New PA Maps In Effect

[Brittain33]

Say it with me...

Great map!

[Boss_Rahm]

The Upshot looks at the new map district-by-district:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/19/upshot/pennsylvania-new-house-districts-gerrymandering.html

[Virginiá]

Say it with me...

Great map!

Great map! The craven Republicans will scurry back to their holes as Democrats dominate this November.

[Tintrlvr]

Now why didn't a Democratic Supreme Court draw a Democratic-favored map here? What a wasted opportunity.

Think about this for a bit.

The reason that the court is redrawing this map is because they ruled that partisan gerrymandering violates the state constitution.  That's the precedent that we're working with here; and the reason that we have a court drawn map is because they couldn't come up with anything satisfactory.

Were the court to draw a Democratic-friendly map the Republicans would go to the federal Supreme Court and ask for intervention on this and honestly they'd probably likely intervene and they'd either override the state courts - returning the old map - or rule that their decision was right but that the court map didn't meet this new rule and order a new one.  The only thing that they could do - and indeed the right thing to do - that fits their rules and makes it a lot less likely for the federal Courts to pick it up is to draw a fair, non-partisan map.

The bolded approach is not available to the US Supreme Court. They can't ding state courts for failing to comply with state law, period, as the US Supreme Court's jurisdiction is exclusively over federal law (with certain exceptions that don't apply here). Anyone challenging any map put forward by the PA Supreme Court before the US Supreme Court would have to make a federal law argument. While it's certainly possible that the US Supreme Court could find a truly aggressively gerrymandered map to be unconstitutional under the federal constitution, this depends on the US Supreme Court generally finding partisan gerrymandering to be unconstitutional, which might happen but is far from certain. I also think it's unlikely that a soft gerrymander version of the map the PA Supreme Court actually adopted (putting Lancaster city in the Harrisburg district, leaving Butler County out of the Erie district and using other, slightly less R-friendly rural areas instead, connecting Bucks County to Philadelphia instead of Montgomery County, maybe one or two other tweaks) would have been enough to roust the US Supreme Court.

[muon2]

Lamb would probably beat Rothfus.

Saccone is going to be a short-lived congressman. He's not beating Doyle.

Trump won the new 14th by 30 points - if Saccone wins the special, that seat is his. Doyle almost certainly runs in the new 18th.

Saccone's home will be in Doyle's 14. Unless he moves to the new 14 (old 18th) he's BTFO. The new PA17 (old 12th) voted for Trump by just a 3 point margin. Lamb would beat Rothfus.

You don't need to live in a district to represent it.

You kind of have to.

This came up a lot in the GA-6 special election because Jon Ossoff actually lived in GA-5, just outside the boundaries of the 6th.  Some research by the Washington Post (cited here in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) showed that there were at least 20 current Representatives who lived outside their districts, generally due to cases where a shift of district lines had moved an incumbent to a different district.

Incidentally, if Ossoff had won, it appears that there would have been three sitting Congressmen living in John Lewis's GA-5.  In addition to Lewis, David Scott (GA-13) is also registered to vote in the 5th.

Indeed. In the previous decade at least 3 IL congresscritters lived outside their district and none had trouble with their elections. States typically have residency rules for legislative and local offices, but they can't enforce them on Congress even if they put such laws one the books. The reasoning is the same that blocked term limits when some states passed those. A state may not impose qualifications on congressional officeholders beyond those in the US constitution.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Say it with me...

Great map!

Great map! The craven Republicans will scurry back to their holes as Democrats dominate this November.

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G   M-A-P!

[Dr. Arch]

Say it with me...

Great map!

Great map! The craven Republicans will scurry back to their holes as Democrats dominate this November.

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G   M-A-P!

How sweet,

the sound.

[Ronnie]

Republicans will almost certainly fight twice as hard to protect gerrymandering after this. All fair redistricting reform will be smeared as just replacing GOP gerrymanders with Dem ones

Arizona Republicans are already trying to effectively render the state's independent redistricting commission toothless:

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/arizona/articles/2018-02-14/legislative-leaders-push-redistricting-commission-changes

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Does anyone have the exact vote counts for presidential elections dating back to 2004 in this Map?

[GeorgiaModerate]

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[Wisconsin SC Race 2019]

What I don't understand is why districts had to be renumbered. Everyone knew 8th meant Bucks, 14th meant Pittsburgh, 15th meant Allentown and so on...

[Greedo punched first]

What I don't understand is why districts had to be renumbered. Everyone knew 8th meant Bucks, 14th meant Pittsburgh, 15th meant Allentown and so on...

