Comments on State House and Senate preliminary Map
From: J Lynne Brown, 180 Chester Drive, Pine Grove Mills, PA 16868 Comments on proposed district maps for the State of Pennsylvania 2022 Both the maps of House and Senate State Districts proposed by the Legislative Reapportionment Commission appear to be an improvement over the previous maps used since 2011. • The proposed House districts map shows the most improvement and meets Pennsylvania constitution standards for average compactness (0.35-0.46 on two compactness scale of 0-1), contiguity, county split minimization and population equality. County splits are still high but 80% (40/50 counties split) were necessary because of population size that prevented a single district. Although Republican leaders claim the new districts favor Democrats, several measures indicate the new maps still favors republicans by 3.8%. However the Princeton Gerrymandering Project found only 17 districts were competitive, where numbers of Democrats and Republicans were balanced. I particularly like the creation of seven districts with no current incumbent where minority populations have significant voting blocks and could elect minority representatives. The ruckus raised by Republicans about districts where Republican incumbents will face each other is noise that distracts from the real reason for the changes. This new map corrects gerrymandered districts that favored Republicans for years but where the populations have gone down. This new district map is a welcome correction of previous distorted districts. Specifically, I was pleased to see two districts (77 and 82) were allowed for the State College area where I live. • The proposed Senate districts map appears to be slightly better than the current one but does represent ‘buddy-mandering’ to keep incumbent support intact. The proposed map does keep all districts connected to each other, reduces number of county splits (from 25 to 22 counties affected) and brings the possible proportional representation to close to equal. But the map has a 2% Republican bias and only six districts have competitive republican/democratic voters. The population deviations from the idea that each district should have an equal population are significant (9.59% vs allowed 10%). This particularly affects Pittsburgh and the southeast including Philadelphia. The deviations maintain voting power in rural North Central and other areas that have lost population in this census. Some of the population deviations in the proposed map should be corrected. Specifically, I object to splitting State College between district 25 and 35, two regions north and west of us with which we have little economic ties. In addition, the Centre Region Council of Government, the State College Area School District, and the University region community are split for no good reason. I suggest instead making a revised map that moves the entire State College Area School District into Senate district 25. Finally, I want to thank the LRC and Chair David Thornburgh for carrying out a transparent process that has allowed citizen input and comment on the new State Legislative Maps. Your work serves as a model for citizen involvement in the legislative process. Thanks for your work.