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GOP Releases Redrawn Maps

The state Senate and House GOP released the redrawn Congressional map they are submitting to the Governor for his approval or as a starting point for negotiations ahead of the February 15th deadline.  

“The Republican Legislative Leaders in the House and Senate have agreed to a Congressional District Map that complies fully with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s order and opinion.  We will be submitting our map to the Governor this evening,” Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and Speaker of the House Mike Turzai said in a release.

The submission comes hours before the deadline the state Supreme Court set for the legislature to draw a new map after it ruled the current map unconstitutional.  

Governor Wolf said in a statement he will review the map submitted.

“While the Court’s order did not appear to allow for two individuals to draw a map on behalf of the entire General Assembly, Governor Wolf will review Speaker Turzai and President Scarnati’s submission in consultation with the experts retained by the administration to determine his next course of action,” Wolf spokesman J.J. Abbott said in a statement.

You can view the map obtained first by the Morning Call below.

66 Responses

  1. This is all about getting anti Trump people elected.
    Suddenly gerrymandering has become the new weapon for the hypocrites.

  2. Pretty fair. Dems definitely have a chance to a get a majority and more in the delegation. Still, Not right around Pittsburgh and Philly, but it wouldn’t make a big difference.

  3. It is clear that King Scarnati and Wannabe Gov Turzai made the best of a warped congressional map by limiting the Republican damage to the congressional districts as much as possible. This is time to put an end to this distorted unfairness and reject this joke of a map. Let the Supreme Court of our wonderful Commonwealth of Pa do what should have been done 8 years ago and draw a fair map. This IS NOT A PARTISAN MATTER! It is about fundamental fairness and the sanctity of every vote. The Supreme Court needs to redraw the districts and institute fairness. Then we need to a have an independent commission draw districts forevermore taking this power away from King Scarnati and Wannabe Gov Turzai and given back to the people of Pennsylvania!

  4. Why not keep Swarthmore Borough in Delco – in the 7th, where it belongs, instead of peeling us off with Philly. Scared?

  5. Still a blatant and unconstitutional GOP gerrymander according to map and election expert Dave Wasserman and multiple other people whose life work is to look at maps.

    Veto it, Governor Wolf.

    And for the record, this was done by two Republicans in leadership with zero input from Democrats. It was also done without a vote by the legislature, which is a direct violation of the court order.

  6. Wolf should accept this unless it continues to crack the cities. Can’t tell from this, but it sure looks like they might.

  7. The Erie County L district down to Armstrong County makes no sense. Dauphin, Cumberland and Perry Counties should be in one district adding Lebanon and Juniata Counties. Philadelphia, Delaware , Chester and Montgomery Counties need to be reconfigured with minimal division of the suburban counties. The 12th, 14th and 15th districts are not properly cohesive.
    This map has some improvements from the present, but has a lot further to go to be fair.

  8. The kicker here is seeing the State government host Municipality Dauphin County being carved up. The fix is clearly in so it’s only fitting it happens right where the Swamp things work and play.

  9. An improvement over the existing district map, but still has a few major questions about some shapes. No doubt they are meant to preserve GOP advantage. We should remove district mapping entirely from party politics.

  10. Obama, Schumer and Pelosi rule.
    Wolf will follow lock step whatever they want.
    Thats our Governor. Putting PA first.

    1. Yes, he will be putting people first by vetoing this map that is still a GOP gerrymander.

      Thanks Governor Wolf for putting your residents first. Something Republicans haven’t done.

      The first sentence you write makes no sense. but no surprise from an idiot like you.

      1. Nope. Wolf will have a Dem gerrymander, but that’s okay because its for your side.

        Wolf put himself and the Dems in power first, not the residents. Republicans are the only ones putting their residents first.

        And speaking of idiots, please look in a mirror first.

