kept on their toes. These solid districts reduce degrade the incumbent over time, and NE PA needs solid representation, not solid districts.

That might be good if you're going for competitive districts as a priority. My primary intent was to keep communities of interest together and have reasonably shaped districts with minimal county splits (and lower municipalities for that matter). I made a point of keeping Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties together as the core of one district, as I think they constitute a strong community of interest. I'll admit that my PA-10 isn't the best district, but I think it's a natural extension to account for population loss. I would like to see the map you've drawn that splits Lackawanna from Luzerne.

I know, my priority was to keep them close, but I also wanted to avoid some of the ridiculousness in in the real map, if possible. I was new to the process at the time as well.

I no longer have the full map anymore, nor do I have the ability to use the DRA at all anymore.

When I drew PA-10 I had it taking in all of Tioga, Lycoming, Union, Snyder, Bradford, Sullivan, Wyoming, Susquehanna, Wayne, Lackawanna, and all but one precinct from Pike that I removed to get it within 400 of population equality. The data was probably older though and it thus might not work out the same way, but it was 51-48 for McCain.

I don't remember how I did the 11th, aside from Luzerne, Columbia, Montour and Northumberland (which would be short on population without something else), but I remember it came out as 53% or 54% for Obama.

The SE came out ugly though and the West wasn't much better and by that point it was one in the morning and with class the next day I trashed it. Though I did remember the 10th because I use to live there.

[traininthedistance]

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New Jersey is rather unique in the US with both strong counties and town subdivisions. In the Midwest, many voters do not know their township but certainly know their county. For most the township exists as a basis for the county to track assessments and to group voting precincts. Only in farm areas where the township is the primary provider of road maintenance does it take a more prominent role.

Pennsylvania is the same; New York is a little more complicated with its "villages" but I believe that NY towns all have some level of government that extends well beyond rural road maintenance.  (I don't know to what extent school districts line up with town boundaries, though: in NJ every muni has its own school district at least on paper, in PA school district lines follow muni boundaries but often include multiple towns).

I worry that, if your proposed guidelines for dealing with metro areas would allow the last map you put up, then they are far too toothless for my taste.  Splitting Livingston from the Detroit area, and the tri-chop of Lansing's core, together have the effect of ensuring that there is no real Lansing district, when other maps have shown how it is easy to make a single whole-county Lansing district that substantially keeps the whole of the core together in one district, rather than sundering it three ways.   I understand your concerns about not wanting what you consider to be "subjective" CoI criteria... but a "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", as they say.  

Perhaps a balancing test could be added that keeping small MSA cores in one district, or large MSA cores in one apportionment group, or different parts of a CSA in the same district/group, is a priority goal- and that failure to do so should count as a county cut for the purposes of scoring.  (Maybe breaking off parts of a CSA would be worth half a county cut or something.)

[muon2]

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New Jersey is rather unique in the US with both strong counties and town subdivisions. In the Midwest, many voters do not know their township but certainly know their county. For most the township exists as a basis for the county to track assessments and to group voting precincts. Only in farm areas where the township is the primary provider of road maintenance does it take a more prominent role.

Pennsylvania is the same; New York is a little more complicated with its "villages" but I believe that NY towns all have some level of government that extends well beyond rural road maintenance.  (I don't know to what extent school districts line up with town boundaries, though: in NJ every muni has its own school district at least on paper, in PA school district lines follow muni boundaries but often include multiple towns).

I worry that, if your proposed guidelines for dealing with metro areas would allow the last map you put up, then they are far too toothless for my taste.  Splitting Livingston from the Detroit area, and the tri-chop of Lansing's core, together have the effect of ensuring that there is no real Lansing district, when other maps have shown how it is easy to make a single whole-county Lansing district that substantially keeps the whole of the core together in one district, rather than sundering it three ways.   I understand your concerns about not wanting what you consider to be "subjective" CoI criteria... but a "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", as they say.  

Perhaps a balancing test could be added that keeping small MSA cores in one district, or large MSA cores in one apportionment group, or different parts of a CSA in the same district/group, is a priority goal- and that failure to do so should count as a county cut for the purposes of scoring.  (Maybe breaking off parts of a CSA would be worth half a county cut or something.)

