By Keegan Gibson, Managing Editor
Democrats have strongly criticized the congressional map unveiled yesterday by Harrisburg Republicans. Well-grounded accusations of partisanship fill the air.
So Senate Democrats have released their own version. The caucus will introduce the map below as an amendment to SB 1249 at some point Wednesday.
Since Republicans have the Governor’s mansion and majorities in the Pa. House and Senate, it’s unlikely to go anywhere. But it’s interesting to look at.The full map is below. Bless them for including municipal breakdowns.
It raises an interesting question: can Dems still complain about gerrymandering when their maps looks like this?
Republicans haven’t had to opportunity to complain about gerrymandering too much this month, so a GOP source eagerly passed along the following critiques:
CD 12 snakes from Greene County in the far southwest to Tioga County in the north central, almost reaching across the entire state in a north-south direction.
CD 5 stretches from Wayne County in the far northeast to Clarion County, almost reaching across the entire state in an east-west direction.
CD 10 starts in Lycoming County and comes south through Northumberland County, into northern Dauphin County, then down an extremely skinny stretch of the West Shore in Cumberland County, into York and Lancaster counties before taking in southern Dauphin County and most of Lebanon County.
CD 4 starts in Crawford County, becomes less than a municipality wide in southern Mercer County and Northern Lawrence County before sliding awkwardly into Beaver, Allegheny, Butler, Armstrong and Washington counties.
CD 18 also stretches all over the place – reaching into 11 different counties – to gather population.
CD 15 reaches into Monroe, Pike, Lackawanna and Carbon counties.
Regarding County splits, compared to the GOP version:
Bucks County is split two ways, compared to being kept whole.
Delaware County is split three ways, compared to two.
Lancaster County is split three ways, compared to two.
Lehigh County is split three ways, compared to being kept whole.
York County is split three ways, compared to being kept whole.
Loading ...
11 Responses
Bob, that’s the whole point: the Dems didn’t release this.
What better way to discredit the Dems than to release this rediculous map and claim it came from the Senate Democrats.
Shame on you, Keenan Gibson – you’re either a dupe, or in on the deception.
Well the Dems sure have given up any legitimacy the had in their complaints about partisan gerrymandering. What could they possibly think they have to gain by releasing this mess?
Yeah this is going no where….
The only way we’re going to keep these guys honest is to take this to the public…and remember it on election day!
This is worse than the Republican map.
Every ten years this happens it is time the State pick 3 dem’s and 3 repub’s to drawn up a map that is not partisan in nature.
Every ten years this happens it is time the State pick 3 dem’s and 3 repub’s to drawn up a map that is not partisan in nature.
Is it normal practice for a 300 word article to include a 200 word partisan quote of criticism without any rebuttal?
It’s not like this will pass anyway.
There is no way this is a Democratic map. Why add GOP leaning parts of Potter to the 12th, while leaving out the Democratic leaning parts of Clinton and Elk? Why take parts of Ross and West View away from Altmire, but give him rural Washington County?
Nice try.
I’d swap Clarion and Clinton counties to make the 5th more compact, but the map looks a lot better than the GOP one for compactness of the shapes.