They don't have to be. Sometimes they get renumbered, other times they don't. I don't know the reason for this. It's just the way it is.

[UncleSam]

The 'mean-median' test is not a valid statistical test because it presupposes a proportional representation system, which is not our actual system.

In any case, the new map is basically a slight dem gerrymander that one might expect from a Dem legislature combined with restricted compactness criteria. No a bad map imo but the notion it doesn't have a dem bias is pretty silly.

[Gass3268]

Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and House Speaker Mike Turzai says "implementation of this map would create a constitutional crisis"

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

McGinty's performance shows that there's still only 5 safe D seats.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and House Speaker Mike Turzai says "implementation of this map would create a constitutional crisis"

I do believe the Supreme Court of PA has the last say on that; and they've spoken.

[Nyvin]

The only dem gerrymander part of this map is PA-10, which is minor at best.

Everything else about the map is just a plainly drawn, fair map.  

The Philly metro was always going to get the 6 seats it's meant to based on population, the only part that was questionable was if Reading was part of those 6 or if Lancastor was.   Either option was fair.

The Pittsburgh area was always going to have a second seat that was going to be somewhat competitive.   That's fair and normal.

The Lehigh Valley and Scranton metro were both getting their tossup seats,  this variation of them is fair.

The only part I can see on the map where the court slid things in Dems favor is the Harrisburg/York seat, but really the GOP incumbent should be fine there.

[DrScholl]

The legislature never voted on a map which can be construed as forfeiting the opportunity to draw the new map and effectively leaving it to the court.

[Nyvin]

Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and House Speaker Mike Turzai says "implementation of this map would create a constitutional crisis"

The giant elephant in the room with their argument is that 13R-5D is not a "normal" delegation for  Pennsylvania, it was always dependent on the maps they drew.   

Drawing a new, fair map and having it elect more than five Democrats would be a perfectly normal and expected result.

[Wisconsin SC Race 2019]

The only dem gerrymander part of this map is PA-10, which is minor at best.

Everything else about the map is just a plainly drawn, fair map.   

The Philly metro was always going to get the 6 seats it's meant to based on population, the only part that was questionable was if Reading was part of those 6 or if Lancastor was.   Either option was fair.

The Pittsburgh area was always going to have a second seat that was going to be somewhat competitive.   That's fair and normal.

The Lehigh Valley and Scranton metro were both getting their tossup seats,  this variation of them is fair.

The only part I can see on the map where the courts slide things in Dems favor is the Harrisburg/York seat, but really the GOP incumbent should be fine there.

York county is practically the same lean as the Maryland panhandle. Dauphin isn't enough to balance out the GOP's natural strength here. Perry is safe.

[Greedo punched first]

Brendan Boyle has a GOP opponent, Kris Hart.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

The only dem gerrymander part of this map is PA-10, which is minor at best.

Everything else about the map is just a plainly drawn, fair map.   

The Philly metro was always going to get the 6 seats it's meant to based on population, the only part that was questionable was if Reading was part of those 6 or if Lancastor was.   Either option was fair.

The Pittsburgh area was always going to have a second seat that was going to be somewhat competitive.   That's fair and normal.

The Lehigh Valley and Scranton metro were both getting their tossup seats,  this variation of them is fair.

The only part I can see on the map where the courts slide things in Dems favor is the Harrisburg/York seat, but really the GOP incumbent should be fine there.

York county is practically the same lean as the Maryland panhandle. Dauphin isn't enough to balance out the GOP's natural strength here. Perry is safe.

Fun fact: If York County, Pennsylvania was part of Maryland, then Hillary Clinton would have won Pennsylvania.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

What I love about this map is that it keeps Lamb's political future alive. Whether he wins or loses in March, he's certain to challenge Rothfus in PA17. I would predict Conor would win that race due to the stark contrast in personality between him and Keith, and the national climate.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Matty will be ok, Lackawanna, the blue part of the Luzerne aka Wilkes Barre, and Monroe will pull him through with nice numbers. I have a feeling he will hit low to mid sixties in Lackawanna.

[Virginiá]

What I love about this map is that it keeps Lamb's political future alive. Whether he wins or loses in March, he's certain to challenge Rothfus in PA17. I would predict Conor would win that race due to the stark contrast in personality between him and Keith, and the national climate.

That was what I was thinking. I'm pretty happy overall with this map, but the chance to keep Lamb in the game long-term is icing on the cake