Map Reflecting Pop Shift w/no Incumbent Primaries
View Map on Dave's Redistricting (https://davesredistricting.org/join/070c60e7-79cd-4390-9a3a-c1ee61e81c61)
Problems with the Proposed Senate Map: 1) Despite significant population shift from western PA to SE Pennsylvania, the proposed LRC senate map does not reflect the population shift. It is reasonable for individual districts to be over-populated or under-populated to limit splits. However, on the proposed LRC senate map, there is a pattern of underpopulated districts in the southwest and there is a pattern of overpopulated districts in the Southeast. This pattern deprives SE PA of representation and it defeats the purpose of reapportionment. 2) The census demonstrates that Pennsylvania’s growth came from communities of color, especially the Hispanic Community. This growth is not reflected in the proposed senate map. 3) Luzerne County and Montgomery County are sliced and diced and have more than one extra senate district required by population. 4) Avoiding primary contests between incumbents seemed to take precedence and led to all aforementioned problems. Fixing the Map: Since the legislative leaders on the Reapportionment Commission have decided to avoid incumbent primaries, I decided to see if it was possible to address the first three items while also avoiding incumbent primaries. I drew a map that had a lower population deviation overall while keeping the NE, NW, SE, SW, and Central regional population deviations to below +/- 1 percent. Except for Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and for municipalities that cross county lines, there are no split municipalities. The map creates 7 majority minority districts including one open Hispanic opportunity district in Philadelphia. It reunites Allentown to create a district that is just shy of a 30% Hispanic VAP. At the same time, the map creates an open district in the Reading area that has a Hispanic VAP of just over 30%. The announced retirement of Senator Mensch leaves an open district in Central/Upper Bucks. Senator Corman’s announcement that he would not run for re-election and shifting population leaves an open district in Cumberland and Perry Counties. Because the LRC map had already created an incumbent general election between Senator Baker and Senator Yudichak, I did the same. Since both senators are from Luzerne County, I set up the general election incumbent contest within Luzerne County borders. This map also adds an incumbent general election between Senator Tomlinson and Senator Sabatina. That district leads to the ability to easily create 7 majority minority districts and it leads to the open Hispanic district in Philadelphia. It also sets up an election between two incumbents that could give people in the area a real choice. While the district appears “blue” on paper, it includes both House District 18 and House District 170—both of which are currently represented by Republicans. On all metrics (including minority representation score, split score, compactness score, reduced bias score, population deviation) this map scores better than the proposed LRC map. For visual, see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16WPUiaJfgnuoq_70kgmQUCv4dMiVpM1r76zDjJdHaEA/edit?usp=sharing. However, to provide “continuous” representation, there are districts on this map that split counties and/or cross mountain ranges solely for the purpose of preventing incumbent primaries. I personally think it would be much better to force a primary where mathematically necessary. One of the problems that emerge from legislators drawing the maps is that it’s really hard for legislative leaders to force incumbent primaries. If there aren’t going to be any incumbent primaries, the senate map should, at the minimum, reflect population shifts and it should not slice and dice counties more than absolutely necessary.