Improvements to Adams and Berks County districts
During my tenure as president of Albright College in Reading, I met former U. S. Congressman Tim Holden and asked an associate why he was no longer in the Congress. His reply was simply, “he got gerrymandered out.” He said it much as one would say he got caught in a rain shower. These things just happened. It got me curious about the issue and brought home to me the odd reality that I lived in the old Congressional district seven, known as “Goofy kicking Donald.” The result of the extreme gerrymandering in Berks County was that we had four different U. S. Congressmen representing different segments of the county, and none lived in the county. These discoveries led me to get involved with Fair Districts PA when I retired in 2017. It has been a great learning experience but also a disheartening one as I’ve watched one reform proposal after another being sunk by the leadership in Harrisburg despite widespread public support and record numbers of co-sponsors of legislation. Despite these disappointments, it is encouraging that public awareness of re-districting is much higher, and our elected officials in Harrisburg are aware that the public is watching. Their efforts to open the process up to public scrutiny is commendable even if not as rigorous as might be desired. The proposed state House and Senate maps are an improvement in most respects, but more could be done. Compactness is much improved but could be better. Population equality is problematic for both House and Senate districts with only 9.28% variance in the House statewide and just less than 10% in the Senate districts. It appears that too many rural districts, particularly in the southwest are “overrepresented” with significantly smaller populations/district while more urban districts, particularly in the southeast are underrepresented with significantly larger populations/district. This needs to be addressed. Despite howls of disingenuous protest from some Republicans, all the independent analysts agree that the revised House map gives Republicans a slight advantage instead of the lopsided advantage they have enjoyed from past gerrymandering. The inequality in population/district likely accounts for some of the advantage. It is disappointing that the Princeton Gerrymandering Project finds only 17 competitive House districts, fewer than in the current map. Since I now live in Adams County (House District 91 and Senate District 33) and lived for 12 years in Reading, I will confine my comments to those two regions. Adams County House Districts: The new LRC-proposed District 91 is an odd realignment that effectively splits the greater Gettysburg community between district 91 and 193. The current alignment makes more sense. The related problem is the lack of compactness and contiguity in district 193; although the LRC proposed revision is an improvement, it still features a large swath of territory stretching out to the northwest. The FDPA “People’s Map” is better except for the odd protrusion into the extreme southeast corner of Franklin County toward Waynesboro and Rouzerville. It would make more sense to maintain the current boundary of District 91 and pick up additional needed voters for district 193 by expanding more compactly and contiguously toward Mt. Holly Springs/Boiling Springs & Dillsburg, between US15/PA74/I-81. Berks County House: The LRC-proposed revision is an improvement over the current crazy quilt of nine House districts, but it still lacks compactness and contiguity. Although it reduces the number of districts by one, it stretches district 124 far into the north toward Hazelton; and district 99 is a small protrusion of a district predominantly in Lancaster County. The People’s Map proposed by FDPA is superior in every respect. Its seven districts are almost completely contained in Berks County. I am grateful for the hard work of the LRC and the opportunity to offer comments. I hope my observations will prove helpful.