Redistricting
Why does government continue to take action to erode trust in its competency and doubt in government's commitment to action taken to further the interests of people over party? New redistricting proposals are unaccptable: The map chills competition. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave the proposed map an F grade on competitiveness. Dave’s Redistricting App, a website dedicated to creating and analyzing district maps, says the proposed map is 27% LESS competitive than the current districts. (By comparison, the proposed Senate map received a C grade from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.) · Districts are not compact. While Pennsylvania has some obvious geographic challenges to compactness, the proposed map is 28% and 30% LESS compact than the current map based on the Polsby-Popper and Reock scales, respectively. · It is weak on population equity. Our state Constitution mandates each district have approximately the same number of residents, and per the U.S. Supreme Court, the commonly accepted deviation from this standard is 5% over or under the ideal population size and 10% for the overall map. The proposed map just squeaks in at 9.28%, meaning there is wide variation in district populations leaving some citizens underserved and others over-served. · It utilizes purely partisan tools to achieve its goals. The new districts in Bucks County are “packed.” As I learned in my work on fair redistricting, “packing” this is when you put as many voters from a party into a district to make it “safe” for that party, to make other districts safer for the other party. The new maps split Northampton Township by putting three districts in Langhorne. Northampton has one fire department, one police department, and is in one school district. There is no logical reason to break up Northampton Township.