The purpose of my scoring is not to find a single winning entry. Mathematically that is not a tractable problem given the large number of census blocks (or even voting districts). The purpose is to find an objective set of plans that can then be made subject to the review by a group of humans who would select from the set. Subjectivity is fine for that review, but if subjectivity gets a hold on the creation of a set all sorts of games become possible. The core rules are thus immune to exceptions, and that is left to the reviewers to apply.

I would prefer not to put up any metro rules because as one goes through the states there are inevitable exceptions. If you don't like my Lansing chop offering that's fine. My point is that if one looks at each district on its own, there may be no reason to exclude it from the set that goes to the reviewers. Neither the shape of that CD 4 not the way it selects some of the whole municipalities to include from Ingham is particularly unusual. It's only when viewed in the context of the the neighboring districts and the global knowledge that other maps don't split the metro that it becomes objectionable. I claim that that is exactly why a human element is part of the process.

[traininthedistance]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

New Jersey is rather unique in the US with both strong counties and town subdivisions. In the Midwest, many voters do not know their township but certainly know their county. For most the township exists as a basis for the county to track assessments and to group voting precincts. Only in farm areas where the township is the primary provider of road maintenance does it take a more prominent role.

Pennsylvania is the same; New York is a little more complicated with its "villages" but I believe that NY towns all have some level of government that extends well beyond rural road maintenance.  (I don't know to what extent school districts line up with town boundaries, though: in NJ every muni has its own school district at least on paper, in PA school district lines follow muni boundaries but often include multiple towns).

I worry that, if your proposed guidelines for dealing with metro areas would allow the last map you put up, then they are far too toothless for my taste.  Splitting Livingston from the Detroit area, and the tri-chop of Lansing's core, together have the effect of ensuring that there is no real Lansing district, when other maps have shown how it is easy to make a single whole-county Lansing district that substantially keeps the whole of the core together in one district, rather than sundering it three ways.   I understand your concerns about not wanting what you consider to be "subjective" CoI criteria... but a "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", as they say.  

Perhaps a balancing test could be added that keeping small MSA cores in one district, or large MSA cores in one apportionment group, or different parts of a CSA in the same district/group, is a priority goal- and that failure to do so should count as a county cut for the purposes of scoring.  (Maybe breaking off parts of a CSA would be worth half a county cut or something.)

The purpose of my scoring is not to find a single winning entry. Mathematically that is not a tractable problem given the large number of census blocks (or even voting districts). The purpose is to find an objective set of plans that can then be made subject to the review by a group of humans who would select from the set. Subjectivity is fine for that review, but if subjectivity gets a hold on the creation of a set all sorts of games become possible. The core rules are thus immune to exceptions, and that is left to the reviewers to apply.

I would prefer not to put up any metro rules because as one goes through the states there are inevitable exceptions. If you don't like my Lansing chop offering that's fine. My point is that if one looks at each district on its own, there may be no reason to exclude it from the set that goes to the reviewers. Neither the shape of that CD 4 not the way it selects some of the whole municipalities to include from Ingham is particularly unusual. It's only when viewed in the context of the the neighboring districts and the global knowledge that other maps don't split the metro that it becomes objectionable. I claim that that is exactly why a human element is part of the process.

Yeah, I get what you're saying here.  I guess I would then just hope that the core rules allow just a little bit of leniency w/r/t county chops, so that other maps which do a better job of keeping metros together at the expense of a chop or two (obviously within some limit that could perhaps be set in stone) could get to the final round, as it were.

[traininthedistance]

Ladies and gentlemen, the perfect Pennsylvania.  (Using a max 0.5% deviation, that is.)



Only six counties have any chops at all, and five districts are whole-county.  Only Philly is split, and it is only split along ward boundaries.  District 2 is 59% black, District 1 is minority-plurality by total population (though white majority by VAP, as a result of how the ward math worked out; would've rather had it min-maj total, which is almost certainly possible if you get ugly and abandon that nice Broad St. boundary).



