Fair Re-districting
I believed the goal of the redistricting plan was to end gerrymandering and the resulting packing of districts to favor one party or another. There had been a lot of discussion that I have followed, particularly from Fair Districts PA, that suggested a non-partisan/independent committee that could select districts to achieve some normalcy on the geographic design so that areas weren't "carved out or shifted" to pack one district for a particular party and weaken other districts. PA has always been a fairly balanced state when looking at the number of registered Republicans and Democrats. But if, for any three adjacent districts, you move numbers of one party from the two adjoining districts to the central one, you significantly overbalance one for one party, but significantly weaken the other two for that same party. It's no coincidence that, for this slightly registered Democratic state, our congressional representation had been 12 Republicans, 6 Democrats -exactly two thirds to one third. This is not fair to the voters. Another goal, which apparently is also not met in the current plan, is to achieve population equity so that each district represents approximately the same number of voters. The goal is apparently 5% variation, this map is closer to 10%. We can do better, and I appreciate my Representative in the 178th, Wendi Thomas, for working towards this.