Packed and Cracked Communities in SE PA Senate map
Packing and Cracking in Bucks County, dividing Allentown Many citizens of Lower and Central Bucks County, including the president of the League of Women Voters of Bucks County and the former Executive Director of the Bucks County Planning Commission, testified that the Senate map should have one district in Lower Bucks, one in Middle Bucks, and one for Upper Bucks, corresponding to the very different socioeconomic and environmental challenges of each region. Fair Districts PA and at least two other maps were submitted with testimony which aligned with these regions and met all constitutional requirements. It is time for errors of the past to be corrected and for the senator to be fully invested in representing constituent interests, not just in winning re-election. Despite strong local and state advocacy by non-partisan groups, the preliminary Senate map divides Lower and Middle, packing democrats into the 10th district, and making it harder for a Democrat to be elected and represent the Lower Bucks region which skews democrat. Lower Bucks Democrats have been “cracked”. By packing Lower Bucks democrats into the 10th Senate district, there are now 30,000 more voting democrats than republicans in Senator Santarsiero's 10th district, far more than needed to win an election. This leaves a very slim margin of less than 5,000 democrats in the 6th senate district now held by Republican Senator Tomlinson, making it far more difficult for a democrats to win there. Had the map been drawn to correspond to the county regions, Democrats would have had a significant advantage in Lower Bucks, and middle Bucks would have been more competitive. Some say, we shouldn’t make such a radical change because voters have a relationship with their Senator. But in truth, few people even know who their senator or rep is. The LRC should adopt the revised map submitted by C. Kuniholm for Fair Districts PA. This would also keep Allentown, 3rd largest city and home to an important Latino population, in one senate district. Senator Brown is well-liked and doesn’t need to have his seat protected with a gerrymander that harms the communities he serves.