In addition, metro areas are kept as damn near pristine as possible.  In SEPA, the five-county Delaware Valley plus Reading (part of the Philly CSA) plus Lancaster (its own metro, not part of any CSA) is one apportionment district.  In addition, the three inner suburban counties, Reading, and Lancaster, are all min split- there is an all-Montgomery district, and Delaware/Bucks/Lancaster/Reading are all kept whole.  The extra chops (all of which I'm pretty sure are necessary) are confined to Chester and Philly.

The 12 (old 19)-17-15 apportionment district in Central PA and the Lehigh Valley does the worst in terms of metro contiguity.  The three counties of the Allentown metro are just a wee bit too large, so a chop of about 5K from Carbon is given to 17.  Not technically a microchop, but it's in that spirit.  The Harrisburg area fares worst, as there are three districts in the MSA, and Cumberland is chopped.  But at least the core-Dauphin- is whole, and Perry County is outlying and rural, and the York-Adams-Carlisle district can't avoid a chop.

In SWPA, the Pittsburgh-New Castle CSA is almost perfectly in 2 districts, except for the addition of Greene in the far southwest corner (it's surrounded) and the subtraction of Westmoreland.

The only other instance of MSAs being broken up is that Wyoming County is separated from the rest of the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre MSA. But, again, it's an outlying county, and Monroe-Lackawanna-Luzerne is just too perfect.  You'd have to split something there, and if it's not what I did, it would be a different MSA plus a county.  Worth it, easy.  As for CSAs, the Lock Haven micro is split from the Williamsport metro; an earlier draft had them together in 10 but splitting them allowed 9 and 12  to no longer be underpopulated, and to be whole-county.  So it saved two cuts, again.

I think this is a map that would be hard to improve upon.  You could arguably clean up things between 10 and 17 at the expense of a county cut if you wanted to, that's about it.  And of course the lines within Allegheny County will always remain gameable for partisan advantage.

[muon2]

Ladies and gentlemen, the perfect Pennsylvania.  (Using a max 0.5% deviation, that is.)



Only six counties have any chops at all, and five districts are whole-county.  Only Philly is split, and it is only split along ward boundaries.  District 2 is 59% black, District 1 is minority-plurality by total population (though white majority by VAP, as a result of how the ward math worked out; would've rather had it min-maj total, which is almost certainly possible if you get ugly and abandon that nice Broad St. boundary).



In addition, metro areas are kept as damn near pristine as possible.  In SEPA, the five-county Delaware Valley plus Reading (part of the Philly CSA) plus Lancaster (its own metro, not part of any CSA) is one apportionment district.  In addition, the three inner suburban counties, Reading, and Lancaster, are all min split- there is an all-Montgomery district, and Delaware/Bucks/Lancaster/Reading are all kept whole.  The extra chops (all of which I'm pretty sure are necessary) are confined to Chester and Philly.

The 12 (old 19)-17-15 apportionment district in Central PA and the Lehigh Valley does the worst in terms of metro contiguity.  The three counties of the Allentown metro are just a wee bit too large, so a chop of about 5K from Carbon is given to 17.  Not technically a microchop, but it's in that spirit.  The Harrisburg area fares worst, as there are three districts in the MSA, and Cumberland is chopped.  But at least the core-Dauphin- is whole, and Perry County is outlying and rural, and the York-Adams-Carlisle district can't avoid a chop.

In SWPA, the Pittsburgh-New Castle CSA is almost perfectly in 2 districts, except for the addition of Greene in the far southwest corner (it's surrounded) and the subtraction of Westmoreland.

The only other instance of MSAs being broken up is that Wyoming County is separated from the rest of the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre MSA. But, again, it's an outlying county, and Monroe-Lackawanna-Luzerne is just too perfect.  You'd have to split something there, and if it's not what I did, it would be a different MSA plus a county.  Worth it, easy.  As for CSAs, the Lock Haven micro is split from the Williamsport metro; an earlier draft had them together in 10 but splitting them allowed 9 and 12  to no longer be underpopulated, and to be whole-county.  So it saved two cuts, again.

