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Health & Fitness

Red Caucus Blues

Republican suburban Philadelphia congressmen who serve "swing" districts in this blue state continually face tough votes that force them to choose between caucus and constituents. The hard decisions they face are made easier by the latest redrawing of their district boundaries.

In the recent vote that opened the government and enabled the US to pay its bills, Congressman Pat Meehan (R-PA) either "caved" or "saw the light," depending on your point of view, and switched his vote to affirmative. A total of 144 of his House Republican colleagues voted against the bill; that is, voted to keep the government shuttered.

It's never easy for members of congress in swing districts. In Meehan's 7th district, voters there switched their presidential allegiance and gave Mitt Romney a narrow win in 2012. President Obama beat John McCain there four years earlier.

Meehan, the former US Attorney, got lucky by running in the Republican "wave" election in 2010. He was easily reelected in 2012. This was the seat that belonged to Joe Sestak, who vacated only to lose to Pat Toomey in a classic 2010 US Senate showdown. The 7th district's outer reaches touch Berks and Lancaster counties, but it is concentrated in Delaware County, including Radnor Township. More about those boundaries later.

A Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee internal email obtained by the non-partisan CQ Roll Call revealed 17 House Republicans who are prime targets in the 2014 midterm election. The lone Pennsylvania congressman on the list is Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA) over in the 8th district, covering mainly Bucks County. (Romney beat the president in the 8th by one-tenth of one percentage point.)

So why isn't Congressman Meehan on the list? Effective candidate recruitment might change that down the road. The recent shutdown/debt limit crisis might also alter the terrain. For now, the relative safety of Meehan boils down to one word: gerrymandering. Terry Madonna, the Franklin & Marshall College pollster, described Pennsylvania's post-2010 redistricting as "one of the most effective in the nation."

Pennsylvania Republicans employed the gerrymandering technique called "packing," which Wikipedia describes as "to concentrate as many voters of one type into a single electoral district in order to reduce their influences in other districts." Therefore, GOP boundary-makers drew circles around areas concentrated by Democrats, and then carved up the remaining districts to minimize the random Democrats residing outside of their domains. The result: Five or so concentrated Democratic districts, and the rest with numbers favoring Republicans. Of course the 7th district falls in the latter category.

Meehan's 7th district can serve as a prototype for the practice of gerrymandering. (The term is named after former Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, who in 1812 signed off on redrawing state senate districts, one of which resembled the shape of a salamander.) The 7th district is sprawled throughout suburban Philadelphia's five-county area in a massive, shapeless form. In one stretch, it is a mere 800 feet narrow (a 27-yard football romp). Numbers were run by Azavea, a "geospatial" analysis firm in Philadelphia, to measure the compactness of congressional districts throughout the country. The found that the 7th district was the fifth least compact district in the country.

Andy why carve up a congressional district to produce such a chaotic optic? It's all about winning. Before redistricting, according to Azavea, the 7th district was 52.8% Democratic, 47.2% Republican. After: 48.2 Democrat, 51.8 Republican.

The decisive votes for Meehan, Fitzpatrick and other Republican suburban Philadelphia congressmen won't get any easier. It's tough to be a Republican congressman in a blue state.  At least somewhere, ol' Governor Gerry smiles knowingly.


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