      2. “Thanks Governor Wolf for putting your residents first.” Says the Progressive Democrat! Wolf is putting DEMOCRATS first and to Hell with the rest of us! Elections have consequences and the next time we have Supreme Court Justices up for election/reelection, make damn sure you vote in some more Republicans!

      3. Wolf is taking orders from the Nat’l Dem Party, thats what my first sentence means.
        This is a concerted, coordinated effort.
        Hypocrites whining about gerrymandering. They didnt know what the word meant a few months ago.
        This is about trying to hurt Trump supporters in November, thats all it is. Get less R’s in, hurt his majority.
        Lets see how it all plays out though. Maybe the whiners will lose again in the election.

  11. Philadelphia still ends up with three Democratic members even though the population there warrants two. Incumbents are protected for the most part, but Democrats could end up picking up one or two more seats that are currently held by Republicans. I could be wrong, but I think the Justices will accept this map.

    1. Concur with everything except for the first sentence; adding eastern-montco to ne-philly yields the three requisite “D” seats, yielding ongoing R-empowerment in the collar-counties.

    2. This map is effectively the same 5 Dem seats out 18. Unfair given statewide voter preferences. Voters choose Ds but Gerrymander choses Rs

    3. And the last sentence, since this map wasn’t ENACTED. Total masturbation by Scanaturzai.

      What a waste of time. Mango!

  12. DOA. Why even go through the trouble? GOP leadership truly failed their constituency and now Supreme Court will finish the job they started. Their map will lead to a blue surge in pa that will contribute to the dems taking the majority in congress which will lead to the impeachment of trump. Doesn’t anyone at that table understand? All they had to do was give a little and make the map look normal. I bet this crew failed art in grade school. They could not draw within the lines.

    1. It was DOA no matter what they did, because the Court unconstitutional is pushing this.

  13. It is STILL gerrymandered to protect all of the incumbents who gerrymandered it in the first place. Is it somewhat improved? Yes. But it doesn’t pass the smell test. Do it right or keep it as it was, continuing to embarrass us.

    1. Hey Guv, do you smell that rain pouring down your back? Yeah it smells like pee don’t it? You just got a GOPee shower!

  14. The districts look compact with a relatively low ratio of circumfance to area. Democrats have a natural disadvantage in this system thanks to the fact that they are geographically packed in the three big cities. It would be better for the country if the Ds could focus on broadening their appeal geographically.

  15. 1. Basically the Repugs realized they are screwed after getting caught gerrymandering and having their case denied by a conservative U.S Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito
    2. Instead of creating a fair map, Turzai, Scarnati, and the NRCC got together and took into consideration sitting R members to save them
    3. They drew a gerrymandered map for their incumbents and gave the Ds one or two seats
    4. Result : It is still not a fair map!

    I am not buying this! We need fair and equal!! Not just gerrymandering in a nicer looking way!!!

    1. This is exactly correct. They made a decision to sacrifice 7 but that is it. They have actually made most of the contested R CD’s more safe. This map will not be accepted and the PA Supreme Court will draw their own. The R’s will sue but they have no where to go with a suit.

      1. Of course it won’t be accepted. It’s a good map, but because its not a Dem gerrymander, it will be rejected. So the Dems will gerrymander their map, but that’s ok because reasons.

  16. Today’s computers can spit out voter records that can accurately divide us into winnable districts for whoever draws the map.
    Independent district maps are the only answer.

    1. This map is Not a big improvement. Need to do more or it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

  17. They should make each every district with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans or as close as they can get to making them equal . Maybe let people who are not politicians draw the lines . When you have political parties drawing lines they will always draw them to Favor their own party .

    1. The districts should be drawn by specialists from the state universities. The General Assembly could vote on two maps drawn by the independent commission. If the Senate, House, and Governor cannot agree to a map the Supreme Court draws the districts.

      1. Seriously? The state universities where all of the “specialists” are part of the union? Yeah, impartiality at it’s finest. Maybe the governor or the court should tap the smartest 8th graders across the Commonwealth and challenge them with a math contest. Let the kids who actually are impartial and don’t have a horse in the race figure it out for the babies who are stomping their feet. That’d be the republicans, the democrats, the governor, and the court.

