2020 Redistricting in Pennsylvania

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Annoyingly, a fair 17-district map in PA only produces 5 Safe D districts (2 in Philly, MontCo, DelCo, and Pittsburgh.) You may not like it (I certainly don't) but this is what peak fair map performance looks like:

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Annoyingly, a fair 17-district map in PA only produces 5 Safe D districts (2 in Philly, MontCo, DelCo, and Pittsburgh.) You may not like it (I certainly don't) but this is what peak fair map performance looks like:

I don't like this map, I'll be honest. A truly fair map starts with an AA Philly district, then applies the same principles we each used on our VA maps. I realize the tradition keeps the Bucks district the way it is, but let's not mistake tradition for equity.

What do you mean by "equity"

Equity is what would make a fair map "fair". I.e., factoring in community integration, minority representation, and metropolitan association.

I mean, I think it does. It has the AA Philly seat, thr NE Philly seat, a Bucks seat, MontCo seat, and Delco seat. Every other Eastern PA seat is centered around a metro area (Lehigh Valley, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Reading, Lancaster, Harrisburg, and York.) Unfortunately, almost all these small metros are 55-45 GOP.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

And Bucks has been a district community like that for decades lol, its not gonna be split so you can have your D hack gerrymander. There's obviously going to be 2 seats in Philly, just play around with them to make one clear black seat. You could maybe push for 2 by using the Delaware black parts but thats a big strech.

Ok, but my argument was that tradition doesn't equate to fairness, so bringing up tradition as a counter-argument is...meaningless.

Except you said community integrity was important and Bucks is an important community that should be kept together.

Is it? I think it would be pretty easy to say that Lower Bucks is more connected with and demographically similar to NE Philly whereas Mid and Upper Bucks really belong with MontCo.

Granted, I think maps that split Bucks get really messy because of what they force in Philly and the Lehigh Valley, but I don't find Bucks a particularly compelling COI on its own merits.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

@blarite, did you split the city of Pittsburgh?

Nope:

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I don't regard a map as being fair if it's not proportional and accurately translates votes into election results. At some level FPP can't be fair, which is why I oppose FPP, but map-makers should try to make FPP as fair as possible.

Assuming you are responding to Tim, 9-8 with a bunch of swing seats is very reasonable for an R+1/2 state like PA.

Oh I saw Blairite's one which he described as "peak fair map performance", seems very unfair to me.

To be fair, Dems would currently hold 9/17 seats on my map, though it would likely drop to 5/17 in 2022. I don't love the outcome but most fair maps prioritize compactness and COIs with it all eventually balancing out partisanship-wise when you add every state up.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Did an incumbent-protection-mander setting up a fight between Wild and Cartwright. Everyone else is in their own very winnable district.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I'm not cutting Chesco because my point is not to cut Chesco lol, as it's actually a cohesive community and goes with the western half of Delco more than anything.

I actually agree with this but why not take MontCo south/west of the Schuylkill too? It's all Main Line. 

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I'm not cutting Chesco because my point is not to cut Chesco lol, as it's actually a cohesive community and goes with the western half of Delco more than anything.

I actually agree with this but why not take MontCo south/west of the Schuylkill too? It's all Main Line. 

I've considered that but I've never found a way to fit that in since it lies just beyond the county line, it'd complicate the other districts and bring down the AA population in CD5 too much

I think both of these options work.

Cut SW Chester:


Cut South Philly:

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I've been playing with a map which does the second thing--the tricky thing is that it forces either a 3 way split of montgomery or a four way split of philly

I'm fine with the Philly quad-cut. Giving Chestnut Hill/Manayunk to Montgomery is a whole district and arguably better reflects COIs. Same with putting NE Philly and Lower Bucks together. The tricky thing is working out what to do with the rest of Bucks and the Lehigh Valley. This is where I'm stuck:

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Splitting Bucks is a bad idea, was a bad idea, and will always be a bad idea in my book. It's not something I ever will do in a serious map and any post about a map that has such a split will not get a recommend from me, per a matter of principle. (unless it's about how it's a terrible idea)

One of Montgomery, Bucks, or Chester will have to be split. Why is it inherently fairer to split Chester or Montgomery than Bucks?

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Did a variation of East Anglia Lefty's map that Tim Turner will definitely hate. If you can get over the MontCo and Bucks chops, I actually think it reflects SEPA COIs extremely well. Plus it has two AA VRA districts.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

As a general rule, I'm not a huge fan of pairing Berks and Chester.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

As a general rule, I'm not a huge fan of pairing Berks and Chester.

Why do you say that? I know Berks is generally more working class or whatever you want to call it, but you have to pair something with Berks. Everyone seems to hate splitting Bucks (despite upper and lower Bucks being vastly different in nature), so splitting Chester is really the only option and Berks makes more sense than Lancaster.

It just seems kind of geographically awkward and non-compact. If you tie a county of SEPA to a county in the rest of the state, I think your options are Chester-Lancaster, Montgomery-Berks, and Bucks-Lehigh Valley. I increasingly think the middle option is the best.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Again, I want to emphasize how absurd not splitting Montgomery is. Actually look at a map of the Delaware-Montgomery county line. It randomly slashed through the center of Bryn Mawr and Ardmore, cutting through a continuous built up area stretching from the blue route to the Schuylkill. There is nothing about this area that is more connected to Lansdale than Delco/Chesco but the county line was never adjusted to reflect that. This area should 100% use the Schuylkill River as the dividing line, not the county line. It's just a bad COI otherwise.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

What is the population of Montgomery minus the part south of the Schuylkill?

722,889

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

What is the population of Montgomery minus the part south of the Schuylkill?

722,889

Tbh, I could see a map where Bucks draws the entirety of the leftovers from Philly, then you have a Philly seat that takes in those leftovers from MontCo and whatever needed from DelCo, and then a CD is drawn from DelCo+Chester.

Thoughts?

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Also, is Baltimore sprawl up in PA at this point? Oy vey.

Not really. I think there are some supercommuters from York County but it's still rural.