Proposed Congressional Districts

PoliticsPA has the newly released draft congressional districts for Pennsylvania.  They have very kindly provided a full screen view of the SEPA districts.  For an eye opener take a look at the 7th district, the dark green pixilated snake that coils around the area west of Philadelphia.  Or the 16th district (pink) which seems to have at least two areas that aren't contiguous.  The weirdest example of this is the small speck of pink completely surrounded by dark green, a small section of the 16th which is contained in the 7th.  the 6th district is also oddly shaped.  The 8th district still has a section of Montgomery County but a different part than it has now, but has lost it's part of Philadelphia.  Montgomery County is still represented by five different congressional representatives, which seems a bit excessive.  Berks County has four, Chester has three.  Delaware County has two.  Bucks is all contained within the 8th, as well as the aforementioned section of Montco.  I defy anyone to say that the 7th and 16th districts were drawn with the best interests of the residents of those districts.  These are politically drawn, to create districts more favorable to candidates of one party or another, with a bias towards a GOP majority.

That being said let's not forget that the Ds had a chance to do something about the way redistricting is done a few years ago and didn't.  Wondering who came up with this map?  Here's the list of redistricting commission members.  It's the state house and senate majority and minority leaders plus a commission chair.  The commission has a website:  redistricting.state.pa.us. Correction:  The redistricting commission only draws state house and state senate lines.  The congressional redistricting is done by state legislative committees.  For more information see http://www.redistricting.state.pa.us/Congressional-Redistricting.cfm.  My apologies for the error and my thanks to the gentleman who pointed it out to me.

What a mess.