Pa. gerrymandering case: State Supreme Court releases new congressional map for 2018 elections
PHILADELPHIA _ The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday released a new congressional district map, upending familiar boundaries, renumbering districts across the state and giving a potential boost to Democrats in the 2018 House elections.
Its plan splits only 13 counties. Of those, four counties are split into three districts and nine are split into two districts. By contrast the most recent map, enacted in 2011, split 28 counties.
"The Remedial Plan is superior or comparable to all plans submitted by the parties, the intervenors, and amici, by whichever Census-provided definition one employs," the court wrote in its order. It also wrote that the plan is "superior or comparable" to the various map proposals on the average compactness of districts and that each district in the map has an equal population, plus or minus one person.
It also upends the previous map, with significant changes to where districts are located and renumbering several of them.
Many of the changes seem generally favorable for Democrats. President Donald Trump would have won 10 congressional districts under the new plan, two fewer than he actually won in 2016 under the most recent map. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would have won the remaining eight districts under the new map, though one district is so close as to be essentially a toss-up.
Under the new plan, Trump would have won seven districts and Clinton each would have won five districts with at least 55 percent of the two-party vote. In the competitive range, Trump and Clinton would have each won three districts with margins between 50 and 55 percent of the two-party vote.
_The Philadelphia Inquirer
