Tuesday, March 20, 2018

UPDATE. Say goodbye to Goofy kicking Donald Duck, Pennsylvania's wildly gerrymandered 7th congressional district



Reported in Supreme Court rejects Pennsylvania Republicans' fight over maps for U.S. House.  (USA Today, 3/19/2018)

The redrawn map

Source:  Supreme Court Issues New Congressional District Map.  (CNN, 2/19/2018)


1/28/2018 update, "Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district, a.k.a. Goofy kicking Donald Duck", starts here.

The Art of the Pennsylvania Gerrymander

In a Comically Drawn Pennsylvania District, the Voters Are Not Amused.  (The New York Times, 1/26/2018)
Residents of the Seventh tell tales of confusion among next-door neighbors who have different House representatives. Rather than keep communities intact and follow natural borders, the district slices and dices pieces of five counties and 26 municipalities, and tosses them together in a crazy salad. 
What the mapmakers were trying to do was to link up enough pockets of conservative voters to ensure that a Republican would keep the seat, no matter the insult to geography or common sense.

Original 1/23/2018 post, "Pennsylvania Supreme Court gerrymandering summary decision:  Just one look, that's all it took", starts here.

Source:  govtrack

Pennsylvania Must Redraw Congressional Map: State Supreme Court.  (NBC 10 Philadelphia, 1/22/2018)
The court said the boundaries "clearly, plainly and palpably" violate the state's constitution, and blocked it from remaining in effect for the 2018 elections. The deadline to file paperwork to run in primaries for the state's congressional seats is March 6.  [emphasis added]

 Related reading:
It just looks weird, know what I mean?’ Efforts to reform redistricting in Pa.  (WHYY, 11/28/2017)

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