PA House Centre County Region
Download File (PA House - Centre County region.csv)
Submission to the Legislation Redistricting Commission of Pennsylvania from Marion Schwartz, Ferguson Township August 17, 2021 Thank you, Commissioners, for the opportunity to contribute to the redistricting process in Pennsylvania this year. I live in Centre County, and I feel that we have been chopped into bits for our representation in the state legislature. Instead of focused house districts that reflect local communities, we have clusters of urban or suburban people grouped with large swaths of rural areas that share few common interests. I live in Park Forest, within walking distance of downtown State College, but my house district reaches over to Philipsburg, a small borough separated from State College by 23 miles of farmland, forests and mountain. Meanwhile people who live less than a mile from me vote with people out in Huston Township 54 miles away. This is ludicrous. State College is not well defined by two century-old municipal boundaries. The State College Area School District, which goes beyond the borough of State College to include families from Ferguson, Patton, College, Harris, and Half Moon townships, represents a truly shared community. It embraces people bound together by neighborhood, by major roads like I-99, and by strong relationships developed among students and parents volunteering in the schools. Such a coherent group might not agree on certain issues, but they share at least a common understanding of what the issues are around State College. Given its expected growth in population, the State College area deserves two seats in the State House. It currently has bit of three: 77, 81, and 171. The proposed map, sent separately, shows the urban-suburban areas of State College and Bellefonte represented by two seats, with the surrounding more rural areas focused on Huntingdon, Lamar, and Lewistown having their own representation. This map does a better job of providing a voice for those with common interests. We presume that new maps should also work at the micro level to group together people who know each other. That is, a district should not separate the three houses in a cul de sac from their neighbors down the street. In neighborhoods that must be divided, the line should run through backyards rather than through the center of small roadways: people know the folks across the road but not necessarily those across the back fence. Above all, districts should not be drawn to protect an incumbent. I know that I can’t expect my preferred representative will always win, but he or she should not be guaranteed a seat by the way district boundaries are drawn. When I talked a school board member in our region, she voiced her great frustration when legislators paid no attention to a resolution about charter schools from 99 school board members in our region. They didn’t have to—they know their seats are safe. So let’s start from scratch to make our districts coherent around common interests, sensible in terms of streets and developments, and reasonably competitive so that legislators listen to their constituents.