Congressional district maps finally unveiled

Chester County residents were finally given a glimpse of what their congressional district will look like on Monday after a preliminary map was unveiled Tuesday afternoon by Republican lawmakers in Harrisburg.

Most of the changes across the Commonwealth ended up in line with what was expected, such as Lou Barletta (R-11th) seeing his previously Democratic-leaning district stretching into deep-red central PA and Democrats Jason Altmire (D-4th) and Mark Critz (D-12th) being redrawn into one district in the western part of the state, forcing them to face off in a primary battle next year.

But few could expect the magnitude of gerrymandering that Republicans in the state Senate and House revealed for Chester County.

The territory of Pat Meehan (R-7th), previously concentrated mostly in Delaware and Chester counties, will now stretch all the way into Lancaster and Berks counties and well into Montgomery County in one of the most bizarrely-shaped districts in recent memory. But he wasn’t the only Republican in Congress to see his prospects of reelection in 2012 get a lot better.

Jim Gerlach (R-6th) sees his district consolidate its territory in the eastern part of Chester County while meandering north, around Reading, and all the way into Lebanon County in central PA. He also will represent significant parts of Montgomery and Berks counties.

The southeastern portion of the state, including the three oddly shaped districts that make up Chester County.

Not to be outdone, Joe Pitts (R-16th), who previously controlled all of Republican stronghold Lancaster County, stretches further into Chester and Berks while giving up some territory in Lancaster to Meehan. Republicans in Harrisburg also took advantage of the magnitude of the Republican advantage in Pitts’ part of Lancaster by enveloping the cities of Reading and Coatesville, previously of Gerlach. Those Democratic strongholds will largely see their influence drowned out by the amount of Republicans in Lancaster County.

While the specific municipalities that lie in each district haven’t yet been revealed, one can discern some of the more prominent ones from the high-res versions of the map. For example, as stated above, Pitts will now represent the city of Coatesville, and will seemingly retain Parkesburg and Oxford as well. Gerlach apparently will take West Chester from Pitts, and the 6th will also include all of eastern Chester County including Malvern, Paoli, and Phoenixville.

Meehan will represent portions of the southeastern and northwestern parts of the county. It appears that East Bradford Township and the borough of Downingtown will be what connects those two parts of his 7th district, although that is probably the most difficult part of the county to discern from the map.

Oddly, the map displays the borough of Kennett Square as being part of the 16th district, although it isn’t contiguous with the rest of it. Kennett Township, which surrounds the Square on all sides, is apparently part of the 7th. The constitutionality of such is not clear, but it could be a simple display error in the map.

The Republican-favoring changes were possible due to the fact that the party controls the state Senate and House as well as the governorship after Tom Corbett’s victory last year. Unlike the process for the state legislative maps finalized Monday, which go to a special commission, the U.S. congressional maps simply need to pass through the legislature and get the governor’s signature to become law. State Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R, Chester) and state House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R, Allegheny) were the driving force behind the drawing of the maps, but most Democrats in Harrisburg reportedly did not see them until today.

This has, of course, restricted Democrats from being able to prepare a campaign against the Republicans, since they couldn’t know what district they’d be in. Manan Trivedi has been preparing another bid for the 6th district after failing in 2010. His home municipality of Birdsboro appears to lie just barely within the 6th district, right on the border with the 7th in southern Berks County.