I think this is a map that would be hard to improve upon.  You could arguably clean up things between 10 and 17 at the expense of a county cut if you wanted to, that's about it.  And of course the lines within Allegheny County will always remain gameable for partisan advantage.

As they say - great minds think alike.

Here's a version incorporating Verily's suggestions for western PA. I've also made some adjustments to SE PA.  I still like to rely on whole counties, since that is one of the defensible criteria to allow deviations in excess of one person. CoI is a nebulous criteria and exact population equality would generally be needed.

Here were my criteria and their impact on the map:

Districts are drawn to use whole counties to the extent possible and counties larger than one district have as many whole districts within as possible. The map divides three counties other than the ones that have whole districts within. Within counties no city or township is divided. Within Philly no ward is divided.

Instead of limiting the deviation, I limited the range from the smallest to largest district to be less than 1%. This is from SCOTUS decisions, and note that a 0.5% deviation limit results in a 1% range limit. The population range here is less than 1% (-0.7% to +0.3%) and the mean deviation is 884 persons.

CD 2 is designed to comply with the VRA and is 61.8% BVAP. CD 1 keeps the Hispanic wards together and is 18.8% HVAP and 18.2% BVAP. CD 1 also includes Chinatown and the Asian areas of S Philly with 7.6% AVAP.

Other than the changes in central PA, which have the effect of relocating my chop in Cambria to one in Cumberland, and the shape of the Pittsburgh CD, I can't see much to complain about.

[traininthedistance]

As they say - great minds think alike.

Here's a version incorporating Verily's suggestions for western PA. I've also made some adjustments to SE PA.  I still like to rely on whole counties, since that is one of the defensible criteria to allow deviations in excess of one person. CoI is a nebulous criteria and exact population equality would generally be needed.

Here were my criteria and their impact on the map:

Districts are drawn to use whole counties to the extent possible and counties larger than one district have as many whole districts within as possible. The map divides three counties other than the ones that have whole districts within. Within counties no city or township is divided. Within Philly no ward is divided.

Instead of limiting the deviation, I limited the range from the smallest to largest district to be less than 1%. This is from SCOTUS decisions, and note that a 0.5% deviation limit results in a 1% range limit. The population range here is less than 1% (-0.7% to +0.3%) and the mean deviation is 884 persons.

CD 2 is designed to comply with the VRA and is 61.8% BVAP. CD 1 keeps the Hispanic wards together and is 18.8% HVAP and 18.2% BVAP. CD 1 also includes Chinatown and the Asian areas of S Philly with 7.6% AVAP.

Other than the changes in central PA, which have the effect of relocating my chop in Cambria to one in Cumberland, and the shape of the Pittsburgh CD, I can't see much to complain about.

I didn't even remember that map- yeah, it makes sense we'd converge on roughly the same thing.  Your central PA is, I think, better (same amount of chops, but having the entire Harrisburg MSA in one district, as well as putting Williamsport-Lock Haven together, are both preferable).  Though I'm guessing you had to go past the strict 0.5% limit to make it happen.

[Torie]

The two ends of the state look solid, central PA does not to me. You guys are working too  hard to find micro-chops at the cost of erosity in my opinion. That pink CD is particularly unfortunate to my eyes.

[muon2]

The two ends of the state look solid, central PA does not to me. You guys are working too  hard to find micro-chops at the cost of erosity in my opinion. That pink CD is particularly unfortunate to my eyes.

I agree, but NE PA is particularly challenging. The Allentown-Bethlehem and Scranton-Wilkes Barre areas each very nicely make CDs that are compact with low erosity. Add a CD for Harrisburg and one is left with a lot of relatively lower population counties that make up the rest of NE and central PA. The effect is one on making perfect holes in a Swiss cheese but then there's the odd shape of the cheese itself. Since the erosity for the plan is based on the sum of all the individual district erosities, it is easy to get a good score by making many low erosity districts then throwing away a high erosity district with the remainder.

