Earlier today, someone posted in the discussion thread a link to a map which will be offered by the Democrats in the Pennsylvania State Senate as an amendment to Republican gerrymander.
Now, given this map has no shot in hell of passing, as the Republicans have the simple majority they need to pass whatever they wish, this is an academic exercise. So I would expect the state Democrats would do one of two things.
1. Provide a fair, community of interest map which makes the Democrats seem the more honorable party.
2. Provide an example of a D gerrymander to get Democrats fired up to help form a working majority by 2020.
Sadly, this map does neither.
I will not post images here, but you should refer back to the PDF as needed.
The first thing that is clear is that the map lines look like spaghetti. The Democrats "gerrymander" is in a lot of ways worse than the Republicans. The Republicans, for example, seem to have taken pains not to spit up cities except where needed for their own partisan purposes. Instead, the Dem map just floats around grabbing precincts from anywhere, even splitting up smaller cities of less than 10,000 when they could have just as easily swapped a rural township in. They also used touch-point contiguity for seemingly no reason in many parts of the map, reaching into a county, for example, to put a single 67% McCain voting district into a Democratic district.
Which gets to the other issue. Although the map looks like a partisan gerrymander, it is not. In Western Pennsylvania, it's a bipartisan gerrymander, which shores up incumbents of both parties. In the rest of the state, it's essentially standpat in terms of PVI, with a few notable exceptions.
I'll give some brief thought district by district, but don't expect essays. I don't want to spend more time writing about this map than the mapmaker spent drawing it!
PA-1 (Bob Brady, D) - 86.4% Obama (was 88%)
At first I thought Brady's district was largely unchanged, but I realized it's actually pretty different from the old district, with a lot less Philly and a lot more Delco. Actually, he grabs just about every Democratic part of Delaware County, and gets a district almost exactly like what the Republicans drew for him.
PA-2 (Chaka Fattah, D) - 90.3% Obama (was 90%)
Apparently, Fattah doesn't want Lower Marion, and wants to keep Cheltenham. Also, for some reason he takes all the Philly Latino neighborhoods from Bob Brady.
PA-3 (Mike Kelly, R) - 51.4% McCain (was 49% Obama)
Just about everywhere Democrats are competitive outside of Erie is taken from the district, as a result making it nearly as right wing as the district in the Republican gerrymander.
PA-4 (Jason Altmire, D) - 51% McCain (was 55%)
Altmire is certainly shored up, and shouldn't have an issue holding this crazy district down. That said, a lot of the choices left me scratching my head, such as the weird salient traveling up through blood-red parts of Butler and Armstrong counties. Also, it's kind of odd how while Tim Murphy's district sends a salient into his old core, apparently to sweep up Republicans, the result is the loss of a few 55% McCain precincts while 65% McCain precincts a bit to the north are untouched.
PA-5 (G. T. Thompson, R Vs. Tom Marino, R) - 58% McCain (was 55%)
This mashup is made up of the parts of PA-5 not stolen into PA-12, and some bits of the old PA-10, which vanished.
PA-6 (Todd Russell Platts, R) - 53.2% McCain (was 56%)
I guess this is meant to be a moderate Republican district? It takes in most of York, a band of Lancaster County (including half, but only half, of Lancaster city), and finishes off in light-red suburbs in the Reading area.
PA-7 (Pat Meehan, R) - 56.3% Obama (was 56%)
This district loses much of its territory in Chester and Delaware counties, but gains a lot more in Montgomery County. The result is standpat, in terms of PVI
PA-8 (Mike Fitzpatrick, R) - 54.2% Obama (was 54%)
Another district where I scratch my head. Some random precincts in Bucks were excised, but generally swingy ones on the Montgomery border, not the most conservative ones. To fill out the population, in goes a random assortment of northeast Philly, Montgomery, and parts of the Lehigh. Some of these areas are actually more right wing than the district average, however, so the PVI, for all the messiness, doesn't budge.
PA-9 (Bill Schuster, R) - 62.4% McCain (was 63%)
This district is recognizable, although it retreats from the mountains and contains a lot more of Pennsylvania Dutch country. Still safe R of course
PA-10 (OPEN) - 59% McCain
Basically a totally new seat, and for Republicans! A mixture of Pennsylvania Dutch country and some mountain counties in central PA.
PA-11 (Lou Barletta, R) - 55.2% Obama (was 57%)
The Democrats actually shore up Barletta to some degree, making it more likely he'll keep the seat. This is apparently because they felt so confident in his defeat they wanted some Democrats to go to PA-15
PA-12 (Mark Critz, D) - 49.9% Obama (was 50% McCain)
Critz get's a slight bump, as befits his new district which almost bisects the state.
PA-13 (Allyson Schwartz, D) - 58.5% Obama (was 59%)
Another Democratic incumbent with only minor modifications to her district. Get's a smidge redder, as some Democrats were loaned to PA-8.
PA-14 (Mike Doyle, D) - 66.1% Obama (was 70%)
Doyle's district takes the biggest hit in PVI for any Democrat incumbent. That said, he's lost almost no turf of consequence, aside from some Penn Hills districts to Altmire. His drop is more because with Western PA's shrinking population, he needed to take on a lot of new people, leading some first-ring suburban Republicans to get shunted into the district.
PA-15 (Charlie Dent, R) - 57.6% Obama (was 56%)
A minor improvement is made to the district, mainly due to the inclusion of most of Monroe county. It's still not enough to make the seat safe though.
PA-16 (Joe Pitts, R, Vs. Jim Gerlach, R) - 50.7% Obama (was 51% McCain)
This one really had me scratching my head. Sure, it's compact, but it's still too right leaning to really be called competitive yet. It's also odd, because some minor precinct switching, for example, with PA-6 would make it far more competitive, but this wasn't done.
PA-17 (Tim Holden, D) - 54.7% Obama (was 51% McCain)
Tim Holden gets shored up - a lot more than I think he needs, but not as much as under the Republican map. He gets back Reading, which given he represented it in the 1990s I guess he would like.
PA-18 (Tim Murphy, R) - 57.5% McCain (was 55% McCain)
Tim Murphy's district searches far and wide for Republicans everywhere, and gets redder due to precinct swapping with PA-4 and PA-12. But there's still odd details, like the light blue suburb of Mount Lebanon remaining in the district.
Conclusions:
I'm really having a tough time figuring out what the intent here was. Clearly shoring up incumbents was priority #1, and this would make PA-4 and PA-12 safe, at the expense of taking PA-3 totally off the table. But it's highly unlikely any of the changes elsewhere in the map would create a solid seat for a Democrat, unless there's some amazing down-ticket local politician I'm not aware of.
I could almost see this as a "pre-compromise map," where the Democrats are saying "okay, sure, you can shore up Barletta a little bit, and we'll accept standpat PVI in the burbs, but no more!" Still, that they not only eliminate one R seat entirely, but also effectively destroy Jim Gerlach's seat for no good reason, and create a new Republican seat, shows it's prety much a nonstarter.
This took me a bit longer to write tonight than I expected. Apologies if there are any typos.