Please increase competitiveness of Senate map
Members of the LRC, First, thank you for all of your work in creating fair legislative maps. While I have lived in Pennsylvania for only a couple of years, the legislature strikes me as quite partisan and dysfunctional. I believe that fairer districts will make representatives more responsive to voters and will improve the climate in our state. I applaud you for working to remove some of the gerrymandering evident in our current maps – particularly in the State House map. I do urge you, though, to reconsider the Senate map. There seem to be several communities such as Lancaster city) that are split up in a way that protects incumbents but diminishes the power of more urban voters. In addition, third parties analyzing the maps have rated the Senate map poorly on competitiveness. Given that it seems that nearly all incumbents are protected, I urge you to disregard incumbency and stress competitiveness more. I am further concerned by the disparity in population across districts. Even though the State Senate map meets the 10% population variance criterion, the fact that a majority of metro-Philadelphia districts have above average population unfairly dilutes our voting power compared to other parts of the state. If the recent trend of population movement from North and Central PA to the Southeast continues, this discrepancy will become even greater over time – all the more reason to start out with districts of equal population. In closing, I do think the Senate map has taken steps to undo gerrymandering and better represent the resident of PA. I hope that you will take additional steps to improve competitiveness and give a more even playing field to those of us in metro-Philly. Thank you.