On the other hand, I drew up this plan before we had most of our erosity discussions, so it is dominated by chop considerations. But chops and erosity must balance each other. If erosity dominates then I can start drawing some quite partisan versions because I lose the power of the chop/microchop constraint. I'll revisit my numbers to see if there are modest balance points to assuage your eyes.

[muon2]

The two ends of the state look solid, central PA does not to me. You guys are working too  hard to find micro-chops at the cost of erosity in my opinion. That pink CD is particularly unfortunate to my eyes.

I agree, but NE PA is particularly challenging. The Allentown-Bethlehem and Scranton-Wilkes Barre areas each very nicely make CDs that are compact with low erosity. Add a CD for Harrisburg and one is left with a lot of relatively lower population counties that make up the rest of NE and central PA. The effect is one on making perfect holes in a Swiss cheese but then there's the odd shape of the cheese itself. Since the erosity for the plan is based on the sum of all the individual district erosities, it is easy to get a good score by making many low erosity districts then throwing away a high erosity district with the remainder.

On the other hand, I drew up this plan before we had most of our erosity discussions, so it is dominated by chop considerations. But chops and erosity must balance each other. If erosity dominates then I can start drawing some quite partisan versions because I lose the power of the chop/microchop constraint. I'll revisit my numbers to see if there are modest balance points to assuage your eyes.

As I said above, my PA map was before our great CA discussion that led to microchops and erosity. I revisited the numbers and found that I could maintain a plan with just two full chops (Westmoreland and Monroe) outside of SE PA and the minimum required one in Allegheny. If I use a full chop in Lawrence I can eliminate the three microchops for CD 3 so that gives a sense of the trade off. By splitting Scranton from Wilkes-Barre the erosity can be greatly reduced for CD 10.

[Torie]

Better Muon2, but I would switch counties between the yellow and pink CD's to square both out more, at the cost of another macro-chop. There is no good reason for that much additional erosity, particular for CD's large in geographic size, in order to avoid a macro-chop. I understand your concern about leashing gaming, but that is where the veto mechanisms come into play to mitigate that in my opinion. Here of course, what is in play really does not have any partisan effect, but I understand that it might in another instance.

[traininthedistance]

By splitting Scranton from Wilkes-Barre the erosity can be greatly reduced for CD 10.

Yeah, this is where I say that "cutting down on erosity above all" can lead to rotten outcomes.  Scranton and Wilkes-Barre need to be in the same district, and if that increases erosity then so be it.  There are worse things than a little erosity.

I'm not necessarily opposed to adding a chop to the western side of 10 to clean it up... but districts 11 and 15 in my map and muon's old map are obviously optimal, and anything that goes away from that is a step backwards.

[muon2]

Better Muon2, but I would switch counties between the yellow and pink CD's to square both out more, at the cost of another macro-chop. There is no good reason for that much additional erosity, particular for CD's large in geographic size, in order to avoid a macro-chop. I understand your concern about leashing gaming, but that is where the veto mechanisms come into play to mitigate that in my opinion. Here of course, what is in play really does not have any partisan effect, but I understand that it might in another instance.

Unless you want to game a particular formula to suit your eye, flipping parts around between 5 and 10 in my revised offering doesn't change the erosity much whether you measure by border segments or by conventional compactness. I claim that most neutral observers would have no issue with the shapes of those districts. You really need to point at a formula that suits your taste, and I can see what unintended consequences it would have.

By splitting Scranton from Wilkes-Barre the erosity can be greatly reduced for CD 10.

Yeah, this is where I say that "cutting down on erosity above all" can lead to rotten outcomes.  Scranton and Wilkes-Barre need to be in the same district, and if that increases erosity than so be it.  There are worse things than a little erosity.

I'm not necessarily opposed to adding a chop to the western side of 10 to clean it up... but districts 11 and 15 in my map and muon's old map are obviously optimal, and anything that goes away from that is a step backwards.

One observation I would make is that both Lackawanna and Luzerne are large enough to significantly influence the political outcomes. There are folks I know from that region who would rather have them separated so as to control 2 CDs rather than 1.