  18. It should be better but notable that in a couple days they came up with a republican map that is way better than our current ridiculousness.

  19. The map certainly looks like an improvement to me. The problem with Philadelphia is that it has to be split up and once you do that, you have to do some splitting of Delaware and Montgomery Counties. The interest of those two counties with Philadelphia overlap with only Delaware and Montgomery if you look at the composition of those areas. It would be unfair to stick just one of the sunurban counties with all of the excess from Philadelphia. Remember, you shouldn’t be taking partisan considerations into drawing the maps- that’s gerrymandering. The whole thing the Supreme Court did at this late date was absurd especially when you consider that we will have another census in 2020 and the maps will have to be redrawn again. Potential candidates, including incumbents haven’t a clue where they are running and the primary is in May. That in itself is unfair.

  20. Montgomery county doesn’t need to be split into 4 districts. The Harrisburg area continues to get screwed by being split into 3 districts. I like how they move Erie into an L to meet up with Mike Kelly. The Lehigh Valley is fairly drawn. This is an improvement but still can be better.

  21. Observation here – this map takes Bradford County out of Tom Marino’s district – Doug McLinko the Republican who is challenging Marino in the Republican primary is no longer in the district. HMMMMM do I smell some fish?

      1. Even more interesting. I wonder if there are any other districts that potential challengers are removed from the district. I’m sure no incumbent from either party is having this happen.

    1. It also conveniently enough takes Mt Lebanon out of the 18th, but leaves Elizabeth and Pleasant Hills in it. So Conor Lamb is now in the same district as Mike Doyle, but both Guy Reschenthaler and Rick Saccone are still in the 18th. Making the results of the Special Election essentially moot.

  22. Frank Dermoday says the Dems had no role in this map. Does anybody have the submission details? How many counties are split? How many municipalities? How may of our Supreme Court’s 8 criteria does it meet?

  23. How many counties does it split? How many municipalities? Anybody have the submission details? The Supreme Court has 8 criteria. How many does this map meet? Dermoday said the Dems had nothing to do with it.

  24. Congrats to PA Republicans for figuring how to pack Dems into the 7th in a compact manner and still managing to divide Montco into four districts represented by congressmen who don’t even live there.

  25. This map continues the disproportionate and intended one-sidedness of the electoral representation by the GOP and their party interest state wide.. it’s a non-starter..!

    1. Because no one lives in any of those counties. District have to have a minimum number of people. Not bears.

  26. This is complete horse sh*t, and political masturbati*n by the GOP. No way Wolf signs or court approves.

      1. It completely violates the principle of reducing county splitting and compactness. Philly should contain two, and only two, congressional districts, with overflow into Montco or Delco.

        1. Fair enough, but the existing map is much worse. No one said the court could make this perfect. At some point, we need to put on our big boy pants and compete in districts, even if they aren’t perfect.

        2. So you’re advocating for population control in the city limits? Congressional districts have 900,000 per district on 2010 concussion data.

          1. Ray-

            Population of Philly: 1.5664 Million
            Population of state: 12.86 million

            12.88/18 districts = about 715,000.

            So, two complete districts and very slight incursion of a third. So, I amend my previous estimate of only TWO with updated numbers that I didn’t have when I posted.

            But, it’s NOT 900,000 per district.

            But, Philly should 95% two districts and 5% from a third district . Third district should be all of Delco (pop: 558,979) + 5% of philly and a little bit of Chester or Montco.

            Montco pop is 799,874, so all one congressional district and 100,000 overflow into adjacent county.

            The computer map makers can (and have) worked it out in more detail, but that’s the rough cut of what a fair map should be in south east.

        3. Philadelphia must have three districts present (but not necessarily all of those seats) due to having more than two districts’ population in the 2010 census.

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