I think that by proposing the county lines not significantly divide an urban area then that is equivalent to saying that one use the core of a metro area as a boundary. To deal with geographic obstacles like mountains it made sense to disallow connections between counties that were otherwise contiguous. This proposal essentially requires that connections between counties for the same urban area not be broken. The best neutral version to apply this is to use the central counties of the MSA as defined by the Census Bureau. From a map construction view this is equivalent to treating the counties that can't be split as a single "super-county". When all such mandatory bindings are included it can be shown that the super-county is equivalent to the core of the MSA as defined above. Thus one would in effect be using that area as a boundary.

Central counties are associated with the urban area that has the greatest population in the county.  Central counties associated with a single urban area are grouped as a cluster of counties for purposes of measuring commuting from potentially qualifying outlying counties.

Outlying counties are defined based on commuting patterns between a county and the central counties as a group.  In addition, CBSA may be merged if the central counties (as a group) of one CBSA qualify as outlying counties of an other.

You confused me by your use of "core".

My use of core was not the Census definition but merely to describe the set of central counties in an MSA. I still contend that is the best uniform, neutral measure of the metro area when building apportionment regions. The advantage it has over your definition is only one of simplicity in that I can find that info on the Census web site more readily. Also, it doesn't depend on a state and I find that to be critical for the rule set. State-based and local info do have a role in the process, but that goes to the subjective elements that should be the purview of the commission.

Let me put forward two examples that deserve consideration when viewed by this or any other metro area rule. A prominent one has just surfaced with my two PA maps. My original map maintains the central counties of Scranton-Wilkes Barre MSA in the same region, which happens to be a single district. This comes at the cost of considerable erosity for CD 10 which must wrap around the north and east of the MSA-based district. The erosity problem can be fixed, but it splits the MSA. Should Torie or train have their preferred plan eliminated?

The second issue I mentioned in an earlier post. In my offending MI map my Lansing region maintains all the central counties. The problem occurs when the apportionment region is divided. What you are observing is that the Lansing metro could go into 1 CD and that is what causes the consternation when it is split by two districts. That's a different issue than how to build apportionment regions.

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goon redistricting?

In my view, apportionment regions are more appropriate for legislative redistricting, in which counties with multiple districts are more typical, and (in)equality standards are more relaxed and rational.

If you could convince the SCOTUS to permit more variation in congressional districts, than they might be more useful for creating districts, since it would permit better conformance with COI.

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I'm not claiming that it is good redistricting, rather that it is neutral and provides sufficient constraints to bar egregious political gerrymanders. The SCOTUS standard is important and colors the level of subdivision that must be used in order to make meaningful partitioning rules. I'm willing to have some modestly unusual clothes in my closet if it means that outfits designed to push a particular brand are excluded.

[muon2]

Back to the OP and the maps of PA, let me answer the question.

PA is a D+0.3 state, almost even. The approved plan is 4D, 1d, 1e, 4r, 8R. That has a polarization of 29 and a skew of 8 (for the GOP).

My revised plan is 5D, 1d, 2e, 3r, 7R for a polarization of 28 and skew of 5. That's 3 points better but hardly close to the expected division. The high polarization shows why a neutral map still favors the GOP. The western burbs don't have the same characteristics as Philly's so they don't create swing districts around Da Burgh. You'd have to gerrymander Allegheny to move the needle there - swapping CD 18 up along the east side of Pittsburgh moves it to R+1, so it would move the skew by 1.

Switching to my original plan helps the Dems get closer to parity. The combo of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre move CD 11 from R+2 to D+5. That moves the skew to 3, but makes CD 10 uber GOP in exchange.

[traininthedistance]

You'd have to gerrymander Allegheny to move the needle there - swapping CD 18 up along the east side of Pittsburgh moves it to R+1, so it would move the skew by 1.

So, basically, this:

?

Though it must be noted that having 18 take all of the Mon Valley is a decision justifiable on more than just skew-reducing grounds, though skew reduction is certainly sufficient reason to draw it that way.

Let it be known that even my PA map was Pub-favoring.  (I guess my district 17 is marginally more competitive as well, but that still doesn't